Eating in Afghanistan

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 01:03:17 -0500

first draft

red earth for miles – smoldering and speckled

with the markings of aggression – artillery holes

and camouflaged tents and metal instruments

of war confronting cloudlessness. Men rest

on folding chairs in white underwear and t-shirts,

stained with dirt, some of them wrap shirts around their heads

like turbans – either an ignorant joke or

a practical way of keeping close-shaved heads

from burning in the oppressive heat.

in this silence dry grit finds its way in between teeth

and nose hairs and who knows where.

they sneeze and sweat and wonder

when the mail will come, if it will come

because it will come too late – what to do

with a package addressed to a purple heart.

eventually they take out the potato chips

and the crossword puzzle books

and the preservative-filled packages

and stare at them until someone who is practical

eats it. no waste when you miss oreos this much.

laughter only comes later when they realize

opening another man’s mail is a federal offense

and that the intended recipient is laughing and cheering

them on from heaven, if they still believe. laughing like when

the goats got into the marijuana plants near the village.

chemicals released in their hot, furred bellies, stumbling

in a daze. and he told Canty to fuck around with one.

so Canty poked the animal with the end

of his gun up and down the wasteland’s lazy inclines

asking if it had the munchies. it couldn’t say that it did.

Text from my most recent poem, first-draft. Because the Grimm Brothers do it best. Looking back...

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 18:50:38 -0500

Text from my most recent poem, first-draft. Because the Grimm Brothers do it best.

Looking back on the Gold Slipper

by: Evelyn Seay

Every morning, with birds bidding me forward

I open the doors of the armoire in my bedroom

to admire my fortune: my golden slipper

fitting only my dainty foot.

I kept it, that golden slipper which doomed my sisters

to their lame gait and blind grimace. It is still

stained with their desperate mutilation.

A reminder that I am deserving.

In it, I see once beautiful faces, now scarred and caved-in

at the eye sockets. I see them sitting in darkness, surrounded

by darkness and by the dust they cannot see.

Aschenputtel. Cinderella. I haven’t touched dust in years.

By my slipper, I remember pools of blood on the parlor’s floor

and the sound of their tears because they sacrificed for nothing;

Because I sacrificed nothing and yet

I am queen, not kitchen wench. And I am not remorseful.

Every morning , I open my armoire, taking a deep breath of my palace,

heavily perfumed with pear-blossoms and remember

my sisters, and their misfortunes

and I smile.

extraneous.

Eating in Afghanistan

Text from my most recent poem, first-draft. Because the Grimm Brothers do it best. Looking back...