An english teacher's daughter, Tish Vallés has written poetry all her life. She now makes fire with her poetry in New York City where she has found her poetry family in the louderARTS Project. Tish is available for poetic collaborations and experiments and would love to hear from you. Write her at tish (at) tishvalles (dot) com.
AFTER THE WILD BEASTS SLUMBER
after Jan Beatty
Late again and without an apology
this is how the Father became a man.
This betrayal, this dismissal
this I-don’t-owe-anyone-an-explanation.
To be displaced, shoved behind
there, with his golf shoes, yesterday’s
paper and the weary purse of this
woman who is not his wife.
The unforgivable doing of a man I will forgive
again and again. Only yesterday I was so green
and filled with sparkle. Today begins my tarnishing,
here begins the birth of my new spine
But my now heart knows only
this rupture, these crashing waves.
My shoreline is a fickle beast
blinded by salt and buck.
And there is no stopping these crashing waves
and there is no unknowing of things.
Sad sorry self, will it
ever become easy, this business
of loving an impossible man?
You should be better at it by now.
Gentle father hardened by this world,
let us begin our new story
after the last leaf has fallen, after the
wild beasts slumber. My broken heart
will see you with love anew, and my
well-rested arms will know how to hold you.
ON TAKING A LOVER
This is how you take a lover.
Build a church, write songs, mount a horse and defy territories
Find a country with lush greenery, plum fruit and abundant seas
Take the brown, black and yellow there, mix in your white to make marble babies, unbreakable
Build a church, write songs, mount a horse and defy territories
Ring bells, take the pulpit, introduce commerce, have them worship you
Take the black, brown and yellow there, mix in your white to make marble babies, unbreakable
Seduce them with your language, dizzy them into forgetting their own
Ring bells, take the pulpit, introduce commerce, have them worship you
Make promises of eternity, take their crops and bless them
Seduce them with your language, dizzy them into forgetting their own
Teach your babies to write only your letters, bury the rest into extinction
Make promises of eternity, take their crops and bless them
Keep your bed warm and comfortable, and everyone well fed
Teach your babies to write only your letters, bury the rest into extinction
Pick the offspring whose ear you own and call him President
Keep your bed warm and comfortable, and everyone well fed
Find a country with lush greenery, plum fruit and abundant seas
Pick the offspring whose ear you own and call him President
This is how you take a lover.
THEY CALL ME
They call me Beautiful these ethnic men of New York City
We all own these streets, we walk them strongly as immigrants do
Each stride a love letter to our homelands, they recognize my cadence
A glimmer of home in a land so different so far away from the lush greenery
From the salsa, the creole, the harana, the movida, the rasta
They see all this in the swish of my skirt and the supple thigh peeking through there
They see their sunsets in my smile and smell ocean breezes in my breath
And this, all this in a flash turns them on, and I like it
They call me Gorgeous, these men and their fancy drinks in the Lower East side
All wielding their weapons on this sultry spring night, it is on
The wit, the strong brow, the expense account, the accent, the worldliness
How many times have we played this game in our lifetime?
And still we play We all want the same thing after all, crave affection masked by line after line
We all want the same thing after all, ache to be seen in the smokiness of it all
So we give some if it away, some kindness, some truth, something of the heart
And this is where the spark happens, the hooking up, the possibility of sex
They call me Angel, the ones I take to my bed, these lovers in progress
Games well played, lies well told it is all naked now and bare
It is after the sex that they see the angelic in me, only after the sex
It is after the sex that I see the real man, spent and softened, sweaty
He paints pictures of home on the scar beneath my navel
I breathe fables and folklore into the spaces between his ribs
It is only after the sex that we can touch each other like so
It is not for everyone, this honesty, this sweetness that burns
Tea Time Like Alice
Alice’s Arbor, Brooklyn 18 July 2013
“Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said. 'One can't believe impossible things.'
‘I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!”
― Lewis Carroll, “Through the Looking Glass”
My mother does not have
soft hands, does not own an
apron. Does not temper her words.
Not made like that, we
are made of micro minis
and straight As. Hard working
hands and words clear as crystal.
My mother was not built to
obey, was not built to submit.
Questioning, always questioning.
Never feeding the answer. Never
coddling, always trusting.
“Look it up.” or “What do you think
it means?” or “How do you want
to resolve this?” She does not
have a green thumb, my mother.
Not the light of our home, she was
the fire. The weapon-wielding
shorty-short wearing warrior
who raged through a bus at
rush hour to confront the driver
who had cut-off our car and hold him
accountable for his almost
murder of her family.
My mother does not make
hot tsokolaté and pan de sal to
ease my pain. Not made
like that, we are made of tea
time like Alice and riddles without
answers. Rabbit holes leading to
rabbit holes. She did not hide things,
did not make things pretty. Wanted me
to see. Wanted me to know.
Took me to my own limits
so that I and I alone would say
how far was far enough.
Not made of modest things,
my mother was no brassieres
and the highest hemlines.
She showed me that the female
form was a celebration of
all things alive and beautiful.
She did not hide her skin,
never apologizing for who she
was. Brown woman in a weary
land the white man ravaged again
and again. She is no one else’s
possession but her own.
My mother is not made of obedient
parts. Never acquiescing, not
to the nuns or the priests in the
schools she went to. Not to the
negotiators who would talk down
to the Filipino teachers union.
Not to my Spanish father who would
have us and our raised fists safely home
during the Martial Law protests.
She was always subversive
and she did not even know it. How
could she, what with all that fight?
Not made of meek things, my mother
will not apologize for what
she knows, And oh she knows
things. Brilliant woman, teacher
of young minds and the teachers
who would follow in the service
of learning. “My kids.” She called them.
My mother was everybody’s mother.
Everybody’s teacher. She was never
mine, but oh how I hold her, as she holds me.
High as the moon, countless as the stars
at tea time, which is to say, always.