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Arupa Chiarini can be reached at barupa@atlantic.net. She's a contributor to Papier Maches' new anthology Grow Old With Me The Best Is Yet To Be, and her new book, The Ancestors Are Calling Down the Rainbow should be out later this year.




i'm paying tribute to Dionysus wit

a case a aunt jemima's pancake syrup
becuz
my mammy's tit was dry porcelain bony
apollonian titless fifties starved
appurtenance on her
thin - yes thin! -
Thank You God
Thin!

i'm paying tribute to Dionysus wit
a mangled bloody barbie
raped
doggystyle by Ken after he hadda
few Drinks in the bar behind the
racquetball club -
now Art!

i'm paying tribute to Dionysus wit
a picture of my titless mammy
ground fine shot up wit
a turkey baster
impregnating the womb
of my imagination.

i'm paying tribute to Dionysis wit
the stiff encrusted
holy
socks of the homeless
which I read
like tea leaves
scattered on the grounds
of my imagination.

i'm paying tribute to Dionyus wit
the voices of dogs
howling
to sirens in the night
winding through
my dreams.

i'm paying tribute to Dionysis wit
the bag women's shopping
carts stacked high
recycled
Disneyhenge
making wondrous
the hearts of
pastel sausage-basted
touristballs
wit dere
kidz 'n
stuffed
doggies.

i'm saying unto you
witless Apollo
wit quartz crystals
shoved up your
slender nose -

this is all god.








Primary Colors for Three Voices

1.

Blue Red Yellow
Primary colors can be used to make a child's painting of a day at the beach. Blue sea, blue sky, yellow sun, golden-haired child carrying a red pail and shovel. Pale yellow sand, pink child broiling in the summer sun.

The child grows older and must have purple clouds boiling in the far corner of the sky, a touch of lavender along the horizon, amber shadows.

Older yet, the former child needs brown and gray
for cliffs,
wise cypress tortured against a foggy sky,
tide pools hiding among the rocks offshore.

She wore a red spandex mini skirt,
a boxy blue tank top,
bright yellow hair cascading down her
back.
>From a distance she turned
I saw her
parchment face
painted also in primary colors,
pink and purple scarf,
an ancient tropical bird with
jeweled claws.


2.

Lao Tzu

is

13 ways of looking at a

red

blue

yellow

cellulite and

menstrual blood

rocky, foggy
fissured

zensational
day
at the

Peach
ashes of roses,
ambergris
silver

whale of a day at the

Leached
of all color
wistful

hand-colored
memories
of
Carmel
Beach.


3.
My Aunt Kit had a large, framed bleeding heart of Jesus on the wall behind her living room couch. The drops of blood were a deep, ruby red. At the age of eleven, when I started bleeding, she told me this suffering would bring me closer to our precious Lord and Savior who himself bled for my sake. His blood, however, was not the same color as mine, I noticed as I sat on the toilet contemplating a sanitary napkin as a sort of religious artifact, like the Shroud of Turin, which would, if I had the proper attitude, lead me to Heaven. I imagined a trail of sanitary napkins, from my house to the Pearly Gates, each one inscribed with the face of Jesus.



4.

Walt Whitman,
in greatly reduced circumstances,
went surfing the World Wide Web
looking for the color red;
he found red dogs, red fish,
red hot chili peppers, red meat,
red devils, red hats, red sox,
red sails in the sunset,
red winds, red wings,
red roses, red wolves,
red rock canyon,
red rivers, red lakes,
red braised pork shoulders,
red crescents, red crosses, red ribbons,
red men in red square, red dwarves,
the red light district of Amsterdam
The Red Bridge Church of Christ Adult Bible Study Program,
red wines, world-famous red jello recipes,
red planets, big red boats,
and the red red robin
who came
bob, bob, bobbing along,
singing a song,
accompanied by faint angelic voices calling
"red rover, red rover,
come over, come over,
red rover, red rover,
Walt Whitman, come over."






Dear e-mail correspondents ,

I am conducting a survey to determine the actual amount of difference between television reality and so-called "normal" reality. Please answer the following questions, if you are so-inclined. Feel free to take extra space to explain or annotate your responses. The results - all names removed for purposes of confidentiality - will be published in a leading scholarly journal (The one with the big fur hat and the baton). Thank you for your co-operation.

Arupa Chiarini-Freeman, TV.D.

---

How often do you have the following questions addressed to you: often, once in a while, rarely, never -

a. It doesn't matter, as long as we're together.
b. ___________________, we love you no matter what you do.
c. Don't worry, ________________, we're all going to help you.

2. Did Santa Claus ever come to your house with a load of toys even
though your parents had no money?

3. Has anybody ever given you a diamond tennis bracelet, a salad
shooter, or a barcalounger for Christmas or some other significant
occasion?

4. If you are a married woman, has your husband ever given you a
diamond ring just to say, "I'd do it all over again."

5. If you are a married man, have you ever discovered that your new, young
mistress is actually a child that your ex-wife gave up for adoption when
she was sixteen?

6. Is your neighborhood frequently stalked by serial killers?

7. Have you ever won an Olympic Gold Medal after recovering from a
spinal-cord injury?

8. Have you ever experienced a burst of frenetic euphoria after drinking
one of the following beverages: cheap American beer, a cola product.

9. Has one of your household pets ever walked 750 miles to be reunited
with you?

10. Did your husband/wife stop beating you/drinking after he/she
found the Lord?







I always celebrate that quintessential Marxist-Buddhist holiday - Mother's Day - by writing a poem. This years it's


Not a Pantoum for Mother's Day

Around a curve of time
stands Edith, nineteen,
reaching for stars,
eyes blotted by radios,
thin walls of gray apartments
with the bathroom down the hall,
on canned-soup afternoons
in Albany in 1945

stands Edith, nineteen,
her father tipping his hat
from the cave at the back of her mind,
five-feet-two, eyes of blue,
has anybody seen my girl

reaching for stars,
past limp curtains,
bacon-fat windows,
eyes blotted by radios,
cigarettes,
gray swirls of dreams curling
into the peeling plaster,
thin walls of gray apartments
with the bathroom down the hall,

old women carrying toilet paper
shuffle before her,
old men in undershirts wondering
five-feet-two, eyes of blue,
has anybody seen my girl

on canned-soup afternoons,
looking for stars
between pages of
Help Wanted Female
they wait like lunch-meat sandwiches,

in Albany in 1945,
around a curve of time,
has anybody seen my girl,
around a curve of time?









Arupa Chiarini




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