Smiling and Suffering

स्मिलिंग एंड सुफ्फेरिंग

She had gritty teeth
And a stagger to her step
The colors she wore
Subdued rainbows
Although they were worn to tatters
With rips under each armpit
From lifting her arms so often
To beg for food

She didn't wear underwear
Hadn't since she was a child
It makes it easier
To squat
On the side of a road, a field,
or a shady grove

Her hair down to her waist
Oils practically drip, dripping
From every split end

She carried a small tin plate
For marigolds
And a bowl for change

She had God in her eyes
So vibrant and alive
But she was smiling and suffering
And trying to get by

When she bent over to touch my feet
A simple blessing
Her back may have cracked
From age
But it didn't show

When she blessed me
And received my offering
Her smile doubled
Her head bowed

The first fruit she'd had all day

She could really make love
Not in the Western sense
Not as in the 36 chapters of the Kama Sutra

She could make love out of necessity
Out of Nothingness
Out of Simplicity

And that's what made her beautiful
Beyond smiles

The Bean

The Bean

Beans, beans, the magical fruit
The more you eat the more you
Ingest a fibrous substance
Fueling your cerebral cortex
With the function X
Providing instantaneous growth
To every cell in your body

Can that bean inside your being
Possibly be unwilling
To reveal its true intent
Is it scared as chicken shit
That your insides might be bare as a back in California
And cannot decide whether to hide
Or bury its roots in your liver
Fool around with your kidneys
Rendezvous in your genitals
And fiddle with the voluptuous rolls
On your tummy

Is it aware that starving kids in Africa
WILL eat that left over bean from your plate
Because that's about as little as this thriving country
Is willing to help them?

Lest you finish it...

Then competition sets in

The hairs on your tongue
Stand at attention
Esophagus contracts
Just a tad
Before giving birth to a seed
Ready to expand
Like a freshly squeezed sponge

The acids in your belly churn
Getting the defense set
While your bowels twist another inch
Setting up boards to brave
The tornado of winds spinning like
Spiral circles
Through dry land

Yeah, these beans can fight
A vegetarian's contradiction
These guys have gusto and brawn
Not to mention protein and vitamin B12
These beans are just as alive as any

cow or bird

bird or bee

bee or yak

yak...

And you'll be able to count each bean
As it wrestles its way back up
The porcelain laughing at your lost luggage
Never eat fried Mexican food and bad tequila
Ever
Again

pinprick

पिन प्रिच्क
This is a mid-life crisis
And befuddled am I
As to why it lands at such an early
Twenty three

A raven perched on the passenger seat of time
Sitting but moving like emotion
Of which many come to mind

Birthed and bewildered
Breathe, see, eat, heart beat
Feeling a fickle fascination
As it is hard to distinguish
One puree from the next

Disattatched from umbilical dependence

By five I'd experienced five cities
Anxious

Kissed my cousin at seven
Curious

Nearly drown at ten
Trepidation

I saw boobs at a punk rock show at fourteen
Filled with determination to start
A band of my own

I smoked marijuana
Out of my girlfriends tampon container
Drank my first beer
Lost my sweet cherry at sixteen
Ambitious?

Tried to choke myself to sleep at seventeen
Heartbroken
Lost
Exposed

I graduated high school
Became an adult

Had a cop pull a gun on my
Hallucination opened eyes
With complacence in my mind
Only a month later to find
What life really was
Abroad

But after running the gamut
Experimenting cities
Cultures
Psyches
Climbs
Caboose
Mountain passes
Herbs
Gods
And God too

I stare the future in the eyes

Perhaps routine is everyone's demise
Rolling in the splendor of taking back time
For tradition

When we have tried it all
We choose consistent bricks
To shatter our reflections
And keep them at our toes

A cheers to a life we might have chose
A pinprick's length in time
That this tailor could sew
Imagination Strewn quilts
That look like a throw
On the back of a couch
To hide it's blemishes

I choose red
Because beets bleed
But stay sweet

I could try my hand at molding laws
That keep us steadily
Devolving
Or a band of gypsies
To keep music
Revolving
The beat that bleeds
But stays sweet
On rhythm
And sharp on time

A tart drink with lime
Begging instead for wine
To make age feel well adorned
With an aromatic inhalation
Escalating one back to breathing
Huuuuuhhhhhh
In line

But my crisis remains

And I rectify my fears through love's inconsistencies
And life's multiplicities
And recipes for change
That will continue
Seeking solace
Inside of my bodily sanctuary
Through the next pinprick