Khairani Barokka
Excerpts from the solo show "Eve and Mary Are Having Coffee"
MOON DANCES WITH THREE PLANETS
"A triple conjunction low in the southwest just after sunset."
- http://news.discovery.com/space/astronomy/moon-dances-with-three-planets-131006.htm
I don't want to boogie with anyone else but the universe.
Mercury
Venus
Saturn.
I want triple conjunctions
All down my back
And a moon
With three planets
To choose from,
Tango with:
Mercury
Venus
Saturn.
They sound like electric light bulbs,
Since we've whored them into
Car brands and shavers for ladies.
Once upon a time,
Some people believed
In these Roman gods,
But not all.
Not all.
There are calendars Javanese
And Bengali,
Ethnoastronomies that know
No retrograde.
Saturn won't have to return,
Not anytime soon.
I want to swing dance with the stars,
And not on TV, and I do mean
The gaseous balloons
From whence we came
And sucked our plastic thumbs alive.
I want the heart
Of my baby in an asteroid,
One I keep like a sling protecting me,
A bit less than my own hips
Slip'n'dip around Pluto;
Like a gogo dancer
With a hula hoop,
But celestially awesome.
I want to be alone.
I want darkness and explosions
Of subatomic particles
That will one day be Life.
I want profundity,
Not a Petri dish.
The Petri dish that came
From stars and Petri
And associations
With the pterodactyl
In that movie;
I think he was called Petri.
Pterodactyls came from stars.
I want extinction from cognition
In the minds of others.
No Internet.
The pterodactyls, in dreams,
Come running down to me from the stars
Like fighter pilots
Who don't justify things,
And are honest about being bloodthirsty.
I impugn them with the terror and disgust
We give dinosaurs.
I open my mouth
To the winged creatures
Clawed at the angles,
Bearing down the Milky Way.
"Come dance me skinless.
I'm twirling with the moon."
EVE AND MARY ARE HAVING COFFEE
Eve prefers Bethlehem single-roasted. She is so bitter and wise That she doesn't care To use non-fat milk. Mary is wearing, adjusting, Nervous, The folds of her favorite shawl. They start in their awkward, Hallowed voices, Speaking of fecundity, Fealty, Mothering, Blame, Comparing the penises Of Jesus and Adam, Ribcages, Antimatter, Shame. All those heavy periods In the Holy Spirit's presence- Sacred menstrual, Clotting detritus. They are comparing apples and breasts, Roundness and fullness And loss of both, All the metastasis of legions. Each is enumerating flaws In the skin and symmetry Of the other. Each is secretly biting her lip, How would the Great One Prefer her? The Chosen Coffee has unwittingly Grown cold. Neither can divine The grounds of either. "I don't have to like you," Eve says to Mary. Mary says, "I'm on your side."
COFFEE MONOLOGUES
Eve says I am fair trade, Shade-grown. A Sumatran and Javanese Who doesn't drink coffee. Despite the mercury in me, Eve assures us all, I am organic. "Fair trade", to me, Is being in Europe going "Where is the free cake?!?!?!" And then when old ladies ask "Whyyy?!" I go, "Fuck you, colonialism!" I never said I was Quality Java In terms of propriety. But you must appreciate the sentiment. Mary says, There is a house with too many stairs That does not welcome you to it There is a tube station without a lift There is a bathroom with no handholds When you need to shower just so There is a realm that goes OMG Inspiring So inspiring So so inspiring Despite despite despite Despite muscles Despite being a woman Despite being an Aries Despite double-jointed thumbs! Eve says you must be faking Eve says you push yourself too hard, my poet Eve says how come your English is so good, Did you write that yourself? Eve says talking about yourself in the third person is precious; Use the Royal We, you're in Britain. The three of us say, "We take it black." Myself, just to play along. Mary says I love when I know I shouldn't And Eve says you always should Mary says where are you from And where are you going Woman with secret knives and secret kitchens And Eve says I will miss you as you are As you are always changing You have chiaroscuro for antipasti You have firecrackers On the eve of the last day of Ramadhan in Jakarta for dessert, And your breath bleeds knives of light Before it will go dark. You are cardiomorphology And scars on the moon. You breathe small Because you are afraid to ask For someone to love you whole. Some people love you whole But not the world, And the world drip feeds its ignorance Down into the seabed Of what it is to be a woman. And Eve says to all of us, Mass incest Was traumatic for me But it made you. And Mary says monotheism Spawned far too many terrible tattoos- Among other atrocities- But it sang the life of your grandmother's whole, And they come together, Eve and Mary, Saying, "What is identity, When we speak and sign In colors. Eat and are eaten, Serpentine ourobouros. Drink to your mind's eye. We grind your brew in our teeth. Come play outside, It's daylight And we all deserve the sun."