https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/section-72-jasmine-s-poetry Poetry written by and for Jasmine. en 2005-2012 shakespearesmonekys@gmail.com 42.65593 -71.33391 Mon, 08 Jun 2026 20:33:45 GMT yacs http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 70 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12951-petit-moineaux https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12951-petit-moineaux i. the sparrow sings in the morning on wind and amber notes. i know his voice, know his song, know we live in cages we erect ourselves, nests where we hide acres of beauty. yet somewhere his ache is my ache. ii. a true sparrow has claws, a beak and two wings. i have none of these. iii. it is not inertia that keeps me a woman. gravity will take my skin, my breasts but not my hair, not my bones. my hands will hang suspended in the air, as if in flight, swirling through the dust motes. i will feel the sun on my skin and wonder the elegance of birds in flight. iv. a sparrow sleeps two by two by two. we have our own dichotomy: my pair of breasts pressed to you, two hands sliding down vertebrae, hip bones and lips touching two by two by two. v. i will not be crucified a Jezebel for red lips nor ivory skin nor suffer the lithe tone of sinew etiquette laughing with bronze throats and rose tongues. we are all of us flippant and none as perfect as the other. vi. and the sparrow will soar. throw me from the window i have already fallen. 7/9/11 ... more Jasmine Mann Jasmine's Poetry Sat, 13 Aug 2011 03:15:22 GMT /section-72-jasmine-s-poetry#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12951 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12951 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12951 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12950-fish-bones https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12950-fish-bones i. i have not fed the fish in weeks. they spin slow ripples above the surface tension of the water, dart up and down up and down up and down. somewhere beneath the driftwood lies the bones of an unfortunate casualty. its bones sway in the current: stark white ribs like fingers stretching toward the surface. in my own bed i lay with the light on my face, feeling the spaces between the intercostals. i know what hunger feels like. ii. because it is winter i pile the blankets over my chest, up to my neck. my hands are cold but you will not feel them. instead i watch as you undress as a crop of gooseprickles spreads over your torso. tonight you will not warm my bed with your pale and snaking arms writhing from beneath the covers. tonight i will hear the fish splashing in the darkness and fall asleep with my ghosts. 2/9/11 ... more Jasmine Mann Jasmine's Poetry Sat, 13 Aug 2011 03:13:30 GMT /section-72-jasmine-s-poetry#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12950 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12950 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12950 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12949-quickening https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12949-quickening i. the boxes are stacked above me, towering with a sense of unease I've felt since a child. we pack our things inside four walls, we pack our things inside our walls, always inside. ii. I stand outside the store, loitering in the snow. my lips are blue as my scarf, cheeks white enough to mask the snowflakes and tears that fall upon them, ensconced in silence. I am empty, but I press my fingers through my coat to feel if something will press back. somewhere a baby will fill the clothes in the window, somewhere a woman is pregnant, but she is not me she is not me she is not me iii. being for the benefit of love, I can no longer draw lines in the sand, I can no longer watch as the waves dissolve our boundaries in foam. we are miles from the ocean, we are miles from anywhere, we are we are we are we are iv. there is a quickening in the way the tires hit the road, gliding across the frozen asphalt; it will be Spring soon. ... more Jasmine Mann Jasmine's Poetry Sat, 13 Aug 2011 03:12:26 GMT /section-72-jasmine-s-poetry#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12949 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12949 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12949 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12948-memento-mori https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12948-memento-mori I. the ants have found fresh kill. they march mechanically in and out of their holes they have tunneled through the earth. i wonder how they do this i wonder if one of their six legs they use as tiny hands to gently move each grain of dirt, smaller than a pebble, smaller than a crumb i wonder if they think of cells and how they orchestrate these tiny grains with their tiny hands into their home, into nothing II. she was buried on a school day. it was cold and it rained and i wore my tights with that green dress my mother would make me wear to church. i walked under the tin rooves to the resounding thundering of my thoughts, like a million tiny ant feet skittering and pattering and running through my mind until i wanted to scream like lightning until i wanted to run to run to run to run to run III. her skin was not black. it was the color of cold coffee my mother drank in the mornings after she fixed my breakfast after she fixed my hair after she fixed my tears when she told me ashley was gone i looked for her on the bus but her seat was empty and cold and the color of coffee my mother drank IV. the rain continued to fall as we stood under the eaves as she lay surrounded by white ashley was not white, i wanted to scream she was my best friend and the dress she wore was not her dress, the doll she clutched was not her doll, her fingers were too stiff and her eyes oh god her eyes they buried her without her eyes V. somewhere in Texas there is a grave in pink granite and the ants march tirelessly, tunneling, ever tunneling through the earth like great roots spreading around a casket, cradling a seven year old's petite, white bones 12/01/10 ... more Jasmine Mann Jasmine's Poetry Sat, 13 Aug 2011 03:10:59 GMT /section-72-jasmine-s-poetry#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12948 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12948 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12948 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12947-as-the-night https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12947-as-the-night I am not afraid of dying. It is the living I fear for, as the nights endure in slow, lacunal embalmment. I am drained; my anxieties all that is left in the fleshy frame of this body I call a woman - a veritable Pandora. I am not afraid of dying. No - I am afraid your hands will tire of the weight of my breasts pressed against you. I am afraid my lips will no longer be welcome to wrap themselves around your hard shaft, taking you in deeper as I suffer your moans, as the night lingers in apathy. I am afraid the sheets will stay too clean and crisp when you are not there, when I part my thighs to touch the quivering wetness that lays between them. I am afraid of never giving myself fully in the throes of marriage and sex and orgasm. I am afraid one day I will lose the strength of character to tell you I am done I am done I am done I am done. 11/29/10 ... more Jasmine Mann Jasmine's Poetry Sat, 13 Aug 2011 03:09:56 GMT /section-72-jasmine-s-poetry#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12947 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12947 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12947 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12946-i-ve-never-known-snow https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12946-i-ve-never-known-snow November was the death of us. It would come with the mist of rain, gray mottled skies and the chill of winter digging into old bones. We never wore mittens back then. Never learned to throw a snowball, never made a snow angel, nor gave birth to a snowman. We only knew of ice; the world outside our glass house. At night we would be ushered into the cold. Play, she would tell us. Dinner will be ready soon. But we both knew what that meant. The window would close with a lengthy sigh, the drapes as wide and deep as the night. But you could still hear the yelling, the slaps, the sound of a heavy fist making contact with bone. And all the while no snowflakes fell, no icicles chimed in the moaning November wind, and the cat would sit at the door meowing for his dinner. 11/18/10 ... more Jasmine Mann Jasmine's Poetry Sat, 13 Aug 2011 03:08:33 GMT /section-72-jasmine-s-poetry#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12946 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12946 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12946 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12945-odin-s-song-postpartum https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12945-odin-s-song-postpartum I. Nine days I hung from the boughs of great Yggdrasil; limbs wrapped tightly 'round my neck - a choked and dry tongue scraping across lips as I tried to speak with the taste of ash and leaves in my mouth, as I prayed to Odin, as the branches clawed at taut skin and a swollen belly. But the runes were silent. II. It was there from the depths of my womb he was ripped - bloody and screaming, as my arms reached for him, as the branches silenced my tongue with ashes and leaves, as Odin swallowed the last of my voice. And still the runes were silent. III. I do not know the husk of this body anymore. I do not knows its skin nor its hips nor its breasts nor its curves. I only know of blood and placenta, stretched skin and an empty belly, my body a broken Ragnarok. IV. He speaks to me in runes, and I know him; I know his skin as his tiny limbs wrap tightly 'round my neck, as my arms swallow his body in a close embrace. ... more Jasmine Mann Jasmine's Poetry Sat, 13 Aug 2011 03:06:31 GMT /section-72-jasmine-s-poetry#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12945 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12945 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12945 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12468-woman-of-sin https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12468-woman-of-sin Icarus dreamed to fly on feathers and wax, the brave fool. And braver still, his pagan voodoo and amber prison; Fingertips spread wide as the flames burned. I've dreamed of the quiet before the fall. Of icy depths and emerald fire. Fingertips spread wide as the waves drown. Temptation, I know you. The sea has swallowed my wings and I am the straw that lashed the beast's back - a whore, a sin, a woman. 6/29/10 Jasmine Mann Jasmine's Poetry Sat, 03 Jul 2010 03:16:47 GMT /section-72-jasmine-s-poetry#comments 1 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12468 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12468 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12468 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12467-25399-vonnegut-7-30 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12467-25399-vonnegut-7-30 our time is borrowed in fragments here on earth we have fooled ourselves into believing we are the pendulum of the universe; the great axe that departs head from shoulders in a steaming spray of red fireworks. we wage wars for fun, slaughter innocence and lamb alike with a cool monochrome demeanor and let old die too soon. 5/13/10 Jasmine Mann Jasmine's Poetry Thu, 01 Jul 2010 18:50:27 GMT /section-72-jasmine-s-poetry#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12467 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12467 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12467 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12398-the-hero-always-gets-the-girl-6-30 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12398-the-hero-always-gets-the-girl-6-30 Marriage is not about you and I. We were rich before we were poor - before the stigma of a white picket fence, a squalling babe at my breast and a 401K. We were free. You would act the Robin Hood and I the Maid Marian, laughing through Sherwood Forest; the gold slipping between our fingers as we made love carelessly beneath the trees. But you are no hero, and I am no maid. The mornings hold no stories as we rise from our bed to start the coffee, make the breakfast, pack the children off to school and let Nottingham sleep. ... more Jasmine Mann Jasmine's Poetry Mon, 26 Apr 2010 04:01:18 GMT /section-72-jasmine-s-poetry#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12398 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12398 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12398 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12397-blue-is-for-sale-5-30 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12397-blue-is-for-sale-5-30 I am creating art. My eyes paint you as you undress, trying to fit which part goes where. I imagine my hands touching you in tones of cerulean or perhaps viridian. You speak of love, but charity is a fickle mistress and we are both for sale. Abed, we won’t speak as you press your hips to mine; and I will wait for you like stretched canvas. Jasmine Mann Jasmine's Poetry Mon, 26 Apr 2010 04:00:03 GMT /section-72-jasmine-s-poetry#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12397 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12397 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12397 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-5442-death-has-no-name-4-30 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-5442-death-has-no-name-4-30 I can’t remember the ocean the way I used to - the way sand felt beneath bare feet, how gulls circled lazily overhead, picking at the carcass of a washed up Portugese man-o-war. Bronze bodies stretched across the sand. Tight ribs thrust up like some great Naga; emaciated and trying to slither free of a three thousand dollar prison. Near the shore, sand castles would rise and fall, as if every child were a politician and every wave were God; the tide leaving fish to rot in the sun. Poetic Insomniac Jasmine's Poetry Mon, 26 Apr 2010 03:59:05 GMT /section-72-jasmine-s-poetry#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/5442 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/5442 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A5442 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12396-the-girl-with-poetry-on-her-arms-3-30 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12396-the-girl-with-poetry-on-her-arms-3-30 I knew her. She was the kid who would write poetry on her arms in black sharpie because she liked the way they smelled. Her mother kissed her every morning and made sure each lunch sack had a note with a little heart on it and the words: “love” and “hope” and “faith”. At the lunch table the kids would tease her and draw penises for her arms, scribbled with words like: “poop” and “stupid” and “hate”. At home, she’d stab her arms over the l’s and o’s until they bled and she would always wear a jacket at dinner. It was on a summer day I saw her thirteen year old body being dragged from the house on Elm Street. She had hung herself in her room, wrote a note with a little heart on it in black sharpie on her arms. A few years later, I saw her mother at a store and saw the tattoo on her arm as black as sharpie, with only one word: “despair”. ... more Jasmine Mann Jasmine's Poetry Mon, 26 Apr 2010 03:58:06 GMT /section-72-jasmine-s-poetry#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12396 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12396 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12396 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12370-where-trees-grow https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12370-where-trees-grow I. behind a tiny house stood a small grove of giant pines. they soared above her as she ran past them bare-foot, limbs flailing behind her - toes tunneling in the cool earth, running, always running to escape the giant that towered over her. II. in the kitchen he would rage at her with his fists, her adult frame crumpling beside the wall, ceramic wind-chimes shattering; I would fall on sapling knees, tiny limbs twisted in dread, watch as bruises unfurled like pine cones on her skin. III. it was his favorite and she had to look her best for him. the dress was tiered taffeta and velvet - a deep hunter green that whispered a forest of pines as she ran. IV. I stood underneath the boughs, still and cold, rooted to the earth, smearing fat, wet tears on the dress he tore during his ravage; tiny seven-year old hands weeping with sap. the same hands that, afterward, stroked her beaten face, still and cold. I had forgotten how beautiful she was. V. the house was vacant and he had been gone for many years, but mother and daughter would return to the grove, walk under the giant pines, shed tears like seeds and wonder where trees grow. ... more Jasmine Mann Jasmine's Poetry Mon, 19 Apr 2010 23:05:57 GMT /section-72-jasmine-s-poetry#comments 1 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12370 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12370 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12370 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12384-of-ladybugs-and-growing-up-2-30 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12384-of-ladybugs-and-growing-up-2-30 My son held a ladybug in his fingers once and asked me: “What is dead?” I didn’t have an answer. I asked myself the same once, as I sat and watched a ladybug drown in my coffee. She tried to swim and I imagined her mouth - gaping and gasping for air. I didn’t move to help her as she thrashed for the last time; her body slowly dragging in spirals. The ladybug was so small and red I thought it looked a little like blood. I never wept. Back in his room on the floor, my son sat looking at me in all his three year old innocence. On the carpet her body had been pulled apart - legs crumpled, red wings held gingerly in his hands. I looked at him with all my adult wisdom, but he only ever asked the one question: “Mama, is she dead?” And we both wept. ... more Jasmine Mann Jasmine's Poetry Fri, 16 Apr 2010 04:44:28 GMT /section-72-jasmine-s-poetry#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12384 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12384 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12384 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12383-spring-is-not-here-1-30 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12383-spring-is-not-here-1-30 the peonies are early this year pink petals clasped tightly around the morning dew ladies parade about in skirts, twirling loosely, pink fabric splaying circles around bare legs I look down in my lap, see pants - black fabric clasped tight to my skin and think I am no lady I am no flower Jasmine Mann Jasmine's Poetry Fri, 16 Apr 2010 04:42:46 GMT /section-72-jasmine-s-poetry#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12383 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12383 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12383 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12009-my-father-s-last-symphony https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12009-my-father-s-last-symphony my father had an old piano made of oak that he’d pile various things on top of. the surface was golden lacquered, soft, and obsessively polished. there was a brass lamp and a bench where old music sheets were stored; the keys traditional black and white, except for the nicotine stains from the many times he’d smoke while banging the keys, writing notes, erasing them, trying to make them into something more than snuffed cigarette butts, and an over-flowing ash tray. I never actually saw him play. when I was twelve he told me the tragedy of Beethoven, how he sawed off the legs of his piano, banged on the keys, ear pressed against the floor to try and get the music out of his head. I never actually saw him play, either. the first song I ever played was one of Beethoven’s. my father taught me and I practiced every day, trying to get the notes just right, banging them, erasing them until my father asked me to stop. eventually he quit smoking and I quit playing but I still buried him; like a thousand used cigarettes like a thousand notes under his bench like a thousand deaf symphonies. ... more Jasmine Mann Jasmine's Poetry Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:32:52 GMT /section-72-jasmine-s-poetry#comments 1 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12009 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12009 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12009 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12020-maelstrom https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12020-maelstrom In the dank echo of the night this mother will soothe away night terrors: terrible krakens rising from the depths of synapse and bone and hot chocolate. Yet still midnight slithers on and my pages are filled with nothing - the rarest flutter of breath in that space between the neck and the shoulder and lace. You come to me, husband, in this squall of isolation with your bible of body; fingers like tentacles wrapping around my skin, a wave of murmur telling me there is no time, there is no poetry. Jasmine Mann Jasmine's Poetry Tue, 27 Oct 2009 05:27:12 GMT /section-72-jasmine-s-poetry#comments 3 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12020 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12020 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12020 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-577-0303060237-prenatal-butterfly-phase-1 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-577-0303060237-prenatal-butterfly-phase-1 there's something growing inside this belly an ache for a future a twinge for happiness (love, as it is) so tell me, my darling humor me, when we decided the condom would break when we decided, lust (this mother's vice) before love, that  you would be a father, and i a mother when did we choose? (to want our child) tell me, love will you be leaving when i am fat and ugly a screaming baby left (healthy in my arms) nursing at my breast before you, will you want what is left between these legs after birth? (will you still want our baby?) ... more Jasmine Mann Jasmine's Poetry Fri, 02 Oct 2009 05:00:33 GMT /section-72-jasmine-s-poetry#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/577 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/577 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A577 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-11922-babel-tongue https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-11922-babel-tongue I. Here and there the sound of a dumbek can be heard through the toes of this third story apartment. The noise is an ever-arcing crescent, the beat waxing and waning: doum doum doum I imagine the man: sweaty palms, and seasoned fingertips gliding over the smooth surface of the leather. A thousand years of Islamic history and culture wanting to be heard and remembered. II. You bang the pots as loud as any three-year old with chubby hands. A thousand days of exuberance waiting to be exorcised from the body like some uncontrollable demon. “Mommy, look” you say; and you want to be heard, so your feet stamp and shake the floor - ten tiny toes thrumming the carpet’s surface like dancers in a harem. III. You are the language I speak and we won’t understand each other with dry tongues. But sometime after midnight when bellies are full and the laundry is folded neatly, and your voice is a breath, you’ll shuffle out, sleepy-eyed whisper, “Mommy, look”. Palms sweaty and fingertips grasping yours, we’ll remember to turn off the lights, leaving shadows on the walls and crawl back in bed like the slow beat of a drum. ... more Jasmine Mann Jasmine's Poetry Sun, 27 Sep 2009 16:38:42 GMT /section-72-jasmine-s-poetry#comments 2 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/11922 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/11922 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A11922