May 21-27, 2001: Angélique Jamail and Jenn Rubi

Bio (auto)

Angélique Jamail has a cat named Isis She earned her degree in English-Creative Writing from The University of Houston She lives and writes poetry and fiction in Houston most of the time and ponders daily the strange conceptions people from other states have about Texas Her first book of poems, Gypsies, came out in late 1998, and she expects to complete her second book, Barefoot on Marble, sometime in late 2001 She counts librettos and the occasional textbook among her minor publications Her poems have been featured in various anthologies and journals, most recently including issues of Curbside Review.

The following work is Copyright © 2001, and owned by Angélique Jamail and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsover without written permission from the author.

The Deaf Listen for Atlantis This deep, the debate over waves and particles can be settled The light is grainy, too far spotted by the sand I’ve disturbed to be tossed by currents of water above My keen eyes barely see, but the fringe edges of my shawl seem even darker here than the midnight trickles of dye trailing behind me I should not have worn it walking into the wet, where the salt stings the burnt-out velvet and grits against my skin Down here is more than quiet And even the cold water cannot penetrate my ears into soundful vessels I am the narrow bowl of silence Finding the sound of even my own voice will not climb the steep, smooth slope any more than I can grind pearls to spice under my bare feet In the foam green light, a seahorse is reluctantly visible, his every watery breath like a tiny sponge being squeezed The silent bubbles are what I have The bubbles, and nothing else. Flying Kites on a Grainy Day inspired by the photograph “Reflections on the Beach” by Grady Carter I have only a few memories of my brother, most not of his words or his face or his clothes, but of the strangeness, the grainy air of disconnection that we breathed when we were together He used to stand in the tide every day, staring at the curve of the planet and watching the waves fold the years under themselves He always seemed to be waiting for the next life to snatch his impatient soul into its next home, while I stared at the curve of his shoulders and rarely spoke, knowing so little what to speak about I buried sisterly love in the beach where we lived, reaching out to him with the tail of a kite that bumped around in my brother’s grainy wind The sea was cold then, even colder than now when his steps have been erased from our beach, from our house And the air feels distinctly smoother, and I trade my regrets every day for the tail of a kite. Earthquakes in Houston The earthquakes of Houston build the mountains of people’s lives, the subduction zones of thought and feeling These are different from the West Coast tremors that only move stuff around No fingers of earth raised up in folded hands like Brazil nuts, here is the flat-footed lack of arch The fingers of the planet fold and form a rocky steeple – pop its knuckles and see all the people fall in? Not here, where talk is earthquakes reined, and earthquakes are tears and laughter and shaking your hair out so violently even the lightning gets caught in it. Epiphany The first time the understanding hit me that stars did not go away in the daytime sky, but that their light is only blinded out by the sun, the sky paled from blue to yellow to white, and later, when all the heat of summer focused into the smallest, brightest punctures above the dusk-darkened trees, a glowing crescent already was moving across the sky and hanging in the balance.

Jenn Rubi
jennmrubi@yahoo.com

Bio (auto)

Hello, I am Jenn Rubi, a 27 year old, Californian born Latina/North Jersey girl hybrid  I now reside high in the hills of Jasper, Georgia, where I enjoy spacing out in the woods, and creating art These 4 poems are titled: Living with 2 black Labs, Blue Ridge, HIGH, & Coward.

The following work is Copyright © 2001, and owned by Jenn Rubi and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsover without written permission from the author.

Living with 2 black Labs I am so used to the tapdance of dogs’ claws across a floor, sometimes from the next room I imagine them tophats & canes, barrel chested, porkchop legged Fred Astaires, the speckled purple of liverlips curled up in smiles,   pink and pointy whites like they do when Kings of the convertible, 2 black licorice gumdrops expanding and contracting in the fresh air, only missing aviator caps and goggles Ski masks when they’re casing our pizza, raptor style. Blue Ridge I could grow old here grown over with kudzu, sprawling tremendous, swaggering towards the sky Photosynthesize in spring sun, by serenade of crisp birdcalls among the layered secrets of branches Home in these woods, content to be timeless as any condemned fill station, rundown ramshackle, widowed moonshine still, abandoned rock mound, deserted chimney I could become part stardust mountain skyline, turquoise shoulders fading to indigo, freedom expansive as hawks flight. HIGH I DAYDREAM at least 9 hours a day SOMETIMES there is music so loud WITHIN MY BRAIN I would have to read your lips TO UNDERSTAND. Coward I used to think I was born for you the way we came together and all the psychic puzzle pieces I loved you with life in my hands, I cannot believe it is all in my head I have dreams that we are happy again and wake up killed but still breathing I must really be crazy a “freak” just like you said And you are the joker so I must be your joke; cannot live without you and yet I am a survivor of you So I figured it out Don’t need you to tell me, don’t even want to hear you say it anymore All this love turning to hate But you got what you wanted right?