Pithy Internet Wisdom

Most email forwards have some schmoopy sentiment at the end, a warning against plagues of locusts if you don't forward it to 10 people or untold riches if you only send it to your 15 closest friends. I like the ones that have been tweaked to be a little snarky. The close of one such email read:

We'll be friends until I am senile.
Then we'll be new friends.

Which is hilarious particularly because one of the most horrifying ideas to me would be physically able in my old age and have lost all my marbles. Let's all laugh in the face of our fears for a moment shall we?

Sumptuous

Schehirrazade By Amal El-Mohtar
Original Source - Sybil's Garage

YOU BRING THE East to me
in a palmful of rice,
a scattering of doves,
a burning temple,
the green smell of tea. You smile,
hold the sun plucked from a Grecian sky
between your teeth, laugh
shake gods and poets from your belly
into my waiting hands, pile them there
like coins and jewels and jasmine petals,
seashells with the sea still in them,
the desert’s weight in sand.

You knew Virgil when he was young, you tell me,
and sitting beneath a willow, whisper
that his bee-loving hands were soft in bed,
that you saw yourself when he spoke of Dido,
her clever fingers on the ox’s hide,
her smoky hair, her tragic eyes,
her fabled skin backlit by fire,
smelling of cardamom and myrrh. I see you, too,
and long, and long
to unfold a treasure from my tongue,
to take your hand in mine and hide there
a stone, a seed, a key,
any small thing
suggestive of mystery.

But my mouth is dry and full of echoes, hoards
your syllables like savory
I dare not chew, much less dare swallow
for fear of scraping my throat red-raw
with tiger claws, iron hooks,
the teeth of wide-jawed women
screaming laments into my chest,
stealing my shallow breath.

So I go, instead. I flee
to ocean, forest, ancient streets,
mountains and the tops of towers
to gather stories like wool from rocks,
dew-wet in the morning, to wring
from them a cup’s worth of augury,
season them with dry air and dust,
bottle them, wrap them ‘round rings and combs,
polish glass, silver, hematite,
and lay them at your feet. I would
sheathe you to the knees in gifts, saying,
“I am not subtle, I am not
a siren with the world for wings,
not Alissar by any name, but look, look,
in these hands,
on these feet,
with the wind in my eyes and the moon on my back,
I’ve brought the East to you,”
hoping you will find in them
even the smallest piece
of something you did not already have.

Prose Revisited

There’s a moment when I look at you
And no speech is left in me
My tongue breaks
Then fire races under my skin
And I tremble and grow pale
For I am dying of such love
Or so it seems to me

////////////////////////////////////////

A moment
When it seems (a) tongue races my skin
I break and tremble
Such love grow(s) pale
And I look to you
There’s no speech for me
I am dying of fire left
In me
Under (me)
And then at my (core is a cinder)
So is (it to be quenched) or (burst into flame anew)