Snap-Shot
Sometimes I think I do get to places just when God's ready for someone to click the shutter.—Ansel Adams
mushrooms doff white caps over grass
belly bulges over matchstick legs, African desert, a distance defined by a vulture’s eyes. . . the only water a father's tears
old buffalo staring right at you, in the background a man points a rifle
five-year-old boy salutes oldest brother lying in a flag-draped coffin
baby napping, its butt up in the air, background a wall with peeling paint, foreground a pile of dirty laundry and scattered boxes from McDonald's
1995 concentration camp, men behind barbed wires, cheeks hollowed, ribs protruding, eyes burning burning burning. . . in the distance, a body drips from a tree limb
student offers daisy to impassive face atop uniform
teenagers with tiny swastikas tattooed on their cheeks
father hugging a dead child, blood on a crumpled tricycle, cops handcuffing a weeping drunk driver
old Chinese man slowly walking the length of a subway train, selling plastic toys for a dollar each from a brown paper bag, his grin requiring more practice
three white men beating a black stranger
three black men beating a white stranger
—pardon me, I was distracted, as I was saying, a patch of mushrooms . . . no, no, perhaps that was my problem—staring down at the ground. Try looking at heaven: mountain tops kissing the bellies of storm clouds, snow painting the edges of cliffs, cracked boulders etching Roman profiles against the horizon, geysers ending where clouds begin, a bright full moon pasted against a starless sky, no storm to ruffle an angel's wings . . .where is God?
Eileen R. Tabios has released 18 print, four electronic and 1 CD poetry collections, an art essay collection, a poetry essay/interview anthology, a short story book and two novels. She most recently released THE THORN ROSARY: Selected Prose Poems (1998-2010), edited with an introduction by poet-critic-painter-scholar Thomas Fink and with an afterword by poet-scholar Joi Barrios-Leblanc. In poetry, Ms. Tabios has crafted a body of work that is unique for melding ekphrasis with transcolonialism. Her poems have been translated into Spanish, Italian, Tagalog, Japanese, Portuguese, Polish, Greek, computer-generated hybrid languages, Paintings, Video, Drawings, Visual Poetry, Mixed Media Collages, Kali Martial Arts, Music, Modern Dance and Sculpture. She’s also edited, co-edited or conceptualized nine anthologies of poetry, fiction and essays. She blogs as the “Chatelaine” and edits Galatea Resurrects, a popular poetry review journal. |
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