THE METAPHYSICAL BARTENDER
Give me a double order of irreverence
on pan cubano, I brought my own
homemade mayonesa, with a touch
of dijon. In the beginning was the word,
and the word was humus, I’ll pass
on dogma; god, anyway, is Cuban,
last seen at Siglo XX eating
a medianoche, swiss, ham, pork,
touch of mustard, and don’t forget
thin-sliced sour pickles, a small
café cubano to stay awake
through a long drive home
to a cave wilder than the man from Krypton’s,
out there where Satan lost his poncho.
And don’t worry, humus nurtures laughter
as it did Adam, long ago in dead man’s
paradise, and if you make it with frijoles
negros, and serve fried yuca, the universe
will smile, turn somersaults, dance a fast
rumba, grant you three wishes sprinkled
with canela, make your first child
a beauty, but don’t forget,
please don’t forget
the pickles.
Silvia Brandon Pérez
OLDER CANON READING
Milton got it mostly wrong,
any evil brought into the world
was courtesy of adam, and his failure
to stand up to god, small g, protest
the bar to trees, fruit, words
and knowledge, and once his woman,
like Prometheus, had designed her own routines,
(she was the better entertainer), to stand up
when he called, and say, you rang?
Instead, an early sufferer of womb-envy,
he pointed fingers, said, “She did it,”
hoping she’d be hung as an example.
It backfired; gods never trust
those who would sell out co-conspirators
(see Judas and his coinage); he got the boot
quicker than Eve got her first period.
Evil, anyway, is in the eye of the beholder,
a man-made thing; gods have no truck
with man-made laws. When earth was new,
and goddess ruled, that which man now calls evil
was the simple dance of god-made flesh,
and it was woman goddess did make first,
and set her dancing in paradise
fertile like herself. Some time much later
darkness reigned upon the land,
first mysteries enshrined
were now besmirched, a lust for bloody
sacrifice engulfed the land, from sea
to not so shining sea, and woman’s peaceful reign
was overtaken by the penis and its cravings.
In the beginning, womb, the dance of life,
creation, flesh become woman, the joining of desire,
be fruitful, multiply, this earth is yours,
call it all joy, you won’t be disappointed.
Published in the Adirondack Review.
silviantonia 