Eileen R. Tabios is a poet working in multiple genres and in-between. She also loves books by writing, reading, publishing, critiquing, romancing and advocating for them. This blog will feature her bibliophilic activities with posts on current book engagements and links to her books and projects related to books.

Thursday, September 22, 2016

I REMEMBER THIS I FORGOT POEM


One of my poems from The Connoisseur of Alleys is featured in the new issue of OurOwnVoice entitled

     the relational elations of ORPHANED ALGEBRA

Yes, I have a book (with j/j/ hastain) with that same title --  the newer poem is a combined reading and remix of the book ...

... because I (and perhaps the boy in the above cover) didn't want to forget.

The poem begins:
[1]I forgot other boys like Samuel and Elwin whose bones became transparent…. I forgot imagination cannot alchemize air into protein…. I forgot an ascetic’s illusion of ecstasy will always be illusion due to its condition precedent: a suffering so unmitigated it hollowed non-survivors from children to earthworms…. I forgot no one else noticing the diminishing moon’s tiptoe across the night sky…. I forgot the lucidity of ancient mountains…. I forgot staring at a photograph of a baby with belly larger than head and later arguing with my math teacher, “Two negatives do not equal a positive!” I forgot broken glass surfacing my first conception of Beauty from the lovely wink of a glass sliver, belying edges and their sharpness…. I forgot the clutter of broken objects manifesting affordable treasures when one owns nothing, or owns only dilemmas over belonging….I forgot the seeking that began without knowing whether one was beginning to stink or sing…. I forgot the differences between desires for father and fodder…. I forgot anthologies of glass.



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