VANESSA DAOU | JOE SENT ME | Barcelona Poesia 2008

	VANESSA DAOU Selections from JOE SENT ME BarcelonaPoesia2008 Background + Codes
	THE POEM DREAM LOVE LIVES THE HOOK HURRICANES THE SIREN

THE POEM This is the poem I wrote last night while you were sleeping in my bed. We're never content to live in the moment but I swore to myself that I'd make it enough just to have you in a blink, in a breath. As the memory shimmers and the days roll on like clouds, like trains, like sirens. This is the poem I wrote to keep you, to remake you, to forsake you, to forget you, to shed you, to slough you off, to wear you like a cross, to wound you, to bewitch you, to heal you, to have you, to be like voodoo, a talisman, to be your albatross, to be the one to redeem you, to be the one who numbs you, to be the only one who you call lover, the one who makes mist from your mortar, who turns your stone into ether. This poem is black magic, extortion, a landscape, a portrait, a screenplay, an instant replay, props on a stage. The days march on like soldiers, they have their orders. We're never content to live in the moment, but I swore to myself that I'd make it enough to have you in a blink, in a breath. This is the poem I wrote last night.
	Hear Vanessa Daou's rough Jazz mix of THE POEM



LOVE LIVESLOVE Love lives in the dark in all the shadows that we create with our suspicions ((the ones that disappear as soon as the sun rises)) The powdery words that we recall in our thoughts gather underneath the bed like the wings of moths and turn to dust when eternity finally bows its head and says 'yes' We spend our days sweping up the talcum of our lives with a tear and a smile - most days we choose but can't decide Then, at midnight, when the world inside is naked as a bulb in the bedroom of your dangling soul Your life fits in a capsule prescribed by your physician in the scratches of a chicken Yes, the night has its hazy ways Despite all the poetry we write © 2008 Vanessa Daou Read the translation of LOVE LIVES IN THE DARK in Spanish by Bruno Galindo Read the translation of LOVE LIVES IN THE DARK in Catalan by Daniel Sisla	Hear the acapella extended version of LOVE LIVES as mixed & interpreted by Raul Vincent Enriquez


DREAM The wind is calling your name (I can only sing one truth into your ears) I wear myself out, gratefully, running on the sand of my desire for you Sun Shaman Culprit King A gigantic dream like the wind An immense thought dangerous and rare ((of the heart, the passion of youth, fleeting and faraway, a sweet taste on the tongue for example)) Since we met, I've watched the snow, twice I've watched the snow from my window In the house of truth In the kingdom of solitude where lovers are living forsaken and forgiving Only now I understand Keats and his need for oblivion, though his poems still keep their secrets © 2008 Vanessa Daou Read the translation of DREAM in Catalan by Daniel Sisla	Hear Audio (Catalan) of DREAM by Daniel Sisla

THE HOOK'
Hear Raul Vincent Enriquez' audio interpretation of THE HOOK

THE HOOK We learned all the pleasures of the tongue before we knew each other's names, long after the pain had come. Imagine the shock of a fish when the hook finds its mouth and pierces its roof then the sigh it heaves when it shakes it loose. Our first kiss was like this. I used to swim in open waters like a lazy cod without a thought of your delicious bait.¹ But time lets our fears loose and they drift with no logic like a cork on the sea a role both sad and comic.	I twisted like an unruly marlin so I could love you this madly. And so today I am lucid as a shark That all the world is afraid of.² I used to think that life would be frightening if one's eyes were so haunted by seeing everything. But I still dream, even if I don't sleep, and my thighs get wet at the thought of my head between your legs. ((With you my lips act stupid as a grouper's and I make no excuses))

HURRICANES'

Soon life's knowing will come, it will dust the mind like talcum. Meanwhile, everyone will dream at least once of times they tried to run. but their legs got stuck in the ambivilance of love's mud, in the imagination's straining. Our days are drenched by hurricanes entering sideways in our minds with no warning. It's gray where the thinking thinks, where the radar blinks. It's the surge of you that burns me crimson. I am asleep, asleep all day, blood running, an accident of treason. My mother was the one who laughed from other rooms while I cried, the division between us multiplied a thousand times. You say (and I quote) Don't do the math (end of quote), italics mine. (Quote again) just come here (end quote). So what if I do? I go nowhere with you, and everywhere. I am subsonic, plutonic, woebegone, forlorn, language forgotten, towel shared. I am scared, scarred, scarlet letter A, hermit, Hamlet, tragic, victorious. I am soldier, souvenir, medal of honor attached to your pocket. I am intrinsic, entropic, order, chaotic, limited to this word I have just finished, conception of the infinite. Masculine, feminine, everything. is division; days, dollars, mortgage rates, bequeathed estates. Leave me with nothing more than your essence. Invisible lover, indivisible number. Only then will I remember, remember with my lack of logic. I am myth maker, glass breaker, soul taker, hip shaker. I am techtonic, ironic, sardonic. With you I am purified, pornographic, protean, prolific. For you I am problematic, acrobatic. Yes, like I said. Every crevice that cracks in me I spread for you since that first night in my bed when the flash of my life turned your blue eyes red. And so the story always goes, ending before the author knows. Our days are drenched by hurricanes entering sideways in our minds with no warning. © 2008 Vanessa Daou


THE SIREN I wait for you, hydrophilic, at the bottom of the sea where the weight of the water makes my body leaden. The world is a forgotten, Sleeping, out-of-time-thing. You are a traveler. A wave with direction and no intention, with a mind full of bags you never unpacked. Me, I wander. Will I ever discover what you've hidden? Which pearls you'll spill, that is if you let them? Which smells of seas on your shirt sleeves? Which Bay Rum traces will you leave? Soon we swallow the years and the hand of time erases the blackboards of our chalky minds. I must be a rock that is hard, yes, but not without the softness of water to know this and still be singing. ((In this game of strength water always wins)) I wait for you at the bottom of the sea where my words become garbled bubbles by the time you hear them, and then you only listen believing I am Venus with her mythic sighs and milky thighs. I have waited a long time to become human in your eyes. And despite all the sand of your dried up mythology, I have tried to understand your need for Aphrodite to appear. I've tried to warn you all along with my song. I have waited, yes, waited here with my breath abated. You will not be the last to say that I am here because I've misbehaved. Until I whisper the last word, until I breathe the last thought blissful at the bottom of the world, all the men I love will believe that I need to be saved. © 2008 Vanessa Daou	Hear studio version of THE SIREN