RICE
And this is hunger:
beans & rice
beans & rice.
A pang for a meal. You're broke.
Sweet butter on challah. In the eighties,
you had money, everybody did
until the stock market crash
when the lucky got richer.
Spiced chicken on flat wheat,
the chef at Kebabish
cooking for you. An immigrant with no papers
cooking just for you.
The drizzle & snap of oil on fire,
cumin bursting into pelao, biryani.
You rave, a deported illegal
wandering into the night air
sniffing the streets for gravy.
You are nearly crazy with the hint of it.
Keep walking.
It is Main Street & you're a citizen.
Remember the ceremony
& all the coca-cola & hot dogs afterwards?
Or try to imagine your old life.
Being a saleslady in Virginia
is far preferable
to the old way of life
that you lived when you were a queen
called Rani in your native country & the servants
fanned you night & day when you
snapped your fingers.
E-MAIL
Lastly, D, I wanted to be rich.
I would give you money to visit
and pay the taxi driver twice the fare.
That's a lie!
It was only a partly charitable wish.
I wanted to eat and dress like a pharoah or rani,
to be part of that drama in the elevator at Tiffany's.
Do I covet money?
Of course! To fly over.
Wouldn't it be nice to get in bed,
listen to Ella and Louis, and neck all night?
What a wonderful century
think of all its glory
and how we met over coffee
we ate cake all evening.
We didn't do anything for anybody else
on that fateful day.
REMEMBERING JEAN RHYS
Terrible, the many words,
and to think of bitter memories that come back in one's sleep
(those rude superiors on whom one swears revenge).
Better to ride over to that boutique
for the dress and lipstick you've been waiting for--
better to wear them
and remember the days you spoke with those you loved.
The lawyer who left you shillings for your heat.
The art dealer-husband who showed you style,
got locked up for embezzling.
He did that because he wanted to treat you.
Sometimes money was easy,
failure was not,
and there you were by a hotel room's heater,
writing, rouged and ready, dressed to the nines.
TODAY I AM
Today I am an egomaniac.
Everyone I know and love is an ego-maniac.
It's fun to get work done and be this way.
Sometimes I need cheering up but then remind myself --
it's time to be an ego-maniac.
You can even flatter me and I'll like it.
And I'll flatter you and mean it from the bottom of my huge,
huge heart.
Vazirani home page
Poetry, Part II
Poetry, Part III
Poetry from The Literary Review