Shira E. Writing

I Wish to Be an Acquiescent

2011-02-17T07:48:00.000-08:00

Acquiesce:

1610s, from M.Fr. acquiescer, from L. "to become quiet, remain at rest," thus "be satisfied with"

SHOWS!

2011-02-15T06:02:00.000-08:00

whoa! shows!

3/1 Tues Northampton, MA Mrs. Friend (my-house-show!) Featuring The Whirlwind Company 7:30 pm

3/8 Tues Amherst, MA Hampshire College, MA Featuring The Crazy Pitches 9 pm

3/10 Thurs Northampton, MA Smith College Full-Length Music & Poetry Feature 9 pm

3/14 Mon Waltham, MA Brandeis University Full-Length Music & Poetry Feature

3/20 Sun Cambridge, MA YMCA BLASTFORTH aka Blastfest 4: A Whitehaus Family Event!

3/25 Fri Boston, MA TBA with Khary Jackson

4/8 Fri New York, NY Bowery Poetry Club Hosting Jon Sand's book release!

4/15 Fri Walla Walla, WA Whitman College Featuring at "Equality is Sexy" event

Want to book Shira E at your college, vegan potluck, or theater? Want to add a workshop to the event?

Email shira@shiraerlichman.com

2010-07-19T17:45:00.000-07:00

RAIN

The rain screws up its face

and falls to bits.

Then makes itself again.

Only the rain can make itself again.

- Adrian Keith Smith

Age 4

New Zealand

30/31: Cloud Overheard on a Bridge

2010-05-31T19:33:00.000-07:00

All I want you to do

is take my devotion

and see that it

is not my devotion

at all.

Still your gaze

in the mirror, the tilted

hat of your smile or

is it frown, knowing what

you are is what I am,

without being kept by

either of us.

Our heads are on

loan, but even this is no point.

Confetti the hours with me.

See how every strand

is sheared from the

same big poster, which

reads: Here we are, here,

we are. Now, after so

much fame, music, rage,

funeral, hillside, bad horse,

good horse, near drowning,

debt, notebook, mother,

mania, rust, it reads:

Here we are, here, we

are. All I could ever ask of

your precious vision

as it grazes in the tired

ecstatic field of my

ramblings, is that you

burn us both entirely. Find

inside this what you wrote

first, and must rewrite again

and again, seeing I never

wrote it.

I must be a beggar who

uses words as my cup.

All that this cup asks

is that you love the

emptiness.

29/31: Feeding You Grapes on the Mountain's Soft Side

2010-05-29T20:18:00.000-07:00

I want to write you a good poem: the water is cold and you step in.

The water is loud against your shins.

I want to write you a comfort poem: oh the ship is a dip! The banana

is a smile, dial! the little girl being carriaged sings, passing you.

I want to write you an awe poem: breath is a leaf floating in a mostly cream

coffee and you have such soft patience to pluck it out in a forest always falling.

I want to write you a silent poem: if every moment is the same moment, what

are you missing? If you want an apple, bite my mouth across such time.

I want to write you a bowl poem: noodles.

I want to write you a kite poem: blue.

I want to write you an always poem: the water is cold and you step in.

The water is loud against your shins.

I want to write you a good morning poem: the crickets believe

you too tell the temperature just by how you let sing the spaces.

I want to write you a together poem: the water is cold and?

The water is loud against?

I want to write you a love poem: you are cold and you step in

to yourself, loud against god's shins. God is dancing.

So cold! ice cold! somebody says, but who?

I want to write you a whole poem: a bridge abandoned while it rains.

I want to write you a fart poem: somebody, but who?

I want to write you a cosmic poem: the ant on my kitchen table.

I want to write you a wake up poem: all you have been running toward

has been running toward you, all along.

I want to write you a disappointing poem: this is all.

I want to write you an exciting poem: this is all.

I want to write you a real poem: listening to the birds, I give up, close

the book on want, know this, I will come to you when I am ready.

28/31: The Fool

2010-05-29T15:48:00.000-07:00

Don't change anything, you fucker! my brain says and I snarl.

Don't change anything, beautiful! my brain says and I coo.

Don't change anything, you genius! my brain says and I puff out.

Don't change anything, you fool! my brain says and I hear it.

II.

This is the wrong song, the wrong song! I am yelling at the DJ

in my dream, room crowded with dancing bodies and swirling neon lights

that nauseate and pull. WHAT? He is rubbing the records like bald spots,

simultaneously cool and repulsive. JESUS! I yell, Is anyone listening in here?

Ear pressed against his shoulder's headphone, his gaze flickers up, casual

as pouring milk. How about this one he says, and there it is. When I wake up

I wonder why it was the right song if it was the same as before.

III.

Maharajji, Indian guru, was always surrounded by a group of followers

who fanned his every sweat. Just wanting to be near him, to keep the thread

between spirit and form alive inside him; without them, he'd just clip, float off.

He wandered in a cloth diaper, smiling like a baby, but mostly he sat. Endless

followers have said It's possible I was never as peaceful, as good, as kind

as when I was just sitting in front of him. He was known by many names,

though when asked he'd say, I'm nobody.

IV.

A spiderweb in my backyard has made a dynamic and endless kill of

raindrops. I want to be like this dream I witness. To hold all I never expected,

if only for an afternoon. Wait a second! I am!

27/31: Not knowing what's wrong

2010-05-29T15:38:00.000-07:00

Pulling over into a rest stop, after seven hours in the car

with friends who didn't see the gashes in the black, I stepped out

into the arms of one of them, unfolding a falling apart map of

mouth, this is not what I intended and I feel like I'm burdening

everyone and Kara says It's okay and no you're not and Let's buy you

a fancy drink, that always helps me.

In the bathroom I am face to face with a fuzzy mirror, the bent

spoon of my vision, my mind a glittering heat. A woman in the middle

of her life comes out of a stall, washes her hands, then pats

a brown paper towel back and forth on the back of her hands.

Oh honey, she says, Can I give you a hug? I burst yes, some

switch thrown in the sparking coliseum, the bull racing into

the stands, climbing impossibly up those stairs, gouging

the crowd's ribs, a red maze. In nowhere, Iowa, she holds me,

a stranger, my mother, my matador, as I cry.

26/31: Untitled (Home)

2010-05-28T20:25:00.000-07:00

I woke up beside you, your breasts open

cabinets, the cats spread thick

on your spine, tall

as roads, they used to fit in our

palms, the light in your New York

bed ice even on the first real day

of summer.

I was absolutely lost

in terror feeling too huge a gap between

my body and my own albeit brief

soul, a disconnect I remember

from mania - how a witness inside

the person sees it all while

it all moves, blurring, sometimes

jumps - and the person reaches

for the glass of water like it is a hand, vision

still clutched by the under water

of dreaming. I was trying to get back

home in your New York and in

a body in a hot blue eternity. I woke up thinking

is this dying a torch

streaking the curtains of me.

I lay back down, turned over, felt

your perfect breath,

reminding me of my

perfect breath. It is not

that anything disappeared; it is just that sooner

than I wanted, I'd have to pack

in the white a.m. catch that train to that

train to my bus home, so I turned toward

sleep, where all rivers flow inward. The cats

were deep gone, tranquil eyelids lilypads.

There was no wind.

And where there is no wind,

a body still trembles,

as if it belongs to the sky.

Settled in this familiar quiet,

I don't need anything else

to anchor me in the abyss

of heaven.

2010-05-28T06:20:00.000-07:00

Life

has been

your art.

You have set

yourself

to music.

Your days

are your sonnets.

- Oscar Wilde

25/31: Kite

2010-05-28T06:18:00.000-07:00

One time, when I was tripping on LSD in my room
on the seventh floor of the complex I saw a girl walk in
a girl from the neighborhood she was holding a glass
and a pitcher of orange juice which she poured and poured
until it flowed all over the floor and up to my jean bottoms sogging
them. When I looked up she was still pouring then the juice disappeared
then the glass disappeared then the pitcher disappeared then
my soggy jean bottoms became dry. I turned to my friend Bill
sitting next to me and said Bill, the strangest thing just happened
then Bill disappeared.

My father kisses me on my scalp turns off the big lamp a bug goes klissss.
I know he will go downstairs and burn endless logs of worry I know
what he has told me is no secret another bug suicides I know he will drink
the television until morning. What he has told me is the story of all things
the greatest creation myth the other children are unripe for not small adults like me

I know who I must be in his myth how everyone (and everything) you've ever
known is both cupped water and mirage but. But. How that's just the half.
He doesn't have to say it though. He doesn't have to say in a dark room
with a dark girl he made out of dark powder and darker sparks not thinking life
because life is thinking him up father boy kite man string
a sugarbloated dream plucked of feathers and smelling of rye:
hey sweetheart, the strangest thing just happened.

23/31: Seven Sijos for Wild Lanterns and Growing Up Down

2010-05-24T19:55:00.001-07:00

I don't know what needs to be written, but I return.

I learned to, asking the tiniest sage overwhelming questions.

Always, my favorite answer was I don't know.

It's cheesy but, like Michelangelo, I think the song is whole

before it's written. English is my father's second language.

Cheesy? What does...cheesy...mean? Song is his first.

I don't know what needs to be returned, but I leave.

I pack the air, clasp, turn the knob, and kiss the sleeping day.

If I return, I'll know. If I don't return, I'll know.

Ants are living in my keyboard. They exit on speed, seem happy

enough. Laughter is slang. God's underwear caught in our teeth.

What are we doing? Chewing on bliss? When I type, I kill.

Sometimes I think I should give writing up. Too much

intellect hoo hoo, not enough surfing. Though, you know,

Grace is everywhere. Tell a stripper not to rain.

Once, folded up in the trunk of a stranger's van I had

full view of a moving sky. The family up front

passed me a kaleidoscope. Blue green yellow white dog clouds.

Interpret nothing. Translate without translating. Look, looky look.

Sing the cathedral open like torn muscle. Put two fingers to

a friend's smile, pull down, watch how their eyes relax.

22/31: Choose Carefully

2010-05-24T10:07:00.000-07:00

Lighthouse, dark,

and ocean

were talking again.

Lighthouse

was preaching,

per usual,

its eminent self.

I am a prophet.

Without me,

no one

would see

their way

home. Dark

agreed, humbled

by light. Ocean

agreed, nodding

waves.

Just then

boat drifted

into the scene.

Small rowboat-

it would need

a lot of help.

Mmm! Help

me see! So

dark

darked

without trying.

Ocean flowed

flawlessly.

Lighthouse

with its lone

and gorgeous

arm peeled

a path.

Guided, boat

moved beyond

them all, cupping

a person

whose own

gorgeous

arms propelled

them into

distance.

When

they had

disappeared,

the three

commenced

their talking,

not realizing

who

had really been

needed

to perform

such outrageous

love. Who

had

really been

needed

to perform

such

outrageous

love?

21/31: All that keeps us

2010-05-24T06:26:00.000-07:00

I have a silence somehow swallowed.

Fed sea-lions and suns. Kept awake

under mountains of sleep and torture.

At the cliff of my longboard, all blood

shifting to the front chambers, a standstill

between shredded shoulders and air.

While drums sex faster, tornado steam,

elegant birds of noise rising off my sense-wires

which buoy and prayer, my lids

shadow-puppet purple light, a standstill

between immersion and a deep flame. Same thing.

A thread. You hear me. A thread is all that keeps us

from tipping into here.

20/31: Skin

2010-05-20T20:15:00.000-07:00

We didn't know how to whisper.

We built a boat.

Threw a party before we headed out.

Even my ex-boss was there, all pink.

Broke down the bookshelves.

Made paper eggs out of the torn pages.

Millions and millions of paper eggs.

I think you and I will float.

19/31: Onion-Vision

2010-05-19T20:41:00.000-07:00

A man who forgets himself is poor at making bread.

That is a cookie fortune I never got.

Three virgins in the sack are like three happy vowels: aoe!

That is also a cookie fortune I never got.

The mountains have really big hands.

Once more folks, a cookie fortune I never got.

Don't turn around - there are babies being made.

That is, again, a cookie fortune I never got.

II.

The bubble bath was filled with lemons when I kissed her.

A secret, just nobody's secret.

The extra pillow is to hump.

Somebody's secret, someone close by, maybe right here.

I lick every scented marker in the set.

Gregory "Long-legs"s not-so-secret in fourth grade.

Every bad thing that ever happens to you

is either a thermometer or barometer.

A secret I wish someone had told me sooner.

I am not brave.

The heart's secret.

I am too brave.

The heart's secret.

III.

A dishwasher that plays the dishes as notes.

Uninvented Invention #23

A holidiary where everyone shares entries

in a highly ritualized public format.

Uninvented Invention #68

"Burn the water" - a blues song revealing

the impossibility of abandoning those that abandon us.

Uninvented Invention #104

A miniature movie-theater suspended above the forehead

during sleep to, of course, project movies to a loved one.

Uninvented Invention #19

Walking campfire: built small and safe enough to store

in the breast pocket and familiar to all, so all may sing along.

Uninvented Invention #859

Onion-vision, so we may see sadness as it is, artichokes

as they are, sound, muscle, the truth as it is.

Uninvented Invention #44

Word-kites: you tie them to what you say

and they go wherever they want to go,

like, a tree-tangle or your mouth, some hot moon like that.

Uninvented Invention #960

18/31: Bird Ambulances

2010-05-19T19:45:00.000-07:00

Let's say we never die. Well then, eternal recycling.

Would there be no need for bird ambulances? They'd just lie?

Or, would we still seek them? Cupping wet pulses in our winged blood.

Let's say I never wanted Kathryn to call me after school.

I never diary'd But I'm not a lesbian after her name.

Would her name still seek me? Tiny kite in the unpunctured blue.

Let's say that I was not hospitalized. Twice. Never nightgowned.

They don't bother with sirens transferring you in early morning.

Would a far dog still hear it? The never sound. Screeching me not home.

We could say I never won the storytelling contest.

I never made anyone cry. No theater ever became a well.

Would hammers of nickels still break the dark? Who made a throat?

Let's say forgiveness is shaped like a bell. No wait, a hat. Or, lime.

What if the shape doesn't matter - it's the scent. A lime, then. No, hat.

Would I know how to give if I knew not what I gave? Yes.

Let's say there's no such thing as time. Just now. No "tomorrow." And, now.

Thoughts are in time, so we'd have to get rid of those. Would we just kiss?

Would hammers of nickels still break the dark? Whoever breaks me, kisses.

Let's say we never die. I come back an unkept road. Dirty, you know?

You come back grass, patchy and near. We talk. Clouds always reborn clouds.

Would it be enough? Is it? An empty mirror is talking again.

Let's say Whoever breaks me, kisses. Well then, eternal recycling.

A kiss travels downward becoming a vase which blooms kisses. Nobody talks.

What's that say of my fate? Breaking? Whole? Kiss me, good gush, and hurry.

17/31: Untitled (The Explorer)

2010-05-17T08:48:00.000-07:00

The explorer is going deeper - blowing her nose - thick

in the blueness - and once the explorer is inside

the light in her eyes - the explorer is lost - wondering Will I burst

like a fruit? Will the pressure of the depths peel my forehead's

onions, middle onion, baby onion? Light, light, light?

The song is traveling - up the canal of her spine out her throat

she has no idea how long she has been - singing - has she

been - singing? Light, light, light? All the marbles of childhood

rattle the birdcage of her skull - fall through the golden slits -

the blades of sorrow carve at her - such soft wood how she

gives way - her face oceaned - words barely come out but

come - to my heartsong, listen, listen, listen - to my heart -

no shadows in the blue only stillness drenched in water I will never

forget you I will never forsake you - I will never forget you I will never

forsake you - as the knives hunger dive - an opening - a tender

wound of music - feels her brother - father - mother - the knives

diving hungers - feels her self - Never again - I will never forget

you amidst the white tunnel rush of screeching living - the song

settles - a puma asleep in its bowl of cream - she thinks -

who thinks - she loves - empty as a snow garden - clear

that there is only one question costumed as millions -

every question has always been Light, light, light?

An onion of separate petals is still one bird

circling the same gorgeous kill.

16/31: Untitled (What It Means)

2010-05-17T07:16:00.000-07:00

Noah at my hip - and I are gazing - at the dogwood tree

in its full sexhearted bloom, pink - bidding forth thirst

of eyes, when he snaps out of his reverie, glasses

glazed with sun - I have a feeling and I don't know

what it means - What does it feel like? - I don't know.

So I say, Where do you feel it? He points down his bare

chest, from the hole between his tiny nipples to his bellybutton.

Oh, I say, I think I have that feeling too sometimes. - What does it

feel like? he asks and this part is easy: The world is mysterious. And,

I'm here - alive in it I say to the four year old - What does it mean?

Not so easy. I laugh - my face rocking in my hands, the dogwood

feverish with elegance - What repeating back at him does it mean?

What does it - mean? He smiles a smile of I don't know why

this adult is laughing but I'm glad I made her do it so I hope

she doesn't stop. With uncertainty and responsibility

I fumble through myself to say I am here now, just being here

now. That's what it means. The dogwood is shaking

its head back and forth No No No so I rethink but then

Yes yes yes so I rethink but then I can't find my bearings

because - you know - the light is changing - it always does

I shift, Noah picks up a bright block, the dogwood blisses -

and we three who are not three drift into quieter rooms.

15/31: Love's Searchlight

2010-05-17T06:45:00.000-07:00

Loving

is like trying

to break into

jail.

Some say,

Why would you do it?

They have no idea. The fun

of my schemes:

How can I outrun

love's searchlight

with my mouth, yelling

No no, I'm anti-escapee!

Let me stay

in this shithole

forever!

14/31: To know and be known

2010-05-14T06:57:00.000-07:00

The restaurant down the street knows me. I've learned their names,

the waiter's major, met the cook's wife. I always sit in a new place.

I'm there for hours. Each time I come back, they plump my sandwich

a little fatter. Sneak me a bowl when I asked for a cup. One day

the sandwich is so fat it falls apart. The pita skin bursts in my hands.

I cannot eat this mess. Is this love? I wonder. You want to give

so much, too much- it breaks the skin to reveal babbling ribbons.

Jacob is refilling my pot, no charge. I greedily drink my fifth, sixth,

seventh cup, until the sweetness sours. Until my teeth have a film

of sugar and my gut is sore. I walk home, past a bicycle chained

to a lamppost, whipped by this autumn wind in spring, the rain

not ready yet, poised, I am rich with the names of ordinary faces.

13/31: Untitled (Field of Apricots)

2010-05-13T19:38:00.000-07:00

I was in charge of the laundry. I used to wake up at four a.m. to do it all. I'd walk or

bike over there, be done at noon, nap till three, and then hang out with my friends.

Go swimming, or sometimes we'd go to the apricot fields outside the compound

and eat them until we were sick. Now that's what it's all about, she says, laughing.

Time is a nowhere bell, ringing. Your heart has become a field of apricots

I lose myself in. Having stuffed my mouth with orange nausea I walk home,

singing: Now that's, that's what it's all about, am I? I am, laughing.

Look Mom, that bowl of sunlight smashed on the ground

between us - how quietly it reassembles.

10-12/31

2010-05-09T21:20:00.000-07:00

10/31

Only Two Lines Long

These are the best poems.

The ones only two lines long.

11/31

Girlfriend Responds in Her Sleep

Hi, baby.

Mmm-hmm.

Business as usual.

12/31

Under all this

When I was a child

I wanted a camera

to show me what I did

during sleep.

Now I want to sleep

to find a camera

that shows me who I am

under all this daylight.

9/31: Shushing the Silence

2010-05-09T08:10:00.000-07:00

Through my window,

the wind talking

to no one again.

Who am I to say?

Perhaps,

it is shushing

the silence.

8/31: Daylily

2010-05-09T08:05:00.000-07:00

A daylily laps at my hand.

What is a daylily?

The sunshine, of course.

That is not the real question.

The real question is

not a question at all.

Just an outstretched hand.

7/31: Bit on the Shoulder

2010-05-08T18:10:00.000-07:00

Out of the wet paper bag of autumn rolled the three iced peaches of winter.

Once eaten, they left three wooden hummingbirds who unfurled into the spring.

There, a prohibited dance was under way. Bees fumbled to unzip the skirts of flowers.

It started to rain. A bicycle rusted just right, so red that summer threatened arrival.

But summer never came, and you were never born. What in the hell was I supposed

to say to my grandfather, who never had a straight answer for anything, who gave me

freakish fortunes when all I asked him was for a five for the grocery store?

A girl flung herself into the waters behind the cemetery. Back then my favorite

subject was lunchtime. My father kept his eleventh digit in a jar on the windowsill.

I'd only asked him for a number: the year he was born. You think you're the basset's hound,

Geneva. Geneva who? Let me tell you this, sweet fifteen, everybody and I mean every

body deserves the clapping tongues of flowers. No permission slip.

I was seven at the time. He was losing in checkers. The high grass was waving goodbye

or hello, depending on who's doing the watching. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise.

I was sucking the nipple of my mint chip ice cream. Radio was bursting with jazzy static.

Tell me what? That you're a straightjacket and not a straight jacket. I can

tell you when you've got flies in your butter, because I'm your Grandfather, see?

Grand, father. But, if anybody out there tries to uncrinkle your raisin, you get what

I'm saying, tries to restock your shelves funny, you remember this. And he made me

repeat it, like every bedtime: I am a rose and I will become trash. Doesn't mean

you can smoke my hash. Becca Anderson, the fifth grade queen, slept over my house

once (and only once) because he made her say it too. After he died, it still didn't make

any sense. I keep saying it anyway though, out of habit. You ever tried a peppermint

so hot it cuts a hole? But you just want more? That's love. I can still hear him.

I went to a doctor once - told him Doc, I am too much in love. I need something to calm me

down. I need not feel like a rabid baby all day. Doc said I don't have anything for that.

You know what? I'm glad, Geneva! I'm glad no one has anything that work too quick

for that! But, your Grandma didn't like that. I bit her shoulder like it was a fresh plum.

She said That's it I'm done with you - all you are is a charley horse, then she bit me back.

I cried for half a-week-and-a-half. Even when I don't want to I hear him.

You ever had it work the other way around? Think something's a mirage, but then its real?

That's marriage. Don't ever settle down unless you can hate him. Hate is good for love.

He was buttering toast in his boxers, a pot overflowing behind him, when he put everything

down to hold me. He combed my hair with his fingers - too hard! I shouted.

He said, If he's lucky, a man ends like a good song.

With no title, too soon, and just right.