Denisse Paulino

~D~egn~l· s~s~e~.l A Waterways Project Publication

Paulino

Richard Spiegel Barbara Fisher codirectors Thomas Perry administrative assistant

Alison Koffler teacher

Public School Repertory Company Ellen Kirshbaurn, principal

Stephen E. Phillips, Superintendent, Alternative High Schools & Programs

©I997 Ten Penny Players with funding support from

the NY State Council on the Arts

Raised and Razed

Here was I built and here I am torn down The place I loved became the place I hate

I cannot wait to leave this Alcatraz

Yet I mourn this love I've lost forever Raised, built, knowledge careful and strong Razed, destroyed, my strength turned to dust, Here I was built and here was I destroyed Yet still I cry, for my lost things to be Leaving love behind for hate with only

The hopes of forgive and never forget.

2

lAm

I am young, but Iamawoman

I can do anything but I am just a girl

I am alone

I am disturbed I am together I am different

I am me, but

Who exactly is she? Wise, alone, unique, lost, alone, a freak.

I am something

3

Mental Peace

. There is no price for mental peace, for life

is always better once it's found. Certain things which thrive on the torment of the mind

will become things of the past, forever left behind.

And so I fear my written muses are being lost because I'm learning to use real words.

If I learned to speak, would I ever write again.

Would my thoughts ever run again in frantic verse or tripping feet of random pentameter, to be forever lost.

Pain cannot be personified with prosaic words. Poetry cannot really live in a converse world.

My emotions will have no depth. I'll become a two dimensional mirage without a soul.

An audio-visual image without a legible voice. My peace does seem to carry a heavy price.

4

A Time

Shall we go back in time,

to time so lost in the past, so abolished by women's lib.

The time of elegance and beauty, a time of female sexual power. the time of prim ladies.

The time of ballroom flirtations,

of corsets and porcelain complexions, of gloves and jeweled gowns.

The time of formality and grace,

of hypocritical modesty

and extreme etiquette.

Now in twisted manners

we seem to revive the past

with new and morbid meaning

The pallor of gothic beauty

and the romance of living death, the pleasure of vampiric sex.

The sophisticated super predator, the freaks of sensual bondage,

the youth of Gothic paganism.

5

White Fear

look into the eyes of the things that are gone see their pain

look into the eyes of things in the past feel what they once suffered

look into the eyes of things that once lived

hear their screams of anguish in the resonance of time look into the eye of the living

touch the pain within the cause of their death

it will resonate through eternity forever for pain has no concept of time or place, of wealth or power

it will affect everything living until their passing into the next world

and their eyes will forever tell the tale of their distress

6

Life Savers .

Pulling green wax thread rotating circulating unsealing silver cylinder vault containing circular peep hole buoys. Sweet varying colors,

fruit waves of sugar

artificial flavors floating

within raging saliva oceans.

} }

7

Here

This is an anonymous place, peaceful desolate. Here we belong to no one.

Here where no supervisors prevail.

Here we can meet together a central place. Here I sit waiting for my friends.

Here, I wish that I could stay, forever anonymous. Here where I belong to no one.

If only here I could stay.

8

Extended Metaphor

My heart is held by

a black armored knight carved in alabaster skin.

He is the tall protecting pines, beautiful and strong in all seasons.

He is my lover. .

My lover he is clothed in

the cloth color of night.

His skin is smooth moonshine, His eyes the warm color of earth. His touch is like the whi te hot

rays of the sun, pleasant and sweet. His love is like a burning fire

On the hearth that burns forever,

like the pyres of the sun and the moon, together.

9

Eulogy

For a Bleeding Heart

He was such an elegant beast

he was the dark prince of Blood.

An evil seductor, a drainer of life. Renouncing God he lived a life of Death

in revenge for the betrayal of his faith and Love. Dying a life of eternal thirst and Anguish,

trying [Q replace his lost love with blood.

Never forgetting her he lived a life condemned, alone with a blood thirst forever,

until he found her peace giving love again. And because she so loved she gave him peace.

IO

Priority

You say you put priorities first but it doesn't make sense to me how you've done this before

but this is the worst

I can only ask my dying plea how the hell is that a priority

to my need for self knowledge and

you yell priorities first, with seniority

you get your way and I thought my priorities were f"'&"#@< up, but of course! you think I'm a selfish bitch who

cares for no one but herself

but how could I care for anyone else when the person in this world

I hate the most is myself

so through all of my confusion, and my anger and my hate I could care less where I land let

II

the fates have their way with me

for my warp threads fray thin for every time on my 100m they've woven life's thread too tight

and too thin then again too

thick and too loose. of confusion and anger, sadness and pain forever their flitting ftngers will weave

all our lives. slowly our warp threads wear thin. they'll fray and split until they break and our lives will soon end because we choose the wrong priorities.

12

In Search of a Song Volume 268 ~~"'--"~~<i'y;rv~~

a waterways project publication