Playing the Piano

Notes, sounds, each with its own frequency:

I order frequencies around.

I make them collide.
I make them kiss.

I’m a matchmaker.

I know which ones complement each other,
which ones cancel each other,
and which ones fight.

Were I a bug, I’d worry about my food
and birds that could eat me.

But I’m human,
and as a pastime,
I order frequencies around.
It’s as mysterious to me
as the light of a distant star
I know nothing about.

Musing



Once upon a time,
beyond the seven mountains, across the seven seas,
in Neverland,
there was a girl who searched for answers.

Over the years, she wore herself out trying to find
what can never be found nor ever understood.


Today she is happier
living a simpler life.  She smiles
at the sight of children,
of trees in bloom, of people holding hands,
she smiles at the sound of the ocean in a seashell.

Does everything have to have a purpose?

Gophers whistle when they spot predators.
Ants work patiently on nests,
to be destroyed by the aimless wind.
People die and people are born.
We have just erected a bridge
after another earthquake.






On Writing



Poetry is like a tiger inside you.
One day it jumps out in a blaze of orange,
mighty, forceful, strong,
and you’re surprised it was there all this time.


How could it fit there, in such a compact space?
How did it hide there, without anyone noticing?

Wait.

You knew
you had a river under your skin,
and you had a fire under your skin,
and all the unspoken
and inexplicable.






Taming



I wish I could ask you
about this.

An owl, a cat without a smile, a friendly dolphin,
even a living and breathing girl with a black braid
could fit between the verses.

There is enough room
from one word to another
to house all your conjectures and trifles of imagination.

I wish I could ask you,
but you are wild,
and to approach you too closely too early
would mean to scare you away.

So I resolve
to wait for you
to approach me instead.






Complaint About the English Language



This is how I'm going
to break my tongue:

torture, orchard, literature,
three, through, throne,
fortuitousness, agriculture, culture,
and the hardest of all: children.

It’s a good joke to equip one
with an immaculate rolling "r"
and render it not only useless,
but a hindrance,
a stumbling block,
enticement
to go the wrong way.

I'm laughing
with an undertone of bitterness.

Most likely
you're never going to guess
what I'm talking about:
is he bold or bald?
Can I see a cup or a cop?
In case you haven't heard,
there was an oil spill in the Golf of Mexico.

(I'm lost without rescue.)

And this is where
I feel illiterate:
so how do I spell "ubiquitous,"
"loquacious," "unfathomable," "porcupine"?

What I do know is that
I can produce the correct spelling of these words
in my mother tongue.
Just let me translate them first,
and we’ll go from there.






Dresses



I have many flowery dresses,
the type that makes you think
I must be an innocent girl
with no worries
and no opinions of her own.

I buy more and more of them,
and they take up space in my wardrobe.
I don't wear them.
I’m very private about them.
I don't share them with other people.

They’re waiting for my daughter
to arrive one peachy afternoon
in bursts of faint infant crying,
so that I can give her these and all she’ll ever need
for her to become a sweet, innocent girl,
loved and pampered.






Child



He stepped out of the house
to indulge in the beauty of the garden.
He’s dabbling in the sun,
wading through the knee-high grass,
splashing about in dry leaves
that crunch under his feet like snow.

Landscapes of the garden:
rusty horseshoe on the rotted fence
of all shades of gray;
a family of daddy longlegs
marching on the bench
as at every break of day.

Good morning Mr. Brown,
how are we doing today?

Let’s go back in for breakfast.
Nancy needs to check your blood pressure
and give you your medicine.
We don't want to catch a cold now, do we.






Dreams



What happened to my dreams?

Canvasses of paper used to be inviting,
windows open to the untold future,
people, good.
I used to draw pretty flowers and happy faces.

What happened to my dreams?

Yes, Mr. Costner,
I gave them up for reality.

Good morning, Mr. Costner.
Yes, I did promise myself to dream big.
But that was before—

Yes, Mr. Costner.
I will.

I will dream big.

If this is even your quote;
with all that’s to be found on the Internet
one can never know for sure.

Thank you for your support.

Windows are wide open,
I know; I’d be blind not to see it.
And there's that scent of the big world in the air,
breathtakingly fresh and freeing.






Temporality



Enough of this poetry already.

A steak, a goat, a calf;
they too deserve your attention.
Canned milk, winter boots, a dirty street,
an ugly black bug—

they all do exist.
Some of them
are even needed,
why then do you ignore them?

Enough of this poetry already.
If you don’t stay in touch with your earthy side,
you're in danger
of inflating
like a big blue balloon
and rising into the air.

That, you cannot risk.
Not with all the errands to be run,
laundry to be done—
and, hell, not without a good dinner.

Maybe one day I could,
once I’m a pure soul woven of air,
devoid of what's here and now.
Although, to be honest,
I hope never to get there.

I protest against the set order of things
as much as a silly mortal human,
flesh and blood,
possibly can.