Rochelle Owens: Hermaphropoetics/Desire

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In this story

ripening on the vine   so to speak

In this story   a warhol-like

playfulness

a vinyl fruit of desire

teasing femme/homme

bringing millions to their knees

In a dream of a hermaphrodite

in silhouette

her/his body

elegant the fusion of human and bird

vertical   horizontal

l’amour impossible   l’amour possible

the physical poetic

iridescent her pelvis   his/her body

spiritual/carnal

inside a  dark purple fruit

the core divided

In a dream of a boy warrior

with bright red lips

her skin   berries and apricots

diaphanous   floating

languid the tendrils of pubic hair

a flush of wet hot air burning

her neck and face

Sorcery of his female brain

In this story   a warhol-like

playfulness

teasing femme/homme

her teeth overlapping   licking     

a clot of blood

A hunter gatherer   meat   nuts   fruit

his platinum blond curls

bringing millions to their knees

Love of the hermaphrodite

like a white swan

her hollow bones   sculpted   delicate

elegant the fusion

of human and bird

his hollow bones glowing under

a black light

magnetic her hollow bones

glowing in the dark

Meek sweetness the face the face

of the hermaphrodite   teasing femme/homme

Out of the hole of Baudelaire

emerging from the mists of Cumae

A long curved fingernail

tracing a circle   a cleft  tracing

the pink mauve folds

tracing the flower vulva

the mother misery   the father terror

a slit in the stalk   blood seeping

carnal/spiritual

green and pale the scrotal lily

In this story   a warhol-like

playfulness

a vinyl fruit of desire

teasing femme/homme

bringing millions to their knees
 

[Note. Rochelle Owens' latest book, Out of Ur: New & Selected Poems 1961-2012is now awaiting publication by Shearsman Books.  Of her poems here & elsewhere I wrote: “There is a voice in Owens’ work … like a fierce and unrelenting force of nature. Sharp and visual, she combines a landscape with a poetics, the domestic with the mythic, machines with the organic living world from which arises a construct and a fused vision: poetry and life.”(J.R.)