Romaine Brooks was too hot for Natalie Barney

Known for her excess,
Lady Barney was atop
Luscious Ladies Hill.

Ms. Brooks cavorted
like the rest, but above them
was she: a cherry.

Listen well, sweet ladies,
and I will share this truth:
It's talent that makes you hot--
Much more than loads of money.
It's not the dough, but sentiment,
that fills the pot with honey.

Lush

Vietnam was green.
Lushness like he'd never seen.
He came home empty.

My soldier uncle,
dying deaths before he died.
19-years-old, gone.

Saved by death, some say.
Delivered from hell on earth:
His war legacy.

Who says war is art?
If art is made by a gun,
OK -- high art, then.

Curse this ugly art,
glorifying loss and gore.
You keep your glory.

I'd rather have my uncle,
living when he was alive.

haiku for donna

When unveiling you
my hand has a thousand eyes;
they blink, you open.

Forte

Damn you, Kate, for turning me on to the haiku! What a pusher you are. Now I am utterly, unassailably addicted. Thank you! I think I needed this form without knowing it.

On a different note, I was reading some news this morning and realizing how uninformed I am about Middle Eastern culture and customs. Though I'm probably more informed than a lot of Americans. I appreciate Rumi and Sufi-istic Persian poetry, know that Persian isn't Arab (but am not undeniably sure what the distinctions are--read it once and can't recall the details). But one study of the culture that floored me, which I thought about this morning, was a fascinating book I read called Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi. It's a story of a woman who'd grown up in poverty, without parents, left an abusive marriage and raised herself up by becoming a prostitute--a wealthy one. The story is framed by the author setting up an interview with Firdaus as she waits to be executed for stabbing her pimp to death. It's an amazing story: Firdaus is amazing and strong and expresses no remorse for killing this man who took her business away by suddenly claiming her as his own. After she'd become so successful on her own, despite the sacrifices, at least she was free. When that was taken from her, she felt she would do anything it took to defend it and get it back. The system got her, but her spirit remained prideful and unremorseful. She saw it to be a corrupt system that would destroy her if she let it, but she wouldn't let it. That was worth her life.

In this time of unrest and uncertainty, it is amazing to see how resilient some people remain in times of strife, especially when strife is your life. Other subjects and figures I'm thinking of this morning that are of great inspiration:
Phoolan Devi The Bandit Queen. There was a movie of that name made about her life. She was assassinated a few years ago.
Hotel Rwanda See it if you haven't. It's one of the strongest films I've ever seen.
Dorothy Allison's essays Skin

Thank you, those who have strong spirits. Forte.

Lights and Webs

1.
Turn off all the lights
to see what turns on inside:
Fireflies blinking codes.

2.
Your hands make a web
that now catches my body:
a delicate net.