Forty-Fifth Paradox Writing

I would drive as far as my gas tank would take me,

and then I would run the rest of the way,

until I reached the shores of Victoria.

I would gather each plant, each flower,

each piece of the Old World,

each rock, each government building,

each lamp, each iron-wrought lamp,

each cup of tea, each cube of sugar,

each drop of cream, each foreign accent,

each wink, each photo, each sigh,

every bewildered stare,

and gather them up in a bag,

just to see her smile again.

Though she’s not my husband, nor even my lover,

she’s an heir to a special part of my heart.

I know she’s alive,

but the distance that separates us is an ocean,

and it takes far too long to sail home.

My suitors are not but worries, anxieties, fears

that visit me every morning and every evening.

I know the moment she comes home they’ll flee

like dust in the four winds.

I fear she faces many trials and monsters harm in women’s clothing,

and that she will come home one day,

but I want her home today.

“I think we should’ve turned right three palm trees ago.” The sand rustled along the hooves, and two of the riders tightened the cloths covering their mouths.

“Three, huh.”

“Yeah, three. That one by that mountain.”

“You call that a mountain? That was more like a foothill!”

“Um…I think my cammel needs to pee.”

The others glanced at him, their turbans billowing in the dessert wind. Still, they didn’t stop just yet.

One sighed, the narrow band of gold circling his turban glinting in the moonlight. “I suppose he didn’t need to when we were at that oasis not to long ago.”

“Not at all.” The second answered, scrutinizing his robes of fine scarlet while his skin tried to match their hue.

“Hm, well, we could always try the next one.” The third added optimistically, trying to juggle his star chart and his looking glass.

“I’m sure there won’t be one for another few days. You should’ve checked your camel while you had the chance.”

“I did! I swear, no signs at all of any… potential leakage.”

“You sure we couldn’t just take a break? I’m feeling a little tired myself.”

“We can’t. That camel will be doing its business until the moon wanes at this rate. We’re already late.”

“Oh come on. That child has waited for over a year now, it’s not like he’s still waiting in some manger for our gifts.”

“I don’t know..this myrrh might spoil, or that frankincense. It’s not like gold, you know.”

Inspired by Clement Clarke Moore’s classic poem, also titled “A Visit from St. Nicholas”

Twas the Night Before Christmas

When all through the flat,

Not a creature was stirring,

Not even the cat.

The stockings were hung by the heater with care,

Lighting the filthy fireplace we wouldn’t dare.

The parents were snuggled and warm in their beds

While visions of school-buses drove in their heads.

My mother in her pjs and dad in his shirt

Had just dozed off, to sleep off dessert.

When out on the street there rose such a racket,

I sprang from my desk and threw on my jacket.

Away to the window I zipped like the Flash,

Looking outside, expecting a car crash.

I saw street lights reflected on fresh-fallen rain,

Damp moss, slick roads, and rusted road drains.

And what, to my wandering eyes should appear,

But a hovering motor home and eight hybrid reindeer.

With a weighty old driver, yet so lively and slick,

I knew in a moment he thought himself Saint Nick.

More wild than bikers on their cycles he came,

And his sleeves held more tricks than a cheating card game!

“Oh darn it, oh darn it. I think it’s broken.”

He swore. “the shop’ll be closed in the mornin’.”

He glanced at the house, at the door, and the top of the wall,

and spotted the tools for an overhaul.

As burglars check for cameras before they break in,

“Santa” checked the perimeter with a flick of his chin.

So up to the front door quietly he sneaked,

Except for when the floorboards creaked.

And then in the rustling I heard at the door,

The scratching and grinding of jams and bores.

As I grabbed Dad’s gun, and was turning around,

Through the front door Santa came in a bound.

He was dressed in dark red,  from his head to his boot,

And his clothes were all trashed with grease and soot.

A bag of plunder he slung on his back,

And he looked just like a beggar, just opening his sack.

His eyes, they darkened, his wrinkles were sinister.

His cheeks were like canyons, his nose like a mountain.

His thin lips were creased like paper,

And the beard of his chin was ashen like slush.

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,

Smoke poked my throat like thorns in a wreath.

He had a small face and a bouncing round belly,

That shook when he laughed, and he made the room smelly.

He was chubby and fat, a right creepy old fart,

And I hacked when I saw him, and it gave him a start.

A wink of his eyes, and a twist of his head,

Soon told me to know I had everything to dread.

He said not a word, and set to his work,

and ate the milk and cookies, the old jerk!

Stepping too close to the sensors beside his nose,

He set the alarms blaring, in mid-bite he froze!

He sprang out the door, wrapped tool box in hand,

and tried the engine to get out of this land.

But I heard the sirens, and smirked as he stood in plain sight,

and watched them arrest him on that cold winter night.

We marched for Cambyses;

We marched to the oracle;

We marched to take her down;

We marched to cast her into the sand;

We marched to bury her body  in the sand,

to the place we would all return.

_________________

We marched for Cambyses;

We marched for the son of Cyrus;

We marched for the King of Persia;

We marched to make him and his advisors proud;

We marched to be remembered above all Persian armies;

We marched to be remembered beyond the sand,

the place we would soon return.

______________

We marched to be lost;

We marched to be found;

We marched to leave arrowheads and silver bracelets;

We marched to leave a thousand skulls grinning at the sky;

We marched into the sand;

We marched into the sand,

and to sand we returned.

My ancestors journeyed over an ocean,

to what they saw as a new world,

but I think they became new,

like new pronunciation,

new religion,

a new neighborhood,

a new language,

A new identity.

___________

My mother and her sisters

wouldn’t have known that their distant

cousins wore stars of David

on their sleeves,

a few years before my mother’s birth,

or that fifth-cousins-three times-removed

wanted a neighborhood of their own,

without imposing walls or armored tanks on the other side.

__________

She wouldn’t have known that her relatives wanted their own national identity.

_________

She wouldn’t have known,

if someone had not said:

“You’re Jacob’s,

Are you Jewish?”

If my best friend died,

I would run to the other end of town

and back, until the soles of my shoes

became my feet and my shirt melted into my skin.

I would burn every calorie of every piece of

chocolate I ever ate while discussing

PMS with him.

 

I would go to Gov Cup and order a chai tea

and try every flavor in single shots in different cups.

I would flirt with the barista as if to

cheat on our relationship that never happened because

we would end up killing each other.

 

I would write a poem where every line was an inside joke,

and all the words would be five syllables long

and only be found in the OED.

I would shout utterly vulgar phrases from the bus stop,

(but only in Greek, Spanish, and Russian.)

 

I would stay up late with his other best friend and say

absolutely nothing.

Because my ashen clothing,

my decreasing chocolate supply,

my counter-top full of espresso shots,

my affair with the barista,

my tirade at the bus stop,

even my inside joke of a poem

would fail him.

The windows thought they knew what rain sounded like,

They did not know it sounded like men falling from the sky,

Quiet men in trench coats, ties, and bowler hats,

Standing straight up like pins,

So they’d fall that much harder,

Staring off into space as if falling from the sky

Was a perfectly normal way to go to work.

A complete stop on the freeway,

An ironic twist along the way,

As I was driving home one day

My hand digging into the carryout tray,

Asking my friends ‘yay’ or ‘nay’

To change lanes, if I may,

As I came to a complete stop on the Freeway.

It didn’t matter if I was a

Kitty, a Hippie Chick, in the Mafia (or the card one), or just a 6th grader,

When we rode in a van to the beach,

Probably going a little too fast, and growing a little too fast,

As we blasted surfer rock from the stereo,

And songs about breakfast.

It didn’t matter what our moms said about too much candy,

You’d let us eat it all in the backseat, and smile when we got carsick,

Instead of saying “I told you so.”

I only knew you as a mentor for 12 months or so,

But those twelve months changed every month after

And taught me to be weird for a smile and a laugh

I guess I wrote these lines, to thank you for being weird for 12 months at least,

And I hope your kid ends up weirder than me.