Sadi Ranson-Polizzotti
Sadi Ranson-Polizzotti, is the founder and editor of The Tant Mieux Project (www.tantmieux.squarespace.com) and a Senior Cultural & Political Editor at Cyrano's journal (www.bestcyrano.org) as well as a frequent contributor to Teleread.org and the famous Cleveland Blogcritics for whom she covers all manner of cultural comment, review (music, books, and poetry). She has been published in print form in various anthologies, including a Book of the Month Club selection, and her first book, Eels which was published in London and Paris to excellent reviews. She is presently working on a biography of Lewis Carroll for Continuum-Books, New York, London, and Tokyo. She is a professor at Emerson Graduate School of Publishing. You may find out more about Ms. Ranson's work and career by visiting Wikipedia.org.
Verboten
I should not, but I do. You are verboten to me - incestuous in some way, yet still I do. You are cousin, brother, lover, kindred and twin. I fall to you the way summer days bear sweet and heavy storms, -- a real deluge all thunder lightning and the humidity breaks and the air is still - - redolent of that bright blue electric that felled two tall trees and they fell to eachother as if they had been waiting all their lives, as if they were in love. This really happened: I saw this in Wisconsin. And what, then cousin, if I fall? Would you then fall too? Would you catch me, gallantly, sweetly, cousin's kiss, kissing cousins, forget about otherwise, otherways; S.O.S. -- situation too dangerous. I have fallen for the wave of your hair, the green of your stare, the spiced scent of your skin, the blood of your blood which is mine own. We have walked the same roads; our shoes now covered with whitest dust, -- marble and limestone. I look into your large opal, so changeable eyes - - see myself reflected there; see you looking too at a land so distant home on the farther shore.
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The Status of Secrets
Tonight, even the sea is furious. she will not hold your lies, nor keep secret your comings, your goings, the way you line up the words, a half-smile on your face as if to make each believable, each unbelievable thing, each coincidental happy accident of you and some she, as if all of us were blind to the ways of desire. When did you think that my own heart had given up its secrets? When did you think that you alone were the one and that none other could ever permeate what clearly some other has cut through to you. Really,
it's remarkable to think that after all this time, you still think I'll be the dopey girl who fell and whom you kissed, long-treasured, long forgotten by you. The best you can say is that it is I who looks for trouble, that in my utter craziness and histrionics I must fabricate affairs to make my dull life more interesting as if any of this were interesting to anyone, anywhere. No.
I am through with this now. I may stand here and smile, I may stay for a long time a while, I may stay a thousand years but never will I forget the wasted tears the nights of fret, the aching regret that I had given up so much and for what?
some half-assed promise of fidelity, that when i offered infidelity even that would not do because it's only so good as it's a secret. I'd like to fuck it all out of you. I'd like to storm and rage and beat my fierce hurt against the wall, I'd like to break and shatter every married thing, every pot, every cup, every once treasured thing and then walk across the shards, barefoot, a holy man, I'd feel no pain, my feet bloodied and sore, twin stigmata I'd bear it out without a word.
After all, isn't that what makes me your girl? That I can take it all on. That I listen to the same sorry song, time after time, I take you back. It is at once my gift and my weakness. Did you think I do not see this? So now, with the heart bent, with this pale and crooked love, I still try, still buying the lines, still believing each token gift has some deeper meaning, that this time is the last, that this time you are sorry, that this time you understand this time this time this time until the next time, the last time, this much I promise. it is my
last and only vow. The last time will be an end. That I'll leave behind only these sad strings of words that none shall ever read, especially not you. That my final note will go unread and instead life will go on, as it does, because for as much as we hurt, as much as we grieve, as much as I have loved, a realist I know that even I must suck it up, that in death there is no mercy no escape, no blissful state, just endless silence, nothingness and space.
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| Glass Antlers You | Two Words
So carefully we nuzzle, playfully tonight, today, I am missing you in the cold in the warm in the light in the last in the after in the inter-ictal moments it is to you my thoughts turn. I know of you and your breakable glass antlers locking with my own crystal-palace smoothlings. I am breakable … just like you the paradox lock-box key toss you-mine me-yours. So long it has been – how fragile, yet how strong, still the old fear; meet the new fresh - the what if, what if, what if... if we two, dear, lock closer so afraid that glass will shatter – then what will we have what is left but splintered-glass in the crystalline snow your fear your fear your fear. Know : your breakable glass antlers I would polish so gentle. I would touch you careful as a summer monarch landing gentle padded feet upon a petal I would angle my own breakable glass- intertwining with your own; I do this because I Believe the fit would be safe. |
In a Foreign Land
You have just left and still I can taste you. The sage of your kiss, redolent on my tongue. I drink you in, savoring each drop. Some consolation that I know you too think the same. That as I sit by our window, you are rounding the corner to West Side Drive to make the long ride home where you’ll again share a bed with a woman you love but don’t love. A love that confuses. It says Everything is here, yet nothing is here . Our love says, Every thing is here, Everything is here – a chant, I hear it when we make love; it is Arabic, repeating, a sound that parses the distance in a country that once saw us that dry, dusty land where you had me decorated with silver bells. A string here here and here here, you said, wrapping your fingers around each ankle, wrist, showing the vendor what you wanted How he smiled, knowing us lovers and we kissed freely before him with no-one to stop us. After, you smiled, said, When we make love, they will beat a steady pulse , jingle jangle silver sweet, we will know the sound of our love making and you kissed me full on while outside an Arab sang, and we made love, the space of the room filling with such Arabic chants and the steady-beat of bells, the sound of your/my name as we shouted out loud, an affirmation, a prayer. , that lifts lifts lifts and after, after, you insist we visit the market, buying spice and your favorite rich saffron that is “ours for the kissing” My ankles sing as we walk, an ever-present reminder. You jump, run, see if you can get the rhythm, and then are off like a shot. How you tease, cousin, please. How you ran more slowly in order that I catch you. How you took me down a narrow road, how you kissed me again as if it had been years, as if for the first time ever. |
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adi_Ranson
The Olive Branch
He kept extending the olive branch, a gentle, tender reed and with a snap I sent it back, a hard slap to the face. His face redding then, not of laugher but of shame... Shame, shame. So this is how you play? I will always win at this game – I am better at this than you. Fair warning. I may be fragile yes, but I can be a cold fucking bitch. This Is How We Play – the family call. He wants to know how I feel: The rallying cry: Blah. I never did like a coward – Never figured him for one. But, hey, surprise, I was wrong. We are different after all... For all I thought we shared – commonality, recognition...what a lark. He said, I keep trying to reassure, reassure. No. We are not alike at all. I may indeed by bashful. Yes, shyer than even he. Afraid of so very much. More. Still, I face my fears every day In this way I know – the pendulum it swings epileptic, unknown – throw me a seizure, the next one? When do I die? Is it with a kiss? This takes courage. I am no martyr. I don’t need a savior. Keep your putrid pity, sympathy, even empathy. I just wanted his hand… this is all… Something real to hold… real, less real. You follow, don’t you? Didn’t he need that too? If nothing else, I am a journalist: Objective. I do not misread. Even he, the best editor, can never edit me. |
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