The Poet’s Snapchat Riddles

After Turandot’s Riddles from Turandot: The Chinese Sphinx by Friedrich Schiller (translated by Sabilla Novello) and Turandot by Carlo Gozzi (translated by John Louis DiGaetani)

“Riddles, while often appearing trivial, suggest power struggles. They are ritually associated with significant contexts (judicial, political, and matrimonial), and rites of passage (puberty, weddings, and funerals). Interpersonally, riddles function to establish and challenge hierarchy, and cultural and social bonds are negotiated between riddler, riddlee, and audience (Goldberg, 1993, pp. 162-163). Riddles are common in courtship tales because they may reconcile opposites, assert or undermine power, and convey sexual innuendo (Goldberg, 1993, 164-167)” (23).

From “Mythic Rhetoric: Love, Power, and Companionate Marriage in Mythic Rhetoric: Love, Power, and Companionate Marriage in Puccini's Turandot” by Valerie V. Peterson

TODAY

[Your Snapchat story of you dancing at a party wearing a scarlet red silk evening gown and a pearl necklace. On your head, there is a ruby-encrusted crown hair barrette.]

 HIM

Your self-portrait is the flaming light

that possessed your insect suitors to take flight,

diving headfirst into their burning desire,

in hopes of bringing you, Princess Firefly, your fire.

Their life they bid, to spark the candle light of lovers

by your bed; lovebugs biting under the duvet covers.

In cremation furnaces, the heads of dragon moth,

and stag beetle suitors burned off; they wax wroth.

The last flutter of their seared angel wing blades–

little deaths riding death to their stars:^[1] their ace of spades.

I bid you the celestial fire-rat skin-robe,^[2]

for R-rated self-portraits of your body disrobed,

emerging from your bathtub pool like Shirin,

with your long flowing wet black mane, and glistening white jewel skin.^[3]

YOU

My parents, who gifted me my first breath,

gifted me with a burial plot for my death–

their dowry tomb for a mythical groom

they hope I’ll one day wed, and make room

for in my cold heart, entombed. Name the tree,

that which grows with me,

and looms over my blood-red honeymoon deathbed.

On its bough, Hymen’s knot tied, a noose for my head.

Each time it blooms a ring it wears;

upon its bark, my maiden name it bears.^[4]

In its youth, it wears robes of emerald hues;

in middle age, it adorns gold and ruby jewels,

and is shrouded in an ice-sheer dress when old.

What is this tree, ancient as the stars foretold?

HIM

I bid you the jeweled branch from Hōrai paradise,

the Golden Bough . . . just name your body’s price.

The sunburst diamond from a dragon’s neck?

A sundress sewed with golden stardust specks?

YOU

A golden gem that has no equal: a face that you have seen,

but can never reach; who is this seraphic queen?

HIM

O, to go to bed with the sun,

and be sun kissed just for fun!

Desire is the reasoned mind’s treason.

In the spring of mating season,

sweet-honeyed words, I’ve sowed,

and reaped harvest beauties, well-endowed–

the cream of the crop; pressing sunflowers,

kissing pink tulips, and virgin bowers.

YOU

Answer this riddle, to kiss red pink tulip gentian . . .

What is this man-made invention

gifted to sons to rule the earth,

and sow their wild oats, all their worth?

From dragon’s teeth to little G.I. Joes,

our crown shyness stripped and bulldozed;

gifted to us, daughters, bad seeds,

planted in our heads that we’re weeds–

wilted youths, and barren beauties;

worthless if unwed, Hymen’s soiled booties.

HIM

I must put my hand on the plough

since obtaining the Golden Bough

is an effortless task compared to

getting a R-rated self-portrait from you.

YOU

The internet troll’s mirror–can you name?

Held up to the celestial cyberspace to shame

the divine artist’s creations, all lovely,

but now distorted as ugly,

and all things evil as good, worthy profit.

Like a wise prophet,

those who hold a clear mirror can judge right

from wrong, and read what the stars are fated to write.

Like a painter, they paint what they see^[5]:

heaven, hell, and the seven seas,

the stars in the night sky for their worth,

and the cataracts that fall onto earth.

HIM

May my eyes like Shaikh Zada, paint me a mental portrait

of a moon-face beauty bathing in the starry strait

to be preserved and gazed upon across time.^[6]

I’ll bid you parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme.

The Idol’s Eye Diamond for the apple of my eye,

for the price of knowledge, I’ll pay you with Odin’s eye.

For you, Thiazi’s crystal irises–

starry flowers bloomed across the night sky, Iris’s

rainbow arch stairway to reach your stars–

Little deaths riding death to their stars.

I’ll promise you fire, Shiva’s third eye,

cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.

YOU

What is the thing with feathers?^[7]

Its ethereal plume: hues of wild heathers.

In virgin freedom^[8] it can fly, its birthright;

it dies each dawn but rises from ashes each night.

Trapped in the eye-lid of a once starry-eyed

woman before she was dowered to Death as his bride,

and saw wars, hate, mortal banes, and lies–

all the corrupt ideals of men through their wandering eyes.

HIM

I bid you the Hope Diamond from an eye

of the ivory-statue-goddess, and the wisdom of the sky

from Hera’s peacock feather with Argus’s All-seeing eyes.

In my heart, the truth lies–I don’t tell lies.

Just weigh my little deaths against the Feather of Truth.

I bid you the elixir of life: the Bride of Death’s youth. 

I’ll bring you the flaming feather gown

made from the noble crest of the firebird’s crown.

YOU

Like a scholar of poetry, if given black stones of knowledge from the heart

of a kind professor, it can create blood-red-ruby-jeweled^[9]-tines-art.

Its wrought blood-red ruby jeweled tines, like flaming thorns, can be worn

as a crown, but the wearer has to die before light is born.^[10]

Those who possess it, possess the power of life.

Those who choose to share it, will pass the torch and inspire lives.

From a scholar of poetry to a professor of poetry with an open hearth—

who is this poet who has been birthed?

HIM

It is you, Princess Firefly–

you are the fire from the pearled sky,

the fire that draws swarms of suitors bitten by the lovebug,

losing their heads, filled with passion’s elixir-drug.

The fire that can turn black stones of knowledge from your heart

into the finest blood-red-ruby jeweled-tines-art.

You are the candle light fire, flaming thorns worn

as a crown. For your passion, you died for your poetry to be born.

You possess fire, so you possess the power of life.

You choose to share your fire, so you pass the torch and inspire lives.

From a scholar of poetry to a professor of poetry with an open hearth–

you are the poet who has been birthed.

Double Standards Snapchat Sestina

“ . . . [I]t is overwhelmingly male professors who sleep with their overwhelmingly female students. The professor's failure in such cases--that is, most actual cases of consensual professor-student sex--is not simply his failure to redirect the student's erotic energies toward its apt object. It is a failure that involves taking advantage of the fact that women are socialized in a particular way under patriarchy--that is, socialized in a way that conduces to patriarchy--for the satisfaction of his narcissistic gratification. In turn, this gendered practice reproduces the very dynamics on which it feeds, by making sure that the benefits of education will not accrue equally to men and women. In such cases, sleeping with one's student is not simply a pedagogical failure, but also a patriarchal one . . .”

--Amia Srinivasan “Sex as a Pedagogical Failure”

THE SUMMER YOU STARTED YOUR MFA PROGRAM

HIM

Ever since college, I've worn many stars,

their skin stitched into a jeweled robe,

its value, seen only by those who possess the knowledge,

to understand “good poetry.”

As an educator high up on my pearled poet throne, and king-size bed,

I hold my students and TAs in my arms.

YOU

As an educator, I hold my students in my arms,

as the sky falls into the earth's grave, like burning stars,

risking sickness tucking us into our deathbed.

We touched the hem of wisdom's robe,

studying the tragedies and sins of history through the poems

carved on the walls on Angel Island: hidden knowledge.

YOU

We drew pearls from sand, rubies from stones^[11], and knowledge

from coals; fire kept from us at arm's length,

passed on through dance, rap songs and poetry

louder than death's lullaby-dirge; we gather stars

and release them back into the sky, fate's tapestry-robe

woven over heaven's loom, a starlight-duvet over earth's thorned bed.

HIM

I go after who I want—bedding

the student body with my power; they put on my carnal knowledge^[12],

worn as their birthday skin-robe,

and I wear their young bodies as my coat of arms.

They look up at me with their starry-eyes,

their eagerness to learn the language of love and poetry.

YOU

I go after what I want, my love for poetry,

even when my family dowered me to Death, on his thorned wedding bed:

“You're old enough to wed Death; too old to reach for the stars

like a starry-eyed fool fighting for knowledge”—

my birthright's coat of arms

worn on the morning sky's sun robe.

HIM

Your veiled shame, disrobed—

a naked beginner poet,

taken under the fallen angel's winged-arms.

The glory and success you have not bed;

the forbidden fruit of knowledge

I bear, dangling under my belt of stars.

[A bitmoji sticker of him with a smug look on his face, laughing while pointing at you; you have a look of defeat on your face. Next to his bitmoji is a speech bubble: “I win.”]

YOU

Only the stars, Orion's right arm, in their silver-diamond robes,

have the knowledge to judge the character of a poet,

winged Victories, when she flies up to heaven's pearled bed.