Shams' Muse

  Poem 22. Global Mala I dedicate my practice and my poem to the girl on the mat beside me. She squirrelled her glasses in a sneaker, and sat straight and erect beside me, Her hands clasped in her lap. Her ribs swelling and collapsing with each breath. She wore a jap mala on her wrist which I looked at on every Chaturanga Dandasana, as if counting the beads, the 108 beads, one for every sun salutation. I didn't count after six, but I tried.   Poem 23. Fishbowl The fish swim outside my window, big lips kissing the clouds, fins swaying backwards and forwards, tails navigating left and right. I live in a castle with a drawbridge that opens and closes, powered by a motor that lies beneath the road, beneath the sewer pipes. The bravest fish swims in my window, an angelfish, it doesn't notice me lying on my bed, but swims out the door, and out the drawbridge, back to the air. Poem 24. Pearl If you would give me a chance, I would pry open your heart, And show you that there...

Poem 15. Empty Apartment This apartment is not for rent. Not for you, at any rate. You visited it before, I remember you. I walked you through the rooms, cleaned it through the cupboards before you came, scrubbed the fridge, repainted the walls. I showed you the water pressure, the light switches, the closets. I told you how happy I was here, the neighbours are quiet. You loved it. It was perfect. You said you'd take it and I waited for your call. Waited, waited, waited. Others called and I said I had rented it out. Rented my apartment. But you never called back. The apartment is empty. Don't come back now and ask to see it again.   ©Rachel Levine 2007 Poem 16. I can’t sleep he says and I don't remember my dreams either. What was the last one? He runs his finger around the rim of his glass. I dreamed I couldn't sleep and I was watching late night television. The sign behind him is for a band that played last week. It was as real as this. This could be a dream, he says. ...

  The New Math part III . The unknown   I met Danny on-line.   I met Danny because I liked his myspace pictures. In one, he was holding an axe, with one foot resting on a tree stump. He was wearing a bright blue shirt, glasses, and a toque. He looked like an extremely scrawny lumberjack. In another picture shot from above, he was looking up while sawing a log. He was squinting into the camera and his teeth stuck out like a rabbit’s. He struck me as unintentionally manly.   I emailed him, “Nice axe .” He emailed me back. After about a month of periodic correspondence on myspace, Danny told me he was going to Boston for several months on an internship. We didn’t email. In fact, we lost touch altogether. In the interim, I met a man and had a tragic romance.   I emailed Danny again when my tragic romance ended. He said, “I thought we broke up as myspace friends.” I wrote back, “True love forever.”   We kept in touch regularly after that. Danny began to email me...

  The New Math IV?   Robot Psychology   For a few weeks, I liked a robot psychologist. He didn't reciprocate the sentiment. He sent me an email: I can not give you what you want. I re-read it six times and finally began to cry. I suppose things ended much better in my imagination. In my imagination, things did not end but began.   I wrote the above story for the robot psychologist in question. I told him I would write him a story because he was enthusiastic and encouraging about my art, far more than he was about me. But, now when I read it back to myself, I realize that it is not a story at all, but a poem. So, I am writing a new story for him because he told me I could if I changed his name. But I also wanted him to have the story because it was something I could give to him even though we no longer had contact. The poem is brief and I wanted to write a story about my rage, which was large.   For a few weeks . Let us start with that lie. Because as a writer, I...

  The New Math IV?   Rainer Franz Mendel’s name was composed of three first names. I am always suspicious of people who change their first names, as if they were too flippant about identity, or too fearful to commit to being themselves. With a name change, one could become an entirely new persona in the life of someone already established and steer it in a new direction. Rainer, by accident of his parents’ choices, could alter his identity simply by changing the part of the name with which people addressed him. This fact alone should have clued me in immediately that I would not be dealing with one person, but three, or perhaps even more. It should have clued me in to steer clear, since I am not equipped for storms anymore. But, I often overlook what I need to in pursuit of my ends. Besides, Rainer’s evasions were subtle, and they returned me to a time in my life when I blamed myself for everything, especially the crimes of others.   Rainer was in the hospital when we met...

  Vase by Rachel Levine   I am taking what I thought would be a short cut through a forested part of the city, only it isn’t working as planned. I follow the fence, trying to locate a breach as I walk further and further from my intention. I reflect on the hints and allegations of my life, ruminating on its randomness and my limited abilities to steer and predict outcomes. Everyone has an answer. They closet themselves in the study of scholarly esoterica, enforce a brute Ukranian do or die approach, surrender to cosmic flow, check the position of the retrograde planets, put faith in the orchestration of the higher powers, or refuse to acknowledge anything beyond the most immediate. Their mantras are a temporary litany: Become the most positive person you know, Envision the outcome you want and it will happen, Equanimity, This too shall pass. But I belong to the Church of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and their comfort eventually slides off; I remain stormy and anxious, ...