To begin ...

As the twentieth century fades out
the nineteenth begins
.......................................again
it is as if nothing happened
though those who lived it thought
that everything was happening
enough to name a world for & a time
to hold it in your hand
unlimited.......the last delusion
like the perfect mask of death

Friday, February 22, 2013

Rochelle Owens: Hermaphropoetics/Desire


 

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 



In this story
ripening on the vine   so to speak

In this story   a warhol-like
playfulness

a vinyl fruit of desire
teasing femme/homme

bringing millions to their knees

In a dream of a hermaphrodite
in silhouette

her/his body
elegant the fusion of human and bird

vertical   horizontal
l’amour impossible   l’amour possible

the physical poetic
iridescent her pelvis   his/her body

spiritual/carnal
inside a  dark purple fruit

the core divided
In a dream of a boy warrior

with bright red lips
her skin   berries and apricots

diaphanous   floating
languid the tendrils of pubic hair

a flush of wet hot air burning
her neck and face

Sorcery of his female brain

In this story   a warhol-like
playfulness

teasing femme/homme
her teeth overlapping   licking     

a clot of blood
A hunter gatherer   meat   nuts   fruit

his platinum blond curls
bringing millions to their knees

Love of the hermaphrodite
like a white swan

her hollow bones   sculpted   delicate
elegant the fusion

of human and bird
his hollow bones glowing under

a black light
magnetic her hollow bones

glowing in the dark
Meek sweetness the face the face

of the hermaphrodite   teasing femme/homme
Out of the hole of Baudelaire

emerging from the mists of Cumae
A long curved fingernail

tracing a circle   a cleft  tracing
the pink mauve folds

tracing the flower vulva

the mother misery   the father terror
a slit in the stalk   blood seeping

carnal/spiritual
green and pale the scrotal lily

In this story   a warhol-like
playfulness

a vinyl fruit of desire
teasing femme/homme

bringing millions to their knees
 

[Note. Rochelle Owens' latest book, Out of Ur: New & Selected Poems 1961-2012 is now awaiting publication by Shearsman Books.  Of her poems here & elsewhere I wrote: There is a voice in Owens’ work … like a fierce and unrelenting force of nature. Sharp and visual, she combines a landscape with a poetics, the domestic with the mythic, machines with the organic living world from which arises a construct and a fused vision: poetry and life.”(J.R.)

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