Linh Dinh reading from Borderless Bodies at Front Beach in Vũng Tàu on 8/25/26

 

Obsolete Maps

There are spots on your body
That are never touched or seen,
Nearly impossible to reach, even 
Connoisseurs of the human body
Do not know what to call them.


Borders

Where bones always nudge
Against the fuzziest skin.
Where inside and outside
Are confused and flushed.


Processed Food

On my hands and knees,
I reached behind the bauhaus
Of her stained porcelain bowl
For a rainbow of M&M’s.


Trinity

Out of her laboring hole, her husband’s head. 
Though full-grown, it was blind and beardless. 

She slapped it when it demanded 
Songs and teats. Asymmetrical, 
They lay next to each other,
A mingling of breath, dirt and saliva. 

Sick of the one, 
She gave birth to another.


Serial

Toes and dirty feet 
Lined up in a row. 
Bare bellies in a row. 
Male and female
Genitalia in a row.

Legs are for draping.
Arms are for folding.
Lips are for peeling.

So much DNA 
To gather.


Putang

Putang is the capital 
Of an insular state.
Its rail service 
Is perpetually
Understaffed.


Liquid 

Always sluicing, her overflowing body
Seeps through her blouse and jeans.
Her eyes leak through their shut eyelids. 
Her breasts bead and drip in the sun 
Into a defiant puddle. 


Gaseous

The articulated gas
And learnt discharge 
That bind and distress.
The accidental hiss.
Brightest birds, must you 
Always discuss plumbing?

 
Wiping

For drying or cleaning, until 
You don’t see it, of course.
Pondering wiping, I picture 
The clean, dry bodies of nuns,
Nurses and armless soldiers.


A Fairy Tale

In the moonlight, he hoisted himself
Up the funky, kinky hair tangling 
Down the rugged, leaning tower,
Trying to tag his dusky reward
Before the moon struck midnight.


Ductless Gland

The Adam’s apple is no apple
But a little man, an artistic type,
An unpublished poet half-swallowed,
Squatting in front of the voice box.


Bardic

He sang not of oceans
Or the open road but
The pale sun rising
On each thumb nail.
He sang not of breasts
But of breastbones.

If you’re interested in having my entire output of poems in English, please PayPal me at least $16, and I’ll email you the 386-page PDF. The PayPal donation button is at the top of my photo blog. I went from an anthologized poet, with poems in Best American Poetry, etc., to being untouchable. My profile at the Academy of American Poet, Poetry Foundation and PennSound were put up before I started to look into Jewish power, Jewish thinking and Jewjabs, etc.