Guest
Writer - Kim Q. Nguyen
www.myspace.com/monsoonsinacommunistland / 1stgenerationpress@gmail.com
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Shattered Agenda The siren doesn’t seem to stop as I continue to mash potatoes, somewhere on the streets, crime has followed me to Brooklyn. My clothes encompass your closet, poems scatter across your kitchen table, at some point my life had manifested itself inside you. We debate war and your ideas of annihilated peace. For people who are reflections of each other, we disagree whenever the opportunity presents itself. A friend had asked me to describe you and I stutter. How do I tell her that you are a poem I keep revising with each mouthed lyric you sway your head to? The fact that I find it more and more difficult to write about you because I do not know enough vocabulary in the English language, and soon will have to resort to the speech of my first tongue to just simply say how much I adore your OCD. A table displaced half-an-inch will shatter your agenda in order to move it back. You, who demand me to step back on your foot and not to whistle because of unknown Russian Jewish superstition. But most of all, how your words have taken the last minimal amount of breath that I had managed to steal back from the very sight of statuesque gypsy you with your silver rings and necklace dangling long on your elaborate neck, cocked to the side for me to nestle into leaving me with nothing more than the impulse to exhale. ______________________________ Monsoons in a Communist Land the water stole my flip-flop on the way back I swear. from that girl's house, whom I forget the name to now That was around the same time – I told myself I liked her. You beat me with chopsticks, or, maybe it was a broom for being late or for missing a shoe, I can't remember the water stole my flip-flop I swear to you. the water was waist deep, some boys swam in the street and some in the alleys I was on the front stoop of that girl's house, whose parents wouldn't let me come in – they knew I liked her too. This was around the same time, a week or so ago someone took my earrings, you hit me then too. the water stole my flip-flop I swear it's true. Mommy, how times have changed, when the sting of your hand on my cheek disappears. Now you are older – and wiser, does the saying go? No more physical blows, I know you were frustrated then, you release psychological warfare now. But of course I Love You when I sat on your bed and we teared and cried about the misfortunes of being a woman, and being a female, can I blame the same water that stole my flip-flop? Me oi Me I swear to you, It was the monsoon in a Communist Land. _____________________________ Sex Without Kissing for Sharon Olds you are right; it is hard to believe in sex without love But, you see, this is nothing new to me. I have seen it before and many times over Some hormonal impulse mistaken for the real thing the act of pleasure over and over and over… and over Until – the ultimate climax of a drunken play Yes, I have seen sex without love But kissing, can you imagine? Without kissing? I am puzzled as well, Isn’t kissing the initiator? this act of intimacy – lips on lips tongues dancing with anticipation saliva moisture from the mouth of my lover the scent of breathe inhale and exhale no, there was no kissing only FUCKING – does that sound too grotesque? Well, that’s what it was. simply Was. And after, there was no moment of caress an immediate need to pull out the join parts Oh, can you imagine it? i try not to myself Douching- yep, was the seductive word to whisper. a wet cloth to wipe off the private areas when done. It’s funny don’t you think? That we can be naked on the bed, then lock the door to the bathroom. Please don’t think of me as, as, as … A tramp, A whore, A slut, whatever the town may call it today, i was taken by a desire, desire to be relieved. But inside the washroom now, i could not look myself in the mirror. And i will not be able to look at myself for another hour or so. And i know this because, I have done this before. ___________________________ |