Poetry Suite by Anis Mojgani
“–you are better than the vocabulary you choose to use for excusing yourself”
Poetry Suite by Anis Mojgani
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UNDER MS FREY'S ARROWS I RETURN TO THE POETIC STACKING OF PICTURES I FELL IN LOVE WITH INSIDE OF MR McDANIEL’S HANDS
Out in the country I climb to find your body in the dark rain but all you do is stare up
In the inside of your body––we are whispers between branches and Northern directions
There are some days when I hate everyone I see
Only my nephew is saved from this equation
And the woman with the mouth of sorrow carrying a box of books outside the bookstore
Do you remember love, pushing the bumps of the lemon over your lips?
I only read novels I have already read
If I write r-e-a-d do you know if I am speaking about the past or the present?
No. You do not
I do not know the color of the seeds I throw until spring unfurls her thunderous hooves
Do not define the scent of my children because I showed you the interior of all these vases
The 8-year-old walking past the glass in a houndstooth coat over pajama pants is also saved
The longer I write beside large windows the larger my understanding becomes
I am allowed to lease the space between the bang and the flash
I could sleep on the couch for years
The bookseller with the Need Help sticker on his shirt looks like he could give my heart what it needs
A path from behind the dumpster back into the backlot wildflowers
Too many springtimes carry too many names
My tongue is long enough to fit inside you from many angles––all of them feel good
My first girlfriend pulled my lips with her mouth and teeth––I know the map to stars
Nights spent alone with the moon taught me how to use my body beautifully
Days in the company of the sun learned me the language of the mute raccoon
The shovel is my birthright
One day my hands will open up enough of the earth to unearth the spade
Lust dustily telegraphs me every day
I would like to roll your calves like a homemade Cuban cigar
I hate the bees she poured into my tea
The invisible me says to the disappearance of her:
You put me on the ladder while pulling the leaves from the low branches
If a lady of plush and promise were to see me naked we are both made lucky
I believe in the Iliad of my skin
Matisse and girls wearing jeans
My skull is marble and cloud my naked hips polished
I do not understand the hipness of cremation––I find nothing organic about sitting for centuries
Some part of my body is an urn and another part of it that which it holds
I pray for earthquakes
I pray for the fireplace to break in in half
I pray for the floor to crack open from below
and be swallowed by the warm loam of the earth
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Tsunami
A shirt the color of sea foam waves at me from outside
The breasts of the woman wearing it rise before the want of my shores
Her smile is toothed sunlight
I’m just looking for someone to dance with at midnight in the Safeway on Hawthorne
Drake trickling through shared headphones beside the boxes of Lucky Charms
Me and one lover used to wake up inside emptied bottles of Martinelli’s Sparkling Apple Cider
We flossed hard
Dragon’s teeth
In my navel is a seed from the Great Pumpkin
Autumn has become a dirty synonym for fall
My heart ain’t for the faint of heart
Holding up the dirt for better polishing
I have been busy excavating new bones
I have discovered that white wine tastes like shit
Wondering what is done with the skins once removed
The first worst word is wasn’t my intention––
Girl who used to call me darlin because my love made your heart a sweet pudding
––you are better than the vocabulary you choose to use for excusing yourself
When losing your self
Oh the oh so many puddings my love spooned that her heart ate
Me and my bowls have been on a bridge for the entirety of my universe of living
She danced out to the center to join me––used her fingers on my back to pull my belly towards hers
I thought we escaped her from out the dark country of her third life
We never made it across the dotted lines
Mistook the chestnut trees at the border for a different kingdom
Fell asleep inside the cool shade of the jade leaves
Built a house at customs––thought the broken English of refugees was dogs in the thundertime
The foreign poetry of strange birds trying to pick out the prettiest shapes of their sounds
Lived a long time off of what were once almonds and then what we believed were almonds
Even after she decided we would feast only on shells she kept telling me they were almonds
I slipped on the tiles spilling her coffee
My porcelain hands. My porcelain hands holding her newspaper collection
The wind chases our words like a tidal wave
Time stands still like a photograph of a tidal wave
Your coffee has been spilling since the time as a child you were put outside a locked door
After being let back in you stopped trusting doors that were opened by people who love you
You blame yourself for everything except for the fields you choose to burn
Choosing to be indecisive is still a choice
The drafting board in a war of cowards
You blame torched crops on the stick you lit with your hands
Such audacity things that burn have for burning once we light them
My heart has been trying to break my heart all morning
How young am I still, is it even lunch yet?
Springtime, I ask you whose pants are these?
My stomach has shrunk but I want to swallow down everything
Lady outside––may the large hands of your ocean slap me under
I desire to choke on something other than invisibility and a comrade’s heart
I have to find a drowning back to my hunger
To where the waters are not warm and sickly but freezing in the position they stand up in
To the kindness of my own snow that autumns all around me
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O'Hare
Almost every airport has a piece of her. This one has a few few follicles,
sitting like sunlight. Or perhaps particles flaked from her kneecap.
Another casts the shadow of her teeth. Some smell of her. Or maybe just the tennis shoes
she had when we first met. The t-shirts she stopped wearing
when her body began to leak its birds.
Other airports have whole cities of her attached to them. Streets built
from her restless sleep and her Houdini freckles escaping into winter.
Some have her mother.
And as a result the bicycle ride between her mother’s house and the train to the airport,
the conversation we rode between the tall reeds that grow on that path.
Some have other states,
some a time of day.
Minneapolis has Maine.
New Orleans is reserved for when dawn has not yet become light.
Chicago has several. In the city, an apartment her brother no longer lives in.
Our 12th night. A naked air mattress.
The two of us completely unclothed beneath the bright bulbs in the spare room.
A typewriter. Her whispering
into my ear on the dance floor of a dive bar.
A poem I named Sock Hop.
Here at C9, I walk upon a man who looks like her grandmother’s fourth husband, except
no baseball cap, no bird whistle on his lips.
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Lincoln City
I pulled a greenish stone out of the sand
almost blue––the color of your eyes
at the beach or when
you were stepping
out of the tub.
If you were here
and I were to hand it to you to hold
you would
––as you do
with all things smooth to you
a stone
the feather from a peacock
colored paper
my top lip
––you would hold it
against the soft space that nests
above your mouth and beneath
your nose and smooth it
across the skin there
before setting it
back into my palm.
Between the stones
sitting out of the sea I walked
rubbing the rock between my hands
as if it were a small bird
I were trying to warm.
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Header image courtesy of Nate Margolis. To view his photo essay, "Hushed" for NAILED, go here
Anis Mojgani is a two time National Poetry Slam Champion, winner of the International World Cup Poetry Slam, and multiple TEDx Speaker. He has been awarded residencies from the Vermont Studio Center, AIR Serenbe, and the Oregon Literary Arts Writers-In-The-Schools program. Anis has performed at numerous universities, festivals, and venues around the globe, and his work has appeared on HBO, NPR, and in the pages of such journals as Rattle, Forklift Ohio, and Thrush. Author of four books, Anis' latest, The Pocketknife Bible, is a fully illustrated collection, combining his literary work and his visual art (2008). Originally from New Orleans, Anis currently lives in Portland, OR. Learn more about him: here.