Moved

Hello

I've moved to tumblr because blogspot was being a pain.

Go here instead to find my newest things: http://marlobarrera.tumblr.com/

Ohio

Here is a poem. It has been a while. It is the billionth revision of a poem that I may or may not have posted on here long ago that has never be satisfying and it also gives a place to the last short poem I posted here.

Ohio

From New Orleans, in August

I lived as a Russian toy

in the small town north

of here. My body rolled

in her body. Her ribcage,

rounded as a loving arm,

made those months a hot,

sad surrender. I could get used

to the blatant cold, spring’s wild

dogs, the miles of unholy farmland,

but not the early dark

brought on by winter’s months.

*

Here, the days have me landlocked.

Out the apartment’s two small windows

I can only see where the trash is taken out to.

I understand this hot south as a dogfight.

*

I assume a landscape still exists

after nightfall but I could never really be sure.

-marlo barrera

august 17,2011

Poem

Self Portrait
(During Transition, Moving South)

In our apartment,
out our two
small windows
we can
only see
where the trash
is taken out to.




June2011

hiatus

Well, there has been quite a hiatus on this blog. The poems aren't coming easily anymore. It's all a bit discouraging, but I guess understandable. There are big transitions going on. I recently left Oberlin to return to New Orleans to work for the next eight months so that I can finish school in London in the Spring. Oberlin is a really special place and so is New Orleans but the incongruity is a bit hard to bear; but it's getting easier. Hopefully I will have something that I am proud of on here soon.
Stay tuned, I suppose.

There's a poem here:

Russian prison tattoos are pretty incredible. Each of the images means something, is some sort of badge of status or fearlessness. I watched a special on t.v. once that went into this prison where, when prisoners died, they would cut off the skin where the most interesting tattoos were, and basically turn them into human leather and made a whole museum out of human Russian prisoner skin.

A lot of prisoners had tattoos on their faces. (In the third picture, the man has barbed wire on his forehead which means he is in prison for life without chance of parole.) But I remember something on that show about how there was a point when Russia decided prisoners could not be kept for life, so there were all of these men released who thought they would never get out, and their faces and bodies were just covered, making them this almost untouchable and surely unemployable group of people.

(click the photos to enlarge)

A poem from Cecily Parks

The Wish for a Field

Were I loved, I would be braver.