BODY SHAME

It's a different kind
of body shame:
not body-type
(though that came
later), but just
HAVING a body.

Oh yes, we've laughed
about it, my sister
and I: "Traxlers don't
have bodies," we
often say. But where
did it start, and
how? Why, at the
age of ten, did the
very word,
"body,"
make me blush?

What was the shame
in having a body?
Why the secrecy
about certain parts
which must,
at all costs,
be kept hidden?
Why the blushing?

It will not happen
again. Perhaps
my naturism
has gone too
far. But,
you see,
it took me
many years to
get a body,
and now that
I have one,
I won't easily
give it up.

6 Dec. 2016

STANDING ROCK

Is it possible that the world
is changing for the better?
Can unity and solidarity
be hallmarks of the future?
Is it possible that love
really does
conquer all?
Let us live
in this crazy
hope.
Let us become
what we desire.

5 December 2016

I would like to thank everyone for showing support for my poetry. Some say that no one reads poetry anymore, but evidently that is not the case. In the two months since I started my poetry blog, it has had more than three thousand visits. The top ten countries from which the visits have come are the US, Uruguay, Germany, UK, Chile, Spain, Ireland, Argentina, Canada, and India. The blog has also had visits from Poland, Italy, Venezuela, Guatemala, Turkey, Colombia, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Sweden, Norway, the Ukraine, Bulgaria, Belarus, Mexico, and other countries. Thanks again, and I hope you will continue to enjoy my poetry blog.

QUATRAINS DE NOSSA SENHORA XCVIII - C

CXVIII.
Quando dominan os últimos,
faltarán os primeros,
poder de espiritistas,
bailadores, y ganaderos.

When the last dominate,
the first will fail.
power of spiritualists,
dancers, and ranchers.

XCIX.
A estos se agreguen
pescadores y putas,
quando serán os poetas
os más astutos.

To these may be added
fishers and whores,
when poets will be
the most astute.

C.
O principio va ser
igual que su fin,
nada que perder
y escasso el win.

The beginning will be
the same as its end,
nothing to lose,
and little to win.

4 de dezembro 2016

I AM HERE - II

As a young, idealistic man
I taught an undocumented
dock-worker to read his
own language, and a Venezuelan
family to speak English.
I shared my language with
wonderful Catalán teenagers.

But I am not here
to teach, though it may happen,
but rather to learn,
to absorb this culture,
keeping the good and
rejecting the harmful,
as I did in the "old
country." I am here
to live, to share,
and to flourish.

29 Nov. 2016

I AM HERE

I am here, and I don't think
of being anywhere else.
I've long forgotten the feel of foreign
coins, and customs that were always
foreign to me are more so now.

When I walk my dog in the
fresh evening air, I know
the sights and smells as she
does, though not as intensely,
and the trees and dogs greet us both.

If you ask shall I stay or go,
I'll reply as did Georgia O.*,
with peace in her eyes and on her face:
"Is there another place?"

27 Nov. 2016

* The US artist Georgia O'Keefe, when asked
in the desert of New Mexico whether she
ever thought of living somewhere else,
famously replied with the words of the last
line of the poem.

QUATRAINS DE NOSSA SENHORA

XCVII.
Quando el hemisferio norte
se transforma en ataúd,
entón evita-se la morte
shendo pra o sud.

When the Northern Hemisphere
becomes a coffin,
then death is avoided
by going to the south.

26 de novembro 2016