Celebrities Look-Alikes?

Somehow I don't see it... You be the judge.

I love... not only because it's cinnamon

If I were a cinnamon peeler,
I would ride your bed
and leave the yellow bark dust
on your pillow.

Your breasts and shoulders would reek
you could never walk through markets
without the profession of my fingers
floating over you. The blind would
stumble certain of whom they approached
though you might bathe
under rain gutters, monsoon.

Here on the upper thigh
at this smooth pasture
neighbour to your hair
or the crease
that cuts your back. This ankle.
You will be known among strangers
as the cinnamo peeler's wife.

I could hardly glance at you
before marriage
never touch you
-- your keen nosed mother, your rough brothers.
I buried my hands
in saffron, disguised them
over smoking tar,
helped the honey gatherers...

When we swam once
I touched you in water
and our bodies remained free,
you could hold me and be blind of smell.
You climbed the bank and said

this is how you touch other women
the grass cutter's wife, the lime burner's daughter.
And you searched your arms
for the missing perfume.
and knew

what good is it
to be the lime burner's daughter
left with no trace
so if not spoken to in the act of love
as if wounded without the pleasure of a scar.

You touched
your belly to my hands
in the dry air and said
I am the cinnamon
peeler's wife. Smell me.




-- "The Cinnamon Peeler"
by Michael Ondaatje,
from the collection of the same name.
(apologies: blogger won't let me format the poem correctly...)

New shtuff

Hello!

Long time no update.

I just wanted to let you know that I added three stories to my Geocities page (link to the right) -- "Three Lives in Montage," "Isabella" and "Eve." Keep in mind that "Three Lives" and "Eve" still need a LOT of editing.

I also added several new poems -- they're the ones on the poetry page that are in red.

Enjoy and please let me know what you think.


In other news, I've been reading like a crazyperson. I'm also doing a lot of research for my Plagues and Peoples assignment -- I'm doing Alzheimer's diseaes (I know it's not a plague, but we can do any disease). Interesting stuff. I'll probably look at the link between environmental factors and genetics in developing the disease. Coolcool.

Off to read Ondaatje's "Running in the Family." Ta ta!

Amazing Animals

I'm sorry for fixating on animals having sex, but I find this so interesting and, well, hilarious.

Enjoy.