Experimental Poet & Novelist

Glyphic is a Semi-Finalist

Glyphic was a semi-finalist in the Elixir Press Seventh Annual Poetry Awards. There were more than 500 manuscripts. Please see the Prologue from Glyphic published at Zygote in My Coffee last year. For more of my novella-in-verse please contact me.

Publishing History

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Osama's Rhyming Couplets

"Bin Laden called on President Bush to return Zarqawi's body to his family, and used rhyming couplets to eulogise the dead al-Qaeda leader" (from BBC NEWS online).

It appears that Osama bin Laden is somewhat of a poet. It seems to me that poetry naturally has a revolutionary, countercultural current in it. So this is not really a surprise. Look at how eloquently Ernesto "Che" Guevara wrote in The Motorcyle Diaries. There is one description of a gilded catholic church compared to an older woman wearing too much makeup.

I would like to see Georgie W. write rhyming couplets.

Conversation between Person and Mushroom

MUSHROOM: Can I borrow your Central Nervous System?

PERSON: Why?

MUSHROOM: I gotta phone the boss.

The Moleskin Poems (written in Bangkok) | RMC's Biography

© 2005 by Ralph-Michael Chiaia

News

RECENT NEWS:

After visiting Bangkok this summer and then touring some of the Thai tourist meccas I am back with some new poems, tentatively entitled the Moleskin Poems. It represents a new move in my poetry. These poems do more things at once: are more mature, more playful, more sonorous, more inventive, more biting, and more entertaining than the previous ones. So please click the above link and start reading.

PAST NEWS:

A lot has been happening. In May I had "Pillow Talk with My Girl" published. In addition, on the 10th of June, I will have 3 poems published. Please check back for links to them.

Other news is that Literary Chaos, where I am an editor and founder, is looking for submissions of flash fiction, poetry, artwork, and recipes. If you have anything please visit the site and consult the guidelines. I am nearly begging for more submissions. We have some work we would like to publish in July but need more pieces to go with it.

To American, yellow or white

I am provolone cheese, lone fascist cheese
Don't put me with your spices and pomp
Just Italian meats. I, formaggio--
Not queso, or feta, or cheese
Although quesillo like mozzarella is salty & stringy
& often sold in dank markets by stocky women
Quesillo, the quesadilla cheese, which by chance are like fritas, empanadas or arepas--
am distinct & delicious
Among one hundred cheeses in a Caracas menu, there, served with
Cafe con leche in tiny paper cups wrapped in corn corn corn--the new world maize maze

As carnival stilts & men, tall, seven-eight feet in drag
White faced & maquillaje painted, like oversized transsexual toys
Mechanical & smiling on the cosmopolitan Miss Universe making street beckon you
to buy me. There are united states up and down the Americas, one

conglomerate of them called Mexico and one remains nameless, multi-

faced, boasting jazz as its only semblance of culture beyond obesity

I, Provolone cheese, strong willed, steel stomached soldier,
Import to the Americas, against the wall, against dead pan firing squad,
Don't want to be on the plate with you!

© 2001 by Ralph-Michael Chiaia

Prologue -- "Glyphic"

Excerpted from Zeitgeber & the Maya, a novella in verse.

[Chinese restaurant. Salsa music on the radio. Muscular Chinese Chef in white apron behind bar at far wall. Kitchen Door on left. Eight very big tables. Four Gorgeous Women¾ bubbling with sexuality (or is it innocence?)—lean against the wall next to Kitchen Door.]

The pretty & friendly one

Brings reheated tea

& on first sip.

Reggae green spirals

Aztec-walk up my sleeves

Out tea spout.

My pages turn micro-flesh

Mini Aztecs violent

As the large ones

Kill

Right in front of me;

A man in a feathered headdress

Draws an obsidian blade

Through the bare chest

Of another. He collapses

On my plate. Blood drips

From his body like soy sauce

From clear packets.

They vanish beneath a cloud—

A waft of smoke from a passing

Sizzling Szechwan special—

&

Here come the Mayab

—in robes—

Elegant, solemn, glyphic

—like the writer.

One nods, de-robes &

Brandishes an enormous

Jaguar spotted cock & balls

A pretty girl dives in spicy mustard salsa spilling some

She resurfaces, waves, & shakes her hair out like a dog

Mustard splatters, it overflows from the salsa dish

Xalai? I ask, she nods.

She’s more beautiful than

My mind’s previous incarnations

Ta’ak is hauling salt crystals

As big as his body across my woven place setting

Waxi crawles through my noodles

Xalai bows & smiles lasciviously.

Ta’ak dumps salt beside my plate

He picks a crystal—the lines shine prismatic

On his face, orange through blue

—& places the luminous salt as a seat

But Waxi, instead of sitting,

Steals an ı (the lower part of an i) from an i

On my page, spears it

Through his lobe as an earring

&—

The waitress comes. They vanish

Delicate, so delicate & on my page

—all my letters are missing!

Waxi you thief! Bring back my letters

The white consumes the page like the Pequod

I find I’m screaming, bring them back

—people are looking.

The Chinese chef pounds his fist into his palm

A waitress comes running with a teapot

Opens the cover, where I expect to see tea

There are letters, granite ones, peeled from the page

Like boulders to go into micro-pyramids

Strewn on porcelain kettle-ground.

The letters are out of sequence, I say

K stands up, angry, with its bent knee in a Judo crouch

I cover my eyes—expecting the blow

So, the waitress says.

Here she puts them down like this.

I find K’s offense is merely defense.

Not bad, I say. Nor are you, she takes my arm

& puts hers through mine

Like we were to walk through a sunset

Or have an old movie fade out

With her free arm she gathers letters

In her cupped hand

¾destroying this very work in the process¾

& puts them back in the kettle

She’s a good waitress

She pours them into my cup

Toma, it’s good for you.

I drink the letters

I’m Tz’ikin

During the rainy season

Wings flut-fluttering

In a puddle

Rainwater fills a gash

In an elephantagenous Ceiba trunk

Where pollywogs have turned tadpole

& swim in leaf-coated pond

eighty-seven days later

Frogs bounce out.

The letters burn within me

Like mezcal with the worm

I convulse

This is the process of nourishment

Vomit

An inner explosion

A creative cosmic serpent

Out my esophagus

Into a napkin

(We must have manners)

& calmness—immense & total

Sits on my eyelids

Like creation

Like One Crocodile

I nearly sleep.

But open the napkin

To find this

As you read it

The Quetzal

An absurdist tale about a rare bird on the hood of a car                                                                           

When Maynor went for the newspaper in front of the house there was a quetzal parked on the hood of his car. His car was perched in the driveway, where he always put it, in front of the front door. His car was a Nissan Sentra. He called it a Tsuru, the word from his country. It was the car used by taxi drivers there. He used his as a taxi here. He didn’t have a yellow cab, just a Sentra with the word taxi written in black magic marker on the back of the sun visor. It was a cold morning. There was some frost on the windows. Maynor bent down and picked up the newspaper. The headline read, The Continued Success of the Free Market. The quetzal sat on the hood, still—its long tail flowing down the side of the hood and touching the ground. Maynor’s back hurt. It hurt every morning. Usually, there was no rare bird on the hood of his car.

He never saw a quetzal before. Not even in the zoo. You couldn’t put a quetzal in the zoo.

He didn’t know what to do.

Quetzal feathers were the most beautiful feathers. The whole bird was beautiful. It was green. It was very green, about four inches tall, and had curly spiked hair on its head. It had a red chest and a very long blue and green tail¾the color called yax in his country.

Most people never saw one in all their lives. There were shaman, jungle dwellers, people who could speak with plants, who never saw one. Kings, in the previous era, employed workers to take their blowguns to the jungle. They were quetzal-searchers. As soon as they saw one, they fired. If they brought the king feathers they were promoted to cajuaob¾a word meaning Lord.

Maynor couldn’t look at the quetzal any longer. He tiptoed inside and to the bedroom. He didn’t want to scare away the bird. He woke his wife. “There’s a quetzal,” he said, “on the hood of my car.”

She rolled over. “It must have fallen out of your pocket,” she said in a tired, scratchy voice. “Carry dollars.”

This was a good, sober answer since Guatemala’s currency was called quetzales.

“No, mi vida. This is not money. It is a quetzal, long tail and everything,” he said.

“Nobody ever sees quetzals, and certainly not here,” she said. “Let me sleep!”

Maynor let his wife sleep late. It was Sunday morning. She was entitled. He slithered out and then into Marleny’s room. She was sound asleep and he was reluctant to wake her, but he had to show someone this bird. He glanced out the window. There it was, on the hood of his car. He felt pride welling up in his chest. He nearly cried.

It was a great honor to see one of these birds. It must mean he had been chosen for some work, special work, by and for the gods. He needed to show someone.

“Marleny, wake up,” he said. “Daddy wants to show you something.”

She held a little stuffed animal¾a mallard duck¾to her chest. “Mr. Dean doesn’t want to wake up.”

“Come on, honey.” He said.

“Show Mr. Dean later.” Marleny turned over. She wrapped her pillow around her head.

Maynor slammed the door on his way out, the sound echoed through the quiet house. He went back outside where the bird was. It was still there, on the hood of his Sentra. Nobody else saw it. Most of his neighbors came from his country and would have recognized it. He wanted to ask it something. He had so many questions. What did the gods want of him? What was he to do with his life? He was a professor in his country and here he was useless.

He looked to the bird for an answer. It stared straight ahead. The wind blew, moving the bottom of its tail.

“Why did you come to me?” Maynor said. “You think I could be doing something else.”

The bird was magnificent. The colors shined. It was more than a bird, it was a totem, it was a god, it was an ambassador to the cosmic serpent. It was the most beautiful animal on the planet, but it was silent.

Maynor thought it had all the answers. If only Maynor could get them.

“What is the work that I am chosen for?” Maynor asked.

The bird remained absolutely still.

“You’re like talking to my wife,” Maynor said.

Maynor moved slowly toward the bird, stepping gently on the pebbled driveway. He didn’t want to scare the bird away. He took small, light steps. The bird watched him, but didn’t fly away. Maynor managed his way to the car and sat on the hood, next to the quetzal.

There they sat looking at each other.

Marleny came out. “Daddy, Daddy, you got me a pet. She ran to the quetzal and picked it up in her arms. “Oh it’s so beautiful. Thank you.”

She stroked its spiked hair. The quetzal lifted its head. “See, Mr. Dean. I told you we were going to get a present.” She started inside.

“Honey, wait.”

She ran in and Maynor was left sitting on the hood of his taxi.

Stellar Ride

You wake in a bus. It’s dark out, pitch black, and you’re seated at the back so you can’t even see headlights. You can’t remember anything about your life. Heads bump along with the bus. There is dust in your eyes and mouth—on your teeth. You have the tiredness of recent sleep on you and the sound of cymbals in your ears. No, that’s the motor, or air conditioner. This bus has fold seats, so there is no aisle. Maybe you’re not even on a road, though it’s so bumpy, just whirling through the universe like a pack of stars, waiting to land somewhere and glow for a short part of eternity. You’re in a free fall. No, that isn’t it. You remember something un-stellar. You remember once having parents. You weren’t always on this bus. What kind of life would that be? You’re on a bridge now with rickety wooden planks beneath you. You have feelings, this helps you know more, this one is fear. Absolutely. Dark, bumpy, and crunched in a bus. Fear.

One man is standing. Why is this man standing. This bothers you. Really irks the fuck out of you.

You hear singing—resonating out of the pitches in the motor. It sounds like Hindu music somewhat, but gentler, more like forests, lakes, temples, somewhere remote, these swirling pitch-melodies—changing speeds suddenly, fitfully; it’s amazing this road doesn’t give the bus a flat. And how could you sleep in these conditions? You’re sweating and your knee—this is good, you have a knee—keeps hitting the bar of the seat in front of you. You remember poetry (this is bad!):

Is the kitchen real?

A squid pulls you into numb eternity.

This bus is a squid; that’s why the bus does not get a flat—it has no tires, no motor, no air conditioner; really there exists no bus but only squid, unreal squid, no kitchens for miles, at least not in the sense you’re thinking. This squid ride could be considered kitchen to some other being, whatever being put you here now listening to those swirling dissonant pitches coming from this strange swimming squid. Now you understand why you can’t see headlight, but how do you explain the seats?

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Copyright 2005 by RMC

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Made by Kenner

Vinit wasn’t allowed in Eddie’s house for one whole year because Eddie peed on him. They were playing tag. Vinit was fast. Eddie was slow. He was getting frustrated.

“Can’t you run any faster?” He pushed Derek, his younger brother, down. “You keep letting that geek catch us.” Derek got up and tried to run away but Eddie tripped him. Vinit helped Derek up. Eddie tagged Vinit. “You can’t catch me, Vinnie,” Eddie said.

As Eddie ran away Vinit stuck his foot out, right between Eddie’s moving feet. His fat body came tumbling down. Derek ran away. Vinit stayed where he was. Eddie rose to one knee. Then he charged Vinit. He kicked him in the knee. Vinit fell down. Eddie straddled him with his knees. He punched him in the face. Eddie stood up. Both feet crushed Vinit’s gut. Vinit struggled to breathe. He tried to push Eddie off, but his arms trembled. He was too small.

“You shouldn’t of done that, dot head!” Eddie spat as he spoke. He unzipped his fly. He pulled his penis out. Vinit stopped struggling. He closed his eyes. The pee was hot. Soon it was over. Eddie stepped off him. “You better not ever trip me!” Eddie said, then he ran off to his brother who was standing behind a tree, watching.

Vinit picked himself up. He dripped. He wiped his face with his hand, then dried it on his shirt. He walked down the front lawns to his house. He went inside. He got a towel from the bathroom. He wiped himself dry. He turned on the water in the shower. With his clothes on, he stepped under the water and lathered his hair, face, arms, and clothes. His mom opened the bathroom door.

“Vinit, what are you doing? You already took a shower. I can’t get you in there for a week and now¾. What did you do?”

His mom came in.

“You have your clothes on. What’s the matter with you? Those are new clothes.” She went into the room and stuck her arm past the curtain to hit him, but he was already crying. “What? I haven’t hit you yet.”

Vinit wiped his nose. He held his hand up into the water and let it wash the mucous off.

“What happened to you?” She raised her voice. “Vinit! Tell me what happened or¾”

“Eddie.”

“Eddie what? What did that stupid boy do?”

“Pissed on me.”

“He did what?”

“Pissed on me.” Vinit put his head in his hands.

“No.” She turned the water off. She grabbed Vinit’s wrist, yanked him out of the tub and to the front lawn.

“Mom, no!” He cried harder.

“Not my son.” She marched him back up the lawns to Eddie’s stoop. She knocked a few times. After a pause, she knocked hard¾seven times. She paused, then pounded continually.

“Jesus, what is it?” The door swung open. A dyed-blonde with thick black eyebrows and a telephone answered the door. She looked down at Vinit. Hiya Vinnie. What happened to you?”

“Look at his face!” Vinit’s mom said.

“Let me call you back,” she said into the phone. “Why are you all wet?”

“Your stupid boy, that oaf, peed on him. That’s why! Where is he?”

“What? Derek would never!”

“Eddie.”

“Oh, Eddie.” She thought a moment.

“What do you have to say? He humiliated.”

“I am so sorry.” She retreated into her house. She sat down on the second step of the stairs. “Oh my god.” She put her finger to her mouth and bit her nail. She put the phone down. “Eddie!” She got no response. “Come in. Let me at least get you a towel, here, in the kitchen. “Here, not this is wet. This one. Have seat, Mrs. Ahuja. Oh, come here Vinnie,” she toweled off his face and hair. “My stupid Eddie. He’s going to get it this time. This time. I’m so sorry, how can I make it up to you, Vinnie. You want some ice cream? A soda?”

“No thanks Mrs. Cox.”

“He’s always so polite. Vinnie, you’re such a good boy. My Eddie¾”

“Ice cream will not help, Mrs. Cox.”

“What then?”

“Where would he learn such a horrible thing. It’s the parents. The parents.”

“Maybe he saw it on television.” She stared at a crack in the kitchen tile. “So what can I do?”

“You can’t do anything, apparently. Start with an apology.”

“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.

“Not from you. From your son.”

“Right. I will. I will make him.”

“You have to teach that boy some respect. You cannot treat us like animals.”

“I know. You’re right. Of course. He should know better. My sons love people from all walks of life.”

“Well then, have them act like it.”

She took Vinit back home by the wrists. Vinit sat on the couch. He turned on MASK, his favorite cartoon¾a cross between GI Joe and transformers, where a secret group of commandos fought evil in transforming vehicles.

After the show was into its second half hour an knock came at the door.

Vinit opened after his mother was standing behind him. Eddie stood there, looking uncomfortable. His mom held her hand on his back. He looked smaller with his mother towering over him.

“Edward, don’t you have something you want to say to Vinnie?” Mrs. Cox said.

“Okay.” Eddie shifted weight from one foot to the other. “I’m sorry, Vinnie.”

Vinit and Derek continued to play. After a year Vinit started to come to the Cox house sometimes. He didn’t like Eddie but Derek and Eddie played separately when Vinit was around. Eddie got real loud when Vinit came over.

Derek and Vinit watched MASK while Eddie played with his transformers.

“I’m gonna get you, Optimus Prime. The Decepticons will rule the world! I spit on you in your stupid robot face! Thuuuhghgh!” Eddie said in a deep voice, trying to imitate Megatron’s scratchy, evil voice.

“Hey Vinnie,” Derek said. “Did you see my new MASK toy?”

“No.”

“Look, I got Boulder Hill. The gas station that turns into an attack hideout.”

“Wow, the billboard flips into a rocket launcher. The roof flips over into a shield.”

“It’s so cool.”

“I love MASK. I wish they had more toys.” Vinit opened his book bag. Inside he had his notebooks. He opened one to a drawing of a black pick-up truck. “Look.” The vehicle was neatly measured. He flipped the page. “This is my idea. I’m going to send it to them. Maybe they’ll make it.” On the next page was the same pickup but the back was flipped up and guns came out like turrets. There was a chair in the back up the pickup so that a person could fire the guns in safety. “Do you like it?”

“Wow, Vinnie. That’s so rad!”

Eddie no longer made noise. Mrs. Cox came into the room. “Boys, dinner is ready. Derek put your toys away. Vinnie, always studying,” she said with a wry smile. “Put your books away.”

“No, Mrs. Cox, they’re designs I made. See.”

“Wow, these are some drawings. Like a professional architect.”

They put their things away. Eddie watched from the stairs, still quiet. Derek and Vinnie sat at the table. Mr. Cox smoked a cigarette. “So, the boy wants to be an architect. Your folks let you be anything but a doctor, boy?”

“Of course.”

“Vinnie’s gonna make a new MASK toy. It’s gonna be the coolest.”

“Going to,” Mrs. Cox said.

“Let him talk how he wants. We can’t all be doctors.”

Mrs. Cox put a corning dish of spaghetti with a big greasy slab of butter dripping down it. “Eddie, get in here right now!”

Upstairs, Eddie had Vinnie’s drawings in his hand, freshly ripped out of the notebook. He left them under his bed. His footsteps thumped down the stairs. Then he burst into the kitchen.

“What the devil’s gotten into you, boy? When your Mamma calls you, you come. Now sit down and eat.” Eddie was the first one into the spaghetti.

Vinit sat on his bed. His little brown room had a bed, a desk and a bookshelf. A light with a yellow cover gave off a dismal glow. He sat on his bed with his MASK toy: Condor. It was a green motorcycle that turned into a helicopter. 

“Vinit, did you finish your homework?” His mom called from the other room.

“Almost, Mom!”

He opened his backpack. He fished through and pulled out his math book. Before he started his homework he wanted to look at his plans for his MASK pickup truck. He opened to the page but saw only little scraps of torn paper against the binding..

“Mom! Mom! Mom!”

She came running to Vinit’s room as he ran out. They met in the hallway. “What? What happened? Are you okay?”

“My book. My pages were stolen. They had my drawings.”

“Drawings?” She laughed. “You scared me, I thought it was your homework.”

“No! They were important. I designed a toy.”

“Well, Vinit, you can design another toy. You have plenty of notebooks.”

“No. I worked so hard. You have to get Mrs. Cox to make Eddie give them back.”

“I can’t bother her. How many times have I told you not to go into that house. It’s your fault this time. Enough. I don’t want to talk about it. Did you do your homework?”

“Homework? I don’t care about homework!”

“Vinit.” She slapped his arm. “Homework is the only thing that matters. Now go to your room. Forget your drawings.”

“No. They’re mine. Mom, you’ve gotta believe me. You know the toys you buy me. They’re expensive. Dad always says so. And I made one. Really. Derek said it was the coolest thing he’d ever seen. Mr. Cox said I could be an architect.”

She laughed. “Architect. You’re going to be a doctor.”

Vinit put his head down. “Forget it, Mom.”

She kissed him on the head. “There, there. Do your homework now.” She left the room mumbling, “He thinks they’ll make his toy.”

The very next morning Eddie got up as soon as the alarm went off. He showered. He waited for his mom and brother downstairs. At school he ran off the bus. Instead of meeting his friends in the hallway he went straight to the art room. Mr. O’Brien was in there, unshaven, scratching a charcoal drawing with a razor.

Eddie showed him the drawings of the pick-up.

“Edward, I had no idea you possessed this kind of potential.”

“Yeah.”

“What brings you here early in the morning?”

“I want to send it to MASK so they can make it into a toy.”

“Right, the cartoon.” He put the razor down and leaned back on his stool. “They’re made by Kenner toys. A buddy of mine works for Kenner. Well, a guy I went to high school with. Here, I’ll draft you a letter.”

Mr. O’Brien had a letter ready by his third period art class with Eddie. Eddie signed it, and put it in an envelope with the drawings. Mr. O’Brien sealed it.

“Now we just have to wait and see, Edward.”

Vinit had art class last period. He told everybody about his MASK idea and how Eddie had stolen it.

“Vinit,” Mr. O’Brien said. “Don’t envy your fellow student’s success.”

“But he was the envious one. He stole my drawings. How could you believe him? He can’t draw anything.”

“Yes, but skill and imagination are different things, Vinnie. You should be happy for your friend. I helped him mail them to Kenner Toys. Perhaps we’ll soon have our own toy designer right here in Claremont Middle School.

In time Vinit’s protests died down. He continually asked Mr. O’Brien if they had received anything from Kenner. A response to the letter never came. In six months the second phase of MASK toys was released for sale. There were eight new products. Somebody in Vinit’s class was the first to bring in one of the new toys. It was a pick-up truck where the back covering came up revealing a shielded seat that sat at the controls of a turret.

It came with no mention of Vinit nor any mention of Eddie. Made by Kenner, Incorporated. 

© 2001 by Ralph-Michael Chiaia