NATASIA RANA
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Natasia Rana, born and raised in Chicago, is using some Gemini wind
to get her Capricorn self off the ground.
At age seven, she won an award for her short story "The Speck of Dust",
a microcosmic viewpoint she still holds.
The only constant in Natasia's life has been change, something she
alternately exalts and curses. But there has always been writing. Natasia
gets her inspiration by being determined not to "lose it" in a crazy world,
and one of her goals in writing poetry is to reveal elements of beauty,
truth, and absurdity we can easily miss.
Sign language interpreting, music, and psychology were major parts of her
long academic education. She'll go to grad school. Someday. Natasia reads
sporadically at open mics in Chicago and has featured at the University of
Chicago and the Burkhart Underground.
She is currently working on her first chapbook and recruiting members
for her visionary tour de force rock band, Shrapnel.
"marvelous pt. 3" (work in progress) was born from the Amazing Kissing
Circles, a wandering poetry collective founded several years ago by some
friends in Texas.
marvelous pt. 3 (for the circles)
1
into your body at birth a sound chip was installed
and has since evolved over time
and what once sounded like cries of joy
are mechanical bleeps & blunders
resulting from lack of maintenance
but to the ear of a musician,
one can assess the fine tuning & identify
that you are still on pitch, in key,
not tone-deaf like syncopated white man hip-hop footsteps
but singing a tri-tone above
all the better to shadow
the Aboriginal dream-mirroring doppelganger's
booty shakin' castanets
and these are the marvelous sounds of sweet soul music.
candles sound the same when their wicks are lit
as records do when the needle hits
and the revolution begins with
propelling ourselves full-force into G-LOC:
(gravity-induced loss of consciousness)
set about by wheel-spinning
bionic laundering
and other cyclical exercises
meant to inspire our natural rotations
so that we never outgrow our favorite colors
and remember to caress the well-worn green of earth
when it turns in our lapses.
practice in other situations has prepared us for now
after all, the world as we know it is coming to an end!
so if we suppose time is an amazing kissing circle,
the quickened pulse of our racing breaths
will lead us to a finish line without the need for competition.
when we fall into synch and take not for granted
the parabolic sub-hums that jerk us through the reality plane,
we will come out sunning.
2
there is a love note unfinished and shredded at the bottom of a lake.
one word in it holds the seven chakras.
if we laid the pieces on the shores of the lake to sunbathe(and puzzle-fit them together...)
it would say we all are tiny fibers in a network of threads.
there is an unspoken universal hunger at the bottom of a paper bag
waiting to be reached in and eaten.
if we tore down the sides and turned it over,
we could peer into something that was no longer empty.
there is skin on a strong smooth back waiting to be run over
with familiar caress.
if we program our memories to tactile-select one stray hair per second, no surface will be untouched.
behold behold behold
the marvelous underbelly stranglehold
16 sept 2002
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two other "marvelous" poems that inspired mine...
A Thing Called Marvelous I
--Oliver C. Grimball
There are stick people in the sacred domain of the fine arts
Standing on a two-dimensional cotton surface without any values.
I hear a phonograph turning vinyl
flying saucers in the respiratory system
of Lucifer back-masking the hidden messages
of infidelity in the songs lovers sing.
It's an unrehearsed bit of comedy that dictates
how one man should translate
the colorful subconscious symbols
of people and diagrams of liquid- episodic-
storytelling in a way that's entertaining and understandable.
I Peel
Wheel
Heal
Orange caterpillar of comfort cocoon
to swim electric yellow dislocated
not knowing flea- mucus-disorientation
lagoon
To become or discover a spot fraction
of what is called
the Marvelous
There is a fountain pen
Having wild hallucinations
about a paragraph
She sees the paragraph doing long division
with fire on the saturated
techno-colored horizon line
between the visible and unseen.
Every sentence from every line
meditating on the speakers
tongue begins to recite in such clear detail
what the writing utensil has delivered
that the audience is able to see
The trans-lucid punctuation and capital letters
that fill the room like subtitles
On the screen of foreign
cinematic eves drop.
Dissolving our zones of comfort
bringing us one step closer to
the marvelous
Every several fat thousand years
an Organic Individual sprouts
from the long lineage of mechanical devices-
sprocket positions
Ordained and sanctified
in the holy machine of identical misfortune.
The first few chapters of the Torah
Man becomes a parasite
In the first few lines of Islamic verses
Mankind was born from a leech-like clot.
Do words eat off the skin of the writer?
Do writers eat of the skins of common perceptions?
UNVEILING the Oh-yeah right in front of our eyes
but we failed to notice,
before the writer got hungry
her hunger makes us uneasy
but brings us closer to
the marvelous
I blow dusty sand into the linear eyes of tradition
Causing tiny fragments of pre-historic pearls
to coarse through the air.
I recall the girl with silver butterfly clips in her hair
being laughed at for stating:
Samurai, Klingons, and Obi Wan Kenobi
were one in the same
I'm not laughing
She has discovered
the Marvelous
A+B
In Hebrew equals three
In the linear thought plain
no almonds of the average or mean
A+ B= C
If you see idea spots running in mid air
Use a pen to connect thoughts,
Then rip out pages place them in the empty slots
next to the maze activity section
In the Unscrambled Signals of automatic thinking
and Discover
the marvelous
There is a coloring book without any lines
that most of us ignore
There are several doors in many lines of this observation
That shall lead you towards
the marvelous.
***
The girl with butterfly clips
(A thing called marvelous II)
--Oliver Grimball
And Oh! About the girl
with the silver butterfly clips in her hair:
Her wish blue oval type planets
could hold a one-day lecture
under the silver halo hammock
of the first born child prodigy
urinating golden stream of ray beams
from behind the cotton candy cloud.
Her say: first hour syllabus
would contain cyclical charts
mapping out the pattern of the teachers
rotation
Axis
one question about
how to get through the concrete opinions
cement ideas
stagnant routines kneeling next to brilliant
common cents of two paradigms
That have set the wages on their views
and refuse to make change.
The reply shall be in orange nectar
origin like red period month spindle
falling on pink flying tissue wafer pillows.
Slobber and cough up colors of insight
full phlegm from the lungs of Roy G. Biv.
discover the solutions of a phonograph writing sound
by keen point needle pen
making hula hoop gyrations
steady odorless in orbit around
the great mood manipulator called music
-
Trace the circles in two surprised faces and
Infinitely
embrace the marvelous.
Vomit jive ass hand shakes
myths about extra body parts.
Pardon me while I annihilate a few old notions
Let the eye in the I in the aye in the i.e.
give stare to the second sight
a better view
like an angle waltz
a geometrical dance with perspective
an emotional umbrella of discomfort
fall full in to the face of a thing called
Marvelous
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a paragraph from "A Thing Called Marvelous"
--blake hurzeler
i found the Marvelous meeting me halfway one day
with a greeting i heard say
"I'll come one gallop closer each time you pray"
and so i chose her and told her i did love her, would love her
we've since made Marvelous lovers
(and all these whispers were worlds of prayer)
the Marvelous came focusing itself out of the blur
like a wild horse only a zen cowboy might tame
like a unicorn only a naked elven faerie princess might name
like a donkey dusted in gypsy charms
like a little pony that every girl wishes to hold in her arms
this was actual sight made seen
like Rasta I-man come from vexed
to I-man-gonna-control-dis-forward
and all the rhyme schemes gently pitter-pattered on down
like wise old leaves
like squirrel mischief acorns
they lay in nomadic debris hearing the Marvelous say,
"things don't have to be so hard my friend.
sometimes things just be.
walk along holding on and letting go all at the same time.
suddenly things just easier be, a tree just grows you see
and the balance becomes the sign."
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All Text Copyrighted by the Individual Poets
click the following first lines for additional poems from Natasia Rana:
1:
GENKI-DENKI
through restless city streets I go sleepwalking to cry for the death of a
life I don't want back, avoiding every dangerous glance of the sweeping red
night.
the lascivious dance of road-lust is navigator.
the center is a nebulous clitoris to which we are drawn.
secret inferno kiss curl up with this:
I'm afraid to touch you `cause you're going to shock me.
I have to balance on the unsteady earth to keep from falling backwards, or
into you. with my ear to your chest I hear the traffic of crowded arteries,
busy sidewalks, Akihabaran neon, the center's relentless throbbing.
the pulse is a beat that makes our breath rate increase.
the sound is a void into which we fall.
headless and bare we nuzzle like chopsticks to get rid of splinters,
maybe make a spark, hungry for the glow of the body electric.
sirens brushed from my hair with your flaming hands,
my powerhouse threatens to shut down,
undecided static.
cradled against the swell of your warm analog I anoint myself in alleyways,
lick your alkaline windshield and make tattooed wings of your scars, every
mystery of the universe unfolding before itself as I sing the song in your
heart that I know so well:
dress up a slow collision
camouflage inhibition in the dark
throw a punch to shatter silence
unnatural rhythms of a shudder shimmer spark
you whip me around like a crobar in a bad neighborhood
gutters of broken glass line off-ramps of abandoned highways, clovering into
slow tornadoes that Molotov down my throat--
I'm afraid to touch you `cause you're going to shock me
an easy seduction of demonic grace I'll threaten to whirlwind medusa my way
out of
but the auscultating lull purified me too fast
so i respectfully obey (the beckoning cat's subtle invitation...)
I wanna be angry but can't, obeying respectfully the beckoning cat's subtle
invitation to kickbox each other's shadows into shape and ride the sneeze
for that one interrupting suspended moment where all the lights go dim
where we skinny-dip in the digital aquarium
and Shinjuku crows slowly circle dawn above our heads
particles disperse
and we come down to catch the infinite contagious yawn traveling around the
world
or just try to keep up with it...
sleepwalking families pillow around fortnight in the city that lets me drift
too long and far
poems scrawled everywhere, disguised as graffiti, left alone
winter sidewalks glitter silently beneath them
backing slowly into the tight parking space of your pelvis,
broken glass sounds an end to resistance, egos deflate
to the melody of the song in your heart that I know so well,
every mystery of the universe unfolding before itself,
and I hope I go blind
before I forget what it feels like
to touch you.
nov 2002
2:
shrapnel lotus & the thunder catalyst
it started out swelling
her tired eyes welling
a lonely arcade and a quiet lie telling
a sugar dance spindle in the corner of her fist
shrapnel lotus and the thunder catalyst
head in the clouds, feet in the air
asked her mother, she said she didn't care
but don't come home early
or I'm gonna be pissed
shrapnel lotus and the thunder catalyst
shrapnel lotus and the thunder catalyst
christian celibate mendicant clothes
bells on his fingertips rings on her toes
sweet-tart body parts
never been kissed
shrapnel lotus and the thunder catalyst
he tipped himself back
she let him unfurl
and long locks tumbled with the grace of a girl
skin rush brushed back hard to resist
shrapnel lotus and the thunder catalyst
shrapnel lotus and the thunder catalyst
she listened for the cue, put her ear to the ground
heard the storm coming but she wouldn't make a sound
and let the sky tumble,
trickling mist
shrapnel lotus and the thunder catalyst
she planted the seed, it set in soft earth
together sat and watched it grow
and waited for its birth
extended his hand, found the faint pulse at her wrist
shrapnel lotus and the thunder catalyst
shrapnel lotus and the thunder catalyst
lotus flowers float on water
thunder clouds are filled with rain
coincidental fluid motion still unexplained
another chance encounter that was added to the list
shrapnel lotus and the thunder catalyst
she floated downstream
and traveled with her roots
explosions time-set would knock her out of boots
and petals scattered, a warning softly hissed
shrapnel lotus and the thunder catalyst
shrapnel lotus and the thunder catalyst
he watched the fireworks and took his seven sense
made a thornless tiara of auric radiance
crowned her holy
and well you get the gist
shrapnel lotus and the thunder catalyst
toes in the mud, static in their hair
he asked the lightning if he could give a scare
it never answered, and they disappeared blissed
shrapnel lotus and the thunder catalyst
shrapnel lotus and the thunder catalyst
shrapnel lotus and the thunder catalyst
2001
3:
intenso y refrescante
you're stuck
in the corners of my mouth, between my teeth. I can smell you
on my shirt I only wore for five minutes. our first phone call
I took notes: Eagle Insurance, Peter Francis Geraci, Victory Auto Wreckers-
Chicago local access TV commercials we knew by heart.
who knew the year after we'd go to a fetish club in Berlin and dance around in our underwear
and you would tell me drunk in a Burger King how you must survive yourself.
every summer we worked grassy knolls like nobody's business,
reversed body poli-ticks and gender rolls
in between dreams about horses with purple hair and windowshades
snapping up like dragons' tongues.
I bought a Black Flag CD and smoked your pot to say goodbye to you.
this ritual, performed annually, is never effective,
made redundant by so many 2 A.M's I woke up to hear your voice of gristle and sawdust
thinking of young Tom Waits wailing in a seedy bar
and every time you called after regular business hours, when you knew better,
I was glad just to know you were thinking of me and was never really mad,
secretly wanting to heal all the pulled muscles and popped ribs,
the fifty aspirin it will always be too soon to ask about,
unable to shake your running-around-the-room orgasms
or your intuitive talent of letting me be more myself than I'd ever been
despite our faults and failures to get along sometimes
the wrongs I can't undo.
I still can't get unstuck
maybe it's summer or just me getting older
and maybe your body will turn to pink dust when it gets sucked out of the atmosphere.
I don't have all the answers, but I'm not worried
as if love cannot withstand the electromagnetic forces of Chicago and beyond!
3 july 2002
4:
long way to andromeda
you peel the sheets like pages
in a book you never read, and spring
out of bed before i can print
a red left hand on gray T-shirt cotton.
last night primary colors made you twitch
in deep sleep. i wish the yellow
sky-break could fade the insomniac yellow
from beneath your eyes. . . pages
of your journal unfaithfully twitch
with the rhythm of jaundiced spring.
we hide ourselves in shrouds of cotton
to keep the world at bay. newspaper print
stains our palms like fresh asphalt as we print
black smudges on pillows diamond yellow.
your aura has the softness of cotton,
it appeals to my senses. the pages
of my Eno journal are 1/3 full -- this spring
i've committed to catching up, not you. one twitch
of your confused heartpouring sends a twitch
of cantaloupe knots into my shoulders. print
cautious fingertips on tender spots. mattress spring
creaks as we squirm quietly under yellow
sheets. . . i don't dog-ear the pages
of your books, i handle them like cotton
wrapped around a newborn. i'd like to cotton
your broken pride and make red lips twitch
with sore grief. let me feed you the pages
of an untold story -- we'll print
them scrapbook-like, watch them yellow.
surely we'll be married in the spring.
i secretly aspire to spring
myself from a fantasy of cotton
future, pillowtalk secrets, the yellow
dangers of spooning. we twitch
to shrug off guilt-should've read the fine print
obviously scrawled on delicate pages.
pilfer through the pages of your mindspring
and print a sensible conclusion on the cottony
filter twitch of young fingers, not yet yellow.
sestina/ may 2000
5:
infamous preface (for K)
"The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two
chemical substances; if there is any reaction, both are transformed."
C.G. Jung
before falling asleep I listen to dripping faucet
sounds like a juicy kiss and wonder
what to do about the slow leak in my head
because I'm getting ready to silence the
AH! I should've -- FUCK! I could've--
AH! I should've -- FUCK!
I could've AH! -- I should've-
FUCK! I could've
mantra from my mental vocabulary
you see, it seems to have lost
its incantatory power
(I'm bummed.)
this language almost foreign now,
what will make sense to your sharp ears?
(and it better be good 'cause it's what you'll remember me by)
so do I tell you about the birthday dream worth
sleeping in for? (I guessed how old you were turning
without knowing for sure)
open-mouthed nervousness
through morse code breathing OKAY,
I'll come clean, I was lucid- dreaming
or the one with orange pop in a house with many walls and narrow hallways,
I was on the phone with a guy named Francine.
(I ignored you and felt guilty.)
but pre-rehearsed eloquence will surely fail me
and it'll come dribbling out more like
hey doyoumind do you
mind letting bend yr ear it'll only
take a second (`cause I talk a lot
when I'm nervous and very fast)
hey do you think we could
stay up & talk
till I'm not
nervous
anymore?
and randomly insert out-of-context tangentals like,
Did you know that
dandelions
are a very good food source?
and, Did you know
that if a jellyfish bites you
and you pee on the bite,
it won't hurt anymore?
clever quips set up on a shore-side launchpad,
I rocket fire-fuel 'em baby!
to see in which bodies they land
because
these days
there's something in the water
(there's something in the water
it's getting to my head)
BUT I'M TELLING YOU NOW! YOU HAVE BEEN FOREWARNED!
my sweet surrealist, i'm impressed
with your effortless
exudation of the cerebral
viscosity of genuine,
but before I plunge into the colors of the French flag
with a ripe strawberry and a creamy chocolate vat,
I have to let you in on a little secret:
I've been stricken by transient
global
amnesia.
I've no recollection of what it was like
the last time that provoked the familiar
train echo push-button crank-turn
constant forward consciousness push
but this isn't the last time
it's the THIS time
so with sweet persuasion I plead with you to pick
ME from the list of human chew toys!
forget gum toothpicks cigarettes pen caps
sucker stems -- pick ME!
and i'll trip-toe-feign my way around
the quelling tides of selfish
I will rise to the challenge
of keeping one ear open
for the phone's late-night ring
and I will baby oh I will
scribble skintillating hai-nets on lartreuse leaflets
about how our bodies spoon(fed)-fit together,
about gaping mouthfuls of porcelain pearly whites
clumsily clinking and toasting cloudy sigh-clinks to come
about what it will feel like
when I take off
yr glasses
and the sound
when legal tender
dances
from our pockets
to the floor . . .
but tell me . . .
is it even safe to rely on
the standard habits of fucking
this early in the game?
to dream about a safe clutch
in the thunder of 18-wheelers?
I was born to swing so don't throw me no bombs baby
just gimme the ching ching-a
ching ching-a
ching
and another thing:
I know what it means
when people dot their i's with open circles
I know the difference between being open
and being willing to lose my mind
and I always want to reach over & still
just the right type of hyper
but not anymore.
I won't stay in this city forever
but I have no calling to leech off
the marquee flash of Manhattan
and I'm afraid you travel fast,
nomadic and content.
so as I rub graham cracker crumbs
from the corners of my pie crust eyes,
I can't help but wonder . . .
will we merge
before turtles
glub-burble
our language
underwater?
18 June 2000
6:
if my favorite color could talk.
(inspired by blue's wonderful blue poetic diatribe)
i am the legitimate child of azure and crimson,
the central flame at midnight mass
royalty and family crests
i am purple.
glistening droplets on dew-covered moss
drag diva hair glitter, sugar-sprinkled thimbles
post-it pop-up notes that stick at criss-cross
a tongue's top coat when black cherry blow pop dwindles
sour grapes and pieman plum yum gimme some
theater lightshow gelatin covers psychedelic ink-splash background
casio keyboard first lessons gonna be a rock star purple
i am serenaded by subway musician impersonators
whose identity converts between symbols and syllables,
saw my blooming aura and changed the tune
hoping i'd recognize and make eyes.
i am lipstick of same tune name
being applied in recognition,
underground showered in cascades of purple,
the medium for major arterial networks
red to blue, blue to red
transported back and forth instead.
i am purple not blue, though a related hue
like the love affair summer of `92
like the chain link of train cars that shuttled me to him,
and took me back home when it was through.
i throw purple words around
and aim them right at you
though i miss they will hiss
and paintball-explode
on the brick wall behind you.
mood ring calm before the storm
piece of mind to keep you warm
the hue of little fluffy clouds
the way life feels when you live out loud
mountain majesties that vitalize
patriotic songs that plagiarize
i am tears to your eyes when you see the real thing,
i am purple.
perfect crisp leaves when they autumn and fall
best sunset ever fading to dusk
closeness when someone's deep secrets are husked
purple as the beginning of it all
purple's hue affects you too.
when XX and XY lay down you get
speed and lightning race car accidents
dried blood at wounds before scabbing
broken veins in strong ankles
quivering cock ready to blow its top
old pale skin before fleeting breath purple
i fade over time into honeysuckle
lilac rose, but it's still possible
to recognize those
traces of boldness and brightly composed
purple, like the shading
of gold at the rainbow's end
the memory of a smile's forgotten friend
i am flecks in mosaic garbs of klimt
amethyst and tourniquets
laser trails at all-night raves
regrets for the ones i couldn't save,
aggression fire passion and rage
the chime telling you to turn the page
domestic bruises ready to chartreuse,
i am purple.
i am what all runs out in the street
the stranger you never thought you'd meet
everything you cannot see
always right when you listen to me
not read blue blown red and beaten to shreds
i am showstoppin' bodyrockin' ultraviolet
PURPLE
july 2000
Appointment: 1228 N. Noble St. (coach house) Chicago, 60622 (773 348-8536)