dizzyfirefly http://virb.com/liy still unready let me freeze this moment compare it to something I read long ago that made me remember this world is not too big for me or you, that our moves still quiver like chords.]]> Virb 2.0 (@liy) en my last duchess http://virb.com/liy/posts/text/919957 Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Fr]]> Sun, 09 Nov 2008 07:54:10 -0800 http://virb.com/liy/posts/text/919957 i live in the twentieth century http://virb.com/liy/posts/text/898559 and you lie here beside me. You
were unhappy when you fell asleep.
there was nothing I could do about
it. I felt helpless. Your face
is so beautiful that I cannot stop
to describe it, and there's nothing
I can do to make you happy while
you sleep.]]> Wed, 29 Oct 2008 01:05:39 -0700 http://virb.com/liy/posts/text/898559 love's not the way to treat a friend http://virb.com/liy/posts/text/898558 There are so many better things for you
than to see your feelings sold
as magic lanterns to somebody whose body
casts no light.]]> Wed, 29 Oct 2008 01:05:38 -0700 http://virb.com/liy/posts/text/898558 der einsame / the lonely (man) http://virb.com/liy/posts/text/881989
Wie einer, der auf fremden Meeren fuhr,
so bin ich bei den ewig Einheimischen;
die vollen Tage stehn auf ihren Tischen,
mir aber ist die Ferne voll Figur.

In mein Gesicht reicht eine Welt herein,
die vielleicht unbewohnt ist wie ein Mond,
sie aber lassen kein Gef]]> Mon, 20 Oct 2008 13:37:26 -0700 http://virb.com/liy/posts/text/881989 not always, but enough http://virb.com/liy/posts/text/862915 We were skint and needed to feed the meter.

Can I forgive my mother for simply not being there?
My best friend's dad offered me a lift, his headlights

decking the puddles. I just got in. No questions asked.
My coat was wet from waiting in the rain.

He thrust the note in my hand before
it happened. And in the back seat, I clenched

my fist while he moaned quieter
than the downpour. In the bleak florescence

of the petrol station I watched
his tail lights disappear, swapped

paper for coins. Our house lit up like Christmas.
X Ray Spex spun on the turntable.

I loved Poly Styrene, her voice - raw energy in day-glo.
It meant more to me than money.

Over the years I have learned
to forget that day. Not always, but enough.


---

I am always in awe of Naomi's Poetry Mosaic project.]]> Thu, 09 Oct 2008 00:29:53 -0700 http://virb.com/liy/posts/text/862915 ciudad sin sue http://virb.com/liy/posts/text/856579 No duerme nadie.
Las criaturas de la luna huelen y rondan sus caba]]> Tue, 07 Oct 2008 20:08:58 -0700 http://virb.com/liy/posts/text/856579 the eel http://virb.com/liy/posts/text/856578 Of an eel supper, the eel looks on.

He is home for the summer. She is home for the summer,
Metamorphosing, the one in the other,

Androgynous, ambivalent, slipping in and out
Of the local, the universal,

Reading about itself, in the Book of the Eel,
As a disappearing species,

Toying with its own myths, renewing its passports,
Wondering whether or not a child is possible,

Longing, unconsciously, for autumn
As the tractor roars all night, and the pilot lights flash

In the fields outside. For the night phosphorescence
Of cities, the lifelong shedding of skins.]]> Tue, 07 Oct 2008 20:08:58 -0700 http://virb.com/liy/posts/text/856578 the perfect hipster accessory - 22 http://virb.com/liy/posts/text/856577 You've got flawless skin so pale that you glow in the dark. You've got
the ironic vintage shirt, the shabby corduroy blazer and the chic
designer jeans. You've got the carefully beat-up Chucks. You've got a
two room walk-up in Williamsburg which you share with a highly-strung
actor, a struggling writer, a freegan and a docile, hairy guy in a
poncho who grows weed under the kitchen sink. To top it all off,
you've got your own up-and-coming post-punk band. You're almost
perfect. But wait a minute. You're missing something:

The ethnic girlfriend.

Yes, you've got the look down but, as we ALL know, nothing's complete
without accessories. You without a ethnic girlfriend is like a
messenger bag without thousands of buttons proclaiming your political
leanings and your extensive knowledge of music.

Well luckily for you, here I am. Your very own, personal, cute,
non-threatening, little Asian. What better way to piss off your
wealthy blue-blood Greenwich-Hamptons family, without pushing the
line, than to date a shy, quiet, non-threatening Asian chick? Yellow's
close enough to white, anyway. After all, you wouldn't want your
parents to cut you off from your monthly allowance - you might have to
get a job and give up your dreams of being a rock star. Anyway, you
majored in English and Music at NYU, and teaching's not really your
thing.

Also, you really need somebody to drape your arm around after your
show, to hand you a beer as soon as you come off stage and to tell you
just how good you were. You were SO good. Yes, someone who will
complement your style without overshadowing you. Want to coordinate
outfits? I've got a vintage crocheted minidress that would look so
good with your tweed jacket.

I can be anything you want, baby. Want me to wear only black and
white, sneer and blow smoke into people's eyes? I can do that. Want me
to dress like I smoked a bowl of ice and then hitched a ride with
Marty McFly in the Delorean? I got you covered. Want me to impress
your snotty friends with my extensive vocabulary and vast knowledge of
International Relations? I'll read-up on my current events just for
you, even though I hide copies of Star magazine in my copy of the
Voice. After all, I did go to an elite boarding school and then
art-school, where I majored in graphic design.

If I hadn't, would I be the well-dressed, cooler-than-thou hipster I am today?

Also, I'm stick-thin, fashionably bisexual and smoke bidis. I am
publicly a socialist but am secretly a rampant materialist. Do you
think I actually go to Sal-Val for these ironic shirts? Please. I shop
exclusively at Andy's Cheepee's, Cheapjack's and Screaming Mimi's. So
what if I have to pay the finder's fee? It's not like I don't have a
trust-fund, anyway. I just wait tables at the vegan restaurant to look
like I'm slumming it. I don't actually need the money.

So. You need to have me hanging like a wristband off your lanky arm
and you know it. Please, bassists and drummers only - and send a
picture. I only pretend I'm not shallow.


- Anonymous]]> Tue, 07 Oct 2008 20:08:57 -0700 http://virb.com/liy/posts/text/856577 speedy gonzalez: an appreciation http://virb.com/liy/posts/text/856576 He was a Gonzalez. And I was a Gonz]]> Tue, 07 Oct 2008 20:08:56 -0700 http://virb.com/liy/posts/text/856576 numbers http://virb.com/liy/posts/text/791433 The way, for example,
they are willing to count
anything or anyone:
two pickles, one door to the room,
eight dancers dressed as swans.

I like the domesticity of addition-
add two cups of milk and stir-
the sense of plenty: six plums
on the ground, three more
falling from the tree.

And multiplication's school
of fish times fish,
whose silver bodies breed
beneath the shadow
of a boat.

Even subtraction is never loss,
just addition somewhere else:
five sparrows take away two,
the two in someone else's
garden now.

There's an amplitude to long division,
as it opens Chinese take-out
box by paper box,
inside every folded cookie
a new fortune.

And I never fail to be surprised
by the gift of an odd remainder,
footloose at the end:
forty-seven divided by eleven equals four,
with three remaining.

Three boys beyond their mothers' call,
two Italians off to the sea,
one sock that isn't anywhere you look.]]> Tue, 26 Aug 2008 12:56:20 -0700 http://virb.com/liy/posts/text/791433 thank you http://virb.com/liy/posts/text/773215 imagining the universe
but it never fitted

in my head. Now
you are gone
and the universe

fits nicely.]]> Fri, 15 Aug 2008 14:34:00 -0700 http://virb.com/liy/posts/text/773215 ye white antarctic birds http://virb.com/liy/posts/text/773214 you gallery of white antarctic birds, you
street with white antarctic birds and
cabs and white antarctic birds you street,
ye and you the street and birds I walk upon
the galleries of streets and birds and longings.
you the birds antarctic of the conversations
and bank machines, you the atm of
longing, the longing for the atm machines,
you the lover of banks and me and birds
and others too and cabs, and you the cabs
and you the subtle longing birds and me,
and you the conversations yet antarctic, and
soup and teeming white antarctic birds and
you the books and phones and atms the bank
machines antarctic, and you the banks and
cabs, and him the one I love, and those who
love me not, and all antarctic longings, and
all the birds and cabs and also on the street
antarctic of this longing.]]> Fri, 15 Aug 2008 14:34:00 -0700 http://virb.com/liy/posts/text/773214 frida to sharanya http://virb.com/liy/posts/text/758365 Whoever and whatever is left in the morning,
take home. Be kind. All the world is yours for
the taking, long as you know that your little heart is
theirs for the breaking. Leave lipstick on their
china and on your letters. Make sure they know
that you're a mariposa, blue as copper sulphate,
or blue as the sea, blue as a baby stilled too soon,
darling wench, and you never really intend to leave.
Set love free like a boat with neither oars nor anchors.
Trust it. Don't trust yourself. Accept every familiar
that comes, even if one happens to be a goat. Forgive
less of people. Remember that things come in triptychs.
Be magnificent, like Coatlicue. You only owe it to me,
but break a mirror now and then, if you can afford it.
Kiss as much as you want to, and as few. Be difficult.
It will make you more desirable. If it will help you to
let him go, cut off your hands. They will grow back.
You don't need them. You don't need him. The older
you grow, the more you will amputate. Dance on stumps
if you have to, but don't stop. Wear one item of red
every Wednesday and when death comes for you,
you will go as his bride. Burn every bridge you ever
built, and build as many as you possibly can. The one
that takes you home will be the last one standing.
Sing over the bones. Go slow.
Don't forget me.

(notes on this poem)]]> Thu, 07 Aug 2008 00:42:31 -0700 http://virb.com/liy/posts/text/758365 bitch session http://virb.com/liy/posts/text/743903 Reading, on the couch, on a rant, chatting, but it was you
In the living-room, chatting in the firelight and ranting, at it,
O, at no one in particular, at no one -- O,

It was no one in particular in the livingroom chatting and ranting
In the firelight, like you, ranting in the living-room, in the firelight,
December icing over the windows and then the streets --
Making them slip-up dangerous, no one

Braving the out there in the dark, everything gone
Numb hard mean dumb. Yes, the same way you lie in bed all day,
Ranting, the firelight on the past, the lovers piled so high
Girls, you could smell the cum still on the sheets,

In the firelight, ranting. These are the shrouds
You've enraptured me with, these eventual hurts,
The call is loss, and all meaning are rats. Growling low
And making her chain clink, I know the way sister is. She's been known

To leap from a speeding truck's window
To chase down and fight any hound she sees.]]> Tue, 29 Jul 2008 17:40:49 -0700 http://virb.com/liy/posts/text/743903 after a god http://virb.com/liy/posts/text/743902 he will take a ballpoint pen and connect
the stars across this freckled
scoop of chest and milky way.
We'll cross the slope
of pale belly and name
the new constellation after a god
who shows people
all the places they might shine.]]> Tue, 29 Jul 2008 17:40:48 -0700 http://virb.com/liy/posts/text/743902 between you and me http://virb.com/liy/posts/text/743901 The password is still bird, folded wings unfurling against the damp
             inside of your mouth.

Open up in there.

I won't speak of the last time I was sure
that wasn't your voice

            on the sputtering phone; I've been
in the hospital since the last time you

said don't look down is what you said.

The songs in the background were always heavy
on strings. In bluegrass there's only one microphone.
(Can we at least agree
if they have to ask who's that on harmony, it's not
Emmylou Harris?)
Some versions of the best tunes are done
with a lost man's voice filling the room.

I've got two more bottles of wine
so even if I pass no one
            the salt and pepper, I always hold them

together.

This distance could be measured in states, countries, languages
famous for their misunderstandings.

I don't know any more tricks. Not the woman
            sawed in half, not the voice calling

Pick a hand, any hand.

]]> Tue, 29 Jul 2008 17:40:48 -0700 http://virb.com/liy/posts/text/743901 the widow of baghdad http://virb.com/liy/posts/text/722570 After another funeral
the widow removes her black dress
and turns it over to darkness

where

it hangs itself in the corner of the room.

Turning to look into her mirror
She discovers a lump in her breast--
A bomb resting in her hands

In Baghdad even soft things explode.

A husband's smile sleeps on a sidewalk
glass glittering instead of teeth.

]]> Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:48:15 -0700 http://virb.com/liy/posts/text/722570 les chats / cats http://virb.com/liy/posts/text/719076 Les amoureux fervents et les savants aust]]> Tue, 15 Jul 2008 02:01:05 -0700 http://virb.com/liy/posts/text/719076 since feeling is first http://virb.com/liy/posts/text/719075 who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
--the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis]]> Tue, 15 Jul 2008 02:01:05 -0700 http://virb.com/liy/posts/text/719075 morning http://virb.com/liy/posts/text/719074 how I love you always
I think of it on grey
mornings with death

in my mouth the tea
is never hot enough
then and the cigarette
dry the maroon robe

chills me I need you
and look out the window
at the noiseless snow

At night on the dock
the buses glow like
clouds and I am lonely
thinking of flutes

I miss you always
when I go to the beach
the sand is wet with
tears that seem mine

although I never weep
and hold you in my
heart with a very real
humor you'd be proud of

the parking lot is
crowded and I stand
rattling my keys the car
is empty as a bicycle

what are you doing now
where did you eat your
lunch and were there
lots of anchovies it

is difficult to think
of you without me in
the sentence you depress
me when you are alone

Last night the stars
were numerous and today
snow is their calling
card I'll not be cordial

there is nothing that
distracts me music is
only a crossword puzzle
do you know how it is

when you are the only
passenger if there is a
place further from me
I beg you do not go]]> Tue, 15 Jul 2008 02:01:04 -0700 http://virb.com/liy/posts/text/719074