Aphros

[liliella]

I'am set

I’m Set!
Deep clean inhale through nose
Hot cup of coffee in hand.
Cigarette in mouth
Pack in pocket
I’m set !
Big bus
Must sleep
Miss friend
Who called
To cry
While I
Tell her
It’s OK
That this too will go away and if I could I’d make her feel better
But I can’t
I have come to the conclusion
That “selective exclusion”
Will be a motto for my life
Sleeping so soundly it took a minute to understand
Where I was
What was the cause of my headache
And who the hell is this other person in the room ?
Oh,oh, now I remember
How I let go of surrender
As an excuse
For a muse
That’d let me fly only when promises
Were made to cry often enough
To remember that feeling
Sorry for oneself will be the only therapy …
AQUARIUS, thank you very much ,
Blame it on something
Whether sign or the line I did last night
Or two ,or three , or four
Have time for one more ?
Cup of coffee ?
Refill, please
Deep clean inhale through nose
Cigarette in mouth
Pack in pocket
I’m set!

Anna Beskin
from Aphros

[katana]

Dirty Hair

dirty hair
couldn’t wash it this morning
was in a rush
took a whore’s bath
washed the essentials
face, underarms and down there
in that order
greasy, shiny, slimy
of course, I see everyone today
dirty hair


Virginity
ann lost it to mike after three months
she said it didn’t hurt much
now she buys a pack of Trojans at genovese
stephanie told me she wasn’t one
after one month with matt
she was in pain, sore for days
found out on the LIRR as we went to se KORN
after three months, marie was on top
she likes it, and so does tom.
he quietly moaned, ride me
i’m surprised, marie was with Jason for five years
and all he got was a finger in her pants.
who knew that I would be the last…

[Henri]

Whatta fu*ck is going on with you two? I demand to know, I want my little timid kittens back! These big ones have really sharp claws, and horny dreams... I want my kittens back!!!!

[katana]

Cavalcade
Two sallow-faced servicemen mounted Clydesdales on opposite sides of the magistrate. A rangy man with verdant livery led the procession. Mongoloids with wooden teeth tapped concertinas and jacket buttons, spitting silver dollars at the horse’s feet as we marched. I on my horse, togged up in a red coat with epaulets on the lapel. “I must be British,” I thought. I looked down and realized that I wasn’t wearing any pants. “I have forgotten to put them on.” Still the cavalcade sprang in mammoth leaps toward the main country road.
Gaggles of Asian heathens, adolescents, slung mud at me with plastic forks. I tugged at the lower –end of the red coat to cover my exposed lap without success. The towns-people blushed. I was flattered. Then babies cried, shedding acidic tears on the shoes of their mothers that burned through their feet, blanketing the ground a pungent rose madder. My hands on my crotch, it was getting brisk, the serviceman now weary. And so we marched with the hollow at our backs, past the tilled wheatfields and parterres ornamented with tufts of mignonettes.

[liliella]

It is presumptuous of you to assume
That just because you found my keys
That you “found my keys”
You can not find what does not exist!
Bolted from inside
Glass walls
All there, nothing to hide
See through on all sides
Can’t come in
Sorry, closed
Mesmerizing , isn’t it baby ?
Go, just try and go
Go,go,go, baby!
Almost out of NY !
Just one more bridge !
One more toll!
Make that call to the snake that made you fake
Because you were afraid to let him down
Let you down
By giving a reason to not…like…
If you follow someone else you will never see
Anything new.
“What does it feel like to be the prettiest girl
in this place?”
“What does it feel like to have the dumbest pick-up line,
****-face?”
OK… maybe that was a little too much
Such was the evening
Careening off the cliff in my firebird
Need time to sift
Through al the shit in the back seat
Where I learned how to treat others
Lovers
Never used the word `lover`
`Till I stopped having them
amazing what one can find on that back seat
No matter how many times one tries to delete
Free oneself from the old.
“Baby, roll up the window… I’m cold”
Bloody tired,
Wired, at the same time
Aah , the dangers of mixing drugs
Tricking the mind
You will find in me only what you seek
Only what you need
I will feed your appetite ,
For a while, and then
Well then
Do what I do
Think of a good explanation
A reason for the overwhelming sensation
To run ,
And then go !
Go, go , go , baby !
We’re almost out of NY ,
Just one more bridge !
One more toll!
I say to myself



ANNA BESKIN. fulbright scholar and good friend of mine.

[liliella]

MISUSE


I misused you on that creamy Saturday when the wind blew
I scratched the wrong part of your back
I took those flowers and I thought
How annoying they are to carry
Rather than how sweet or how romantic a gesture
I wore sunglasses all day despite the haze
To hide the wandering of my mind as it wandered
Away from you
I danced around the guilt of not thinking of you while I was
away
I wasn't preoccupied, I was thinking of him
I didn't miss you
I misused you.

[liliella]

THIS WORLD
Marina Rubin


this world is divided
into two sorts of people:
those who strike up conversations
with waiters ,mailmen and taxi drivers,
and those with M&ms in their pockets
who long for uncorrupted silence.

[liliella]

THERE


's nothingi can do.i will never
like Charles Bukowski, no matter
how much you can identify with the whore
who stole his poems(you bet i remember it)
& it's raining but despite that i can hear
the trains running at 28 minute intervals &
knowing you;re on your way or maybe arrived
already in Connecticut. I was thinking if I can't
score for us maybe i'll just ask you -like last
time-to make mad love to me ,read me poems,
play my guitar and stroke my hair-just to let me
know that I can still feel you after all this.All this
and really nothing but a new brand of cigarettes.
i think that in matters of strategy
and seduction ,you have to give one up to me-
the parallelism between sex and chess is brutalizing .
Always only one win for me and your unrelenting
stoicism. (I didn't think you'd take it so well anyway
that I could just spring y contempt and love on
you after nearly)...has it been that long? and the
thought of getting older .I could go on to tell you all
the reasons, but I'll only say you are ravishing and
my hunger....



Cairo

[liliella]

How (we)ary we must be
not to d(are) to extend
the human (in)tellect to
admitt that (the)ory is nothing
without langu(age)
which is no(where)
without th(ink)ing ; it is a
bl(and) existence without
a keen (art)iculation
where b(are)ly a
malad(just)ed word can
be sur(rendered) to the
(as)similation of poetry
and underst(a)nding . To say we don't need
to create de(means) the relationship
(to)wards words and painting
that hum(an)ity
dep(end)s on



CAIRO