An offering of Guadalupe

A rose from Guadalupe,

given to Buddha,

as a child gives

a candle to a parent

to keep aflame,

in the wind.

Safely, she lights the

rosaries of Mexicans

to be answered at the Cathedral

of her hometown.

A rose laid down at the feet of a

woman who gave birth to her future,

and at a man who gave freedom to her past.

Siddhartha, I know you walk the Himalayas,

can you visit Oaxaca, too?

Edwardian England

Leonard Bast,

Edward Morgan had so much compassion

on you.

The value of connection not lost on him.

A member of the Apostles,

Edward protested the first World War.

He also created a passage to India,

as a minister to the Maharaj,

a secretary formally.

Did Merchant Ivory cause
your mortality,

or was it coventry where

the mysticism died?

I want to go where Angels
fear to tread, too.

Just like you.


Thanks to E.M. Forster
for being true, for being you.

Francais

Paris, My grandmother Laura loved you,
adored you and visited you, every year.

Her second language was Francais,
after Espanol,
before Englais.

I hoped to visit the Sorbonne or Lycee
but I am at the Pacific Oak Tree,
studying for good.

I hope you kiss your Parisiennes for
me, I have no suitors like her.

I do know Madonna likes thee and I pray
she is well.

C'est la vie.

Scotland Yard

My step-dad is Scottish and he used to take
us to the Scottish games.

My clan is McDougall and I am unsure of his clan.

He came from Arkansas and poverty.

However, he made a good life for us.

Maybe because he was loved by his mother

who used to run the cafe, that life turned

out this glorious way.

Polar Bears

My grandmother was German and a little heavy-set
in her old age,

the pages of beauty and sorority days
followed with six children and three

jobs to keep them clean and well-groomed.

She was an immaculate housekeeper,
and told me how with three jobs and six kids,
that didn't keep her from waking up every morning to
sweep the floor and keep the beds.

We called her "Muzzy" bear.

She liked to give hugs and collected
polar bears.

I called her everyday and cried when
she died.

We missed the funeral because of traffic.

However, I decide to honor her by
loving myself, I look a lot like
her at my age.

She looked Jewish like her "Muzzy."

Germans with light skin and dark hair
run in our family.

I am a Jewish mother, a homeless man told me once.

He was in his 40's and asked if he could be my son.

I was thirty years old and I agreed.

Babies

A baby smells like Heaven,
and their coos bring delight
to the soul.

Ukraine

The nesting dolls
tell of your young girls,
growing
up in the war, to find
marriage, children
and often widowhood, after.

Tales of generations,
inside each other,
fit to perfection.

The perfection of Hugo,
Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy-
said to the names of Anna Kerenina
and Three Brothers Karamazov.

Why did I spend money on your oil,
when I had no food to eat,

O ye widows of Jerusalem,

Aliyah is come.

I want to buy you a ticket

so you will be free.

Leaving on a jet plane,

don't know when you should

go back again.

The bear is not so grand

when you are a Jew in the land.

Spring Rain

I may be in love...
just the baby blades of grass,
that come up after the rain.

Perfect Grammar

Five spelling bees, two wins of my school.

Two lobotomies and a mind that is

still whole.

Apple Pie

I came to San Francisco with thirty dollars and no sweater.

I was wearing a t-shirt and a skirt, flowing cranberry in color.

Feeling like that of my ancestors who came with only the

shirt on their backs,

I came with a book of Arabic.


Headed straight for a fancy restaurant

and ordered a cup of clam chowder,

couldn't really afford the bread.


I thought I saw the man I wanted to marry,

serendipity at best.


He was with another woman and it seemed

to be their engagement party.

I cried through my apple pie.

A la mode.


Thirty dollar meal, frozen inside and out,

walking in the cold with tears flowing down my face.

That was my McHappy meal on Fisherman's wharf

the day I followed my dreams.

Gisella Perezarce
Copyright 2009

Suffering, how beautiful you are

I have suffered a lot lately,
a jailing unnecessarily, bruises,
broken bones, and cuts.

I also just listened to Jason Upton
sing, "Suffering, how beautiful you
are."

It is rare that Jesus holds us close
to His cross and lets us suffer with
him.

Rarely, he lets us wear his crown of thorns.

Likely, that gold and pearls is what we offer
and maybe diamonds is what we want in return.

Jesus holds me close for a photo-op,
it is a crown of thorns today,
about men I want to play with

and a man who suffered sweeter than
me for my life to be okay...

Jesus Christ.

Galileo

The 1980's had a song about you.

Maybe it was the 1990's, I'm

not sure.

The Copernicus question

haunted you, spurred you

on until you knew

the Sun was set.

It was the beginning and the

end/ we spun unto history

around it.

The earth, us, around him,

the sun. The Son, as Jesus

spun around the father

and DaVinci painted the Creation

on the Sistine.

Arcetri was your fate.

The town in Italy where

you were exiled and I was

born a scientist,

like you.

MontmartRe

Henri de Toulouse-LAutrec.

Born in the Pyrenees of France.

You were the firstborn,

and studied Degas and Manet.

Descendant of aristocracy,

the counts, and cousins were

your parents.

Producing a man small of stature,

prolific in nature,

and nouveau was never the same.

"Le vieux con!"

You were not an old fool,

in my eyes.

Gello

She called me Gello-

A girl with big thighs

hopes that means

a bright, colorful,

gelatin treat.

York

I just came from
Oklahoma City-
bombing that is.

The tanks filled
the street,

men with AK-47's

and Marshall law

enacted, I think.

Here is a town
called York,

in the middle of

Nebraska

and I'm pumping gas.

50/50 Pop

I was told not to lick
off of her popsicle

'cause she was black.

I loved her more
than my mother.

She was my teacher.

"He's not heavy,
he's my brother."

That was the song
of my future.

A song of a lover...


Copyright 2009
Gisella Perezarce

1001 Arabian Knights

I was young when my mom
used to read to me about the Arabian Knights,

a Mexican fighting the Polaris
with no end in sight.

She read about Pinatas and lutes,
Raphael, Degas and taught me

how to play the flute.

I never learned about crossing
the border-

I crossed the schoolyard

to dance and sing-

"Girls in white dresses"...

"These are a few of my favorite things."

Copyright 2009
Gisella Perezarce

Weaver

I met an Ojibwe and a Chippewa couple.

She had long silver hair to her waist.

The kind with black streaks, like Joan Baez.

I used to pray to Jesus that I would

have hair like that when I grew older.

My mother's mother had all white.