Seven sins (or rather 4) and seven mercies (er, 3)

SEVEN DEADLY SINS (in progress)

Pride



close to the mother. observing the old enemy, other you.

you as your pride hopes that we go somewhere childlike and good to children

came fortitude. and hopeful students. zinging pearls.

can she belong to what she is kissing.

what dolphin would wish harm on the pearly, inattentive island. afraid to say it.

can she have that kind of pressure.

washing down the roofs of my island.


--Sarah Gambito


Greed



I deserve nothing but rivers stirred in ginger,
the Ganges swept west, your mother's teat.
I'll take a beggar's dime. I'll take his stagger.
I'll take burlap and cashmere, the slack
ropes of bound-up barges, yachts. I'll take
minnows and caviar, palmshacks and mansions.
I'll open your sister's mouth and take her breath away.

--Patrick Rosal


Gluttony



What would I call you? Tongue sore and breath sour
with your full name? Marble-mouthed vowel,
you eye-wreck? You plague around the corner?
Charmer with the hung belly, you hungry
donkey . . . you angry penny with no copper.
Plate-headed brute with your wide arms. Roman-
nosed infant with your beak set on me and me.


--Oliver de la Paz



Sloth


Sunday morning, and the corridor
Leading through the rooms of
Nocturnal animals remains lit for
Attendants who wipe carefully along
Smeared sheets of glass separating
Us, the crowd, from the lone sloth
Hanging quietly within its life.


--Jon Pineda


SEVEN MERCIES (in progress)


drink



when my father was thirsty, he hurt my hand.
what I gave was my messy nest of predators.
and it became my fantasy
that my mother was good.
and we pasted wings on the falcon
leaving 1 wing cloven.
this way he can't ever leave us.


--Sarah Gambito



Minister to Prisoners


I carry steam and the funk of an unbathed woman
who's left early from my bed. These things are better than fiction
but I carry lies with me as well: one in each hand, and several
between my teeth. This is how I've learned to let murderers
touch me. I touch them too. I hold their elbows when we embrace.
They do not cry. And they're not waiting till I leave. They describe
the scent of apples. It's how they teach me to be free.


--Patrick Rosal



Feed the Hungry



The fruit sours in the sun. Fiddler crabs rummage through
the garbage, their mouths feeding on the soft tissues of decaying mangoes.
Your thatched roof is swollen from the storm. Its fibers are heavy
from salt water and the semi-acidic punch of mangoes
too wicked for your stomach. A leaf dangles from your lip
because you cannot eat and because the storm
is a red scarf above the ocean.


--Oliver de la Paz


Visit the Sick



Years before, after church, how
The ritual of communion blurred
Into the caustic light of a hospital
When the plastic spoon fumbles
With neon squares of fruit cocktail
And there, always, is your sister's mouth
Waiting to speak, to be fed forever.


--Jon Pineda

EDIT: Broke Jon's poem up according to last post.