bio

Aire Celeste Norell's work has appeared in The Blue House, Matrix (Germany), and San Gabriel Valley Poetry Quarterly. She has been anthologized in Literary Angles: The Second Year of poeticdiversity (2005, Sybaritic Press) and The Other Side of Sorrow: Poets Speak Out about Conflict, War, and Peace (2006, Poetry Society of New Hampshire).
In 2004 she put together her first poetry chapbook, The Ugly Duckling & Other American Tragedies. In the same year, she edited and published an anthology (on tree-free paper using soy ink) of environmental poetry, Cracked Pavement & Plastic Trees: Our Gifts To Future Generations.
Aire has been a featured performer at a number of poetry readings and other venues across L.A. and Orange County. She is also guilty of compulsively organizing poetry/music/dance events for good causes. Her day job is tutoring "low income, at risk" youth.
For information about her upcoming scheduled appearances, as well as to read more of her work, please visit her website.
www.aireceleste.com

The Rabbit's Eye

the rabbit's gaze scalds me
it's hard to read its body language
when it's fixed inside a device
to measure its response
to gentle puffs of air

will the rabbit blink
after the tone?
after the tone
please respond
please leave your name
- Joe Researcher -
and your number
- I'm the first
performing this experiment.

we can test Granny for Alzheimer's now
years before we could detect it
by conventional methods
Granny, sit still while this machine
blows air into your eye.
No, it won't hurt.
Don't worry;
It'll be over soon,
then we'll go home.

copyright 2005 Aire Celeste Norell

Stone Walls

I came from cold Sweden
To cold New England
To farm this glacier-littered soil

For each seedling I plant
I must extract a stone from the ground
I'll add the stone to this elf-wall
What matter if the walls never meet?
Only fairies will dance them
Dogs nor horses they'll not keep in—
I use no mortar

Nothing holds my family together
We deserted kin and friends
What place we had, we left
We came to this land
Where we sleep over strangers' ancestors' bones
This land of extinguished futures

Did we come because we had hope
Or because we had no hope?

We know enough English now
To know they call us longheads
How surprised they were to discover
We were not idiots

This nation wet-nursed me
With stale milk
I am grateful not to go hungry
I know well whose backs are broken
To build railroads, mine coal

When I tire of farming rocks
The quiet woods will grow back
My meager progeny will scatter
You will see no more trace of
Me than these stone walls

copyright 2005 Aire Celeste Norell

Battery Cages

wearing whiteness as a weapon
speech salted with
Hitler references

Close the borders—
stop the immigrants—
so I can eat steak! you say

trading smiles with you
your shaved heads fuzzy and
colorless like chickens raised in
battery cages

this factory farm nation
grew you
assembly line humans
you’ve staked out your piece of this
prison neither recognizing nor
resenting the bars
(or the owner)
ready to peck if only you hadn’t been
de-beaked

we’re the same breed but you terrify me
my cells saturated with the sweat and
saliva of black and brown lovers

the flock of you
jovially saunter off
point made
fear induced

i wish i could shed my (white)
skin or at least
disown you

copyright 2005 Aire Celeste Norell