Departure Insists on Distance

Let Us Not Forget The Murder of Miriam


They forgot to mention
that Snow White
was a Jew
and her pale skin
was really a disease
from the tanning beds
and oil shopping-spree
but no one joked
that it was He who
created leprosy

they forgot to mention
that Snow White
was a prophetess
and that each seven dwarfs
were really each
day of the week
depending on
which drug had peaked

during an exiled week
stimulation
never had a chance
to come clean


what they forgot to mention
about Snow White
was that He watched her dance
and He possessed the Queen
and two is never enough
cause three is always right
and when I speak to you
I am really speaking of
a third thing
and it was just
three drops of blood
that birthed Snow White
cause nothing taste
as bitter as a woman
begging HIM
for just a fucking child
so that mothers
can look at daughters
instead of mirrors
for the cyborg fountain of youth.



Art By: Serge Bloch "The Enemy"
Poetry By: I.E.L

The Pun: Your Name Becoming Unglued.

"Distance is not a safety-zone but a field of tension"- Adorno


distance no longer
allows the heart to grow fonder
but to grow colder
to self-detach
the distance, the field
thrives on the hypothetical thought
to survive, but these thoughts are
wasteful, empty
can we be practical
without forgetting
or is this when I realize
I have lost to distance


Art By: Frida Kahlo "Roots"
Poetry By: I.E.L

You Cannot Touch These Phantoms

A Linage of Pessimists

It is not what goes in one ear and out the other
but rather what takes place between the two ears.


toes tangled between cold sheets he kissed her slowly awaiting a reply from her lips he watched them not twitching, not moving, not twisting he kissed her once more awaiting a reply from her eyes he watched them not blinking, not rolling, not tracing.

he sat at the edge of his bed feeling the static run from her body through the sheets and up his spine, the mattress moaned as she cleared her throat,

"No one is laughing at God".



Art By: Unknown
Poetry By: I.E.L

The Gods Are Colliding.

art by: I.E.L



"blue lips, blue veins
blue the color of our planet
from far far away." Regina Spektor

D is for Dharma... D is for Demon...

The Dharma Astronaut

Says, "It's time.

Drop the last gas tank—
this ship is ready for space."


Through the moon-man helmet,
his eyes cross like stars.

He neglects me.
He's got it all figured out.

Abandon ship!
Abandon space!

He's landed on the moon,
ready for his slice of cheese.



Art By: Leonard Baskin
Poetry By: I.E.L

Je Rodais, Je Flanais, Je Planais

"And all the days and all the women in the cafes and all the glasses, I would have liked to drink them all and break them...and all the windows and all the lives, and all the wheels of carriages turning and turning on the, on the mauvais paves. And I wanted to plunge them all in a furnace of swords" Ferlinghetti



In Search of Being Intellects

Our story has been told already we will not be there when the buildings are wrapped in flames crumbling crumbling the establishments burning one by one the street will look and feel and taste like the christmas tree we stole but set too close too close to the fireplace each little little little light exploding showering electricity over the bare floor and you thanked God we skipped gifts that year. I.E.L

Please Do Not Eat the Ivy.

For Dust You Are
Cursed be the ground because of you.


I watched Jesús, our gardener,
push the lawn mower,
in a shirt drenched with sweat
that clung to his browned skin.

Jesús planted a garden in our backyard— structured and prim.
From my room I could hear
my father cursing Jesús
for breaking the sprinklers in his absence.
A flow would well up from the ground
and water the whole
surface of the Earth
turning the pool into a muddy mess.

After my father’s business failed
he could no longer afford Jesús.
I watched my father
push the lawn mower
sweat dripped from
the crown of his sun-burnt forehead.
In all his attempts to plant a garden
the backyard grew wild.

I could hear my father cursing Jesús
for the weeds growing in his absence.

I.E.L

Masked, Unmasked and Remasked But There is No Truth in the "I"

The Deconstruction of a Wishing Well

i do not know if i am ever undressing, dressing or redressing under all the layers all the prints, all the colors i wish to lay naked with a single sheet and only a single sheet twisted between my feet i do not understand what you make of me, but i do not care for your legs to be there i do not want to wake to feel our spines aligned like stairs ascending reality to leave the dream-state one two three four twenty-five cents for twenty-five thoughts quarters reflecting eyes reflecting quarters reflecting light, your lips twisting smirking like Washington

when i peered past the circular stones and into its dark belly you become frustrated
with my inability to make a wish one wish twenty-five cents for twenty-five thoughts one wish i threw silence telling you my mind was enough

I.E.L

What The Autopsy Didn’t Insinuate

was his hands trembled in rhythm
with her quivering small frame.

His fingers searched her rigid legs, her frozen feet
as she whispered, “bind me tighter”
he hesitated, contemplating to retreat.

When he looked up
his eye fell upon the ram
her hands caught in the thicket of its knots
the blade knew its way across the marble skin
and sunk into the puddle of blood

He cried out,
"I am here"
but God had no time to respond.

What the autopsy didn’t insinuate
was He had three seconds of eye-contact

before the small body
snuggled the burnt rubber
the engine kept growling
the wheel stayed straight:

vehicular- cat-slaughter
God was running late.


I.E.L

Poetry In Conversation: To Slay and Be Slain.

The Vengeance Demon: After Lilith Dumped Her Therapist Over Voice-Mail.

When your eyes examine me
the way a coroner
examines a body empty of life,
the way a child mocks
a locked up animal
stripped of the wild,
you curse me.

How dare you worship me,
idolize me, twist my insides
till I am no longer someone
but a thing.

If you knew what I could do
to your heart, rip it out
and suck the remains apart
as you stand
admiring, admiring, admiring
you disgusting piece of shit
hands clasped, eyes a-lift
you make me a demon,
no longer a woman,
no longer a being,
never will my agenda be free
but full of vengeance.


-I.

Silver Dagger

Matka

When I turned thirteen
they took her to a hospital
and surgery after surgery
they took one thing after another out of her
till she resembled the skeleton Jorge
from my biology class—
he seemed a little happier
wearing a sombrero.

I.


"All men are false, says my mother,
They'll tell you wicked, lovin' lies.
The very next evening, they'll court another,
Leave you alone to pine and sigh." JB