Mulholland Drive
Late hot liquid emerald night
the air conditioners are singing.
There is nowhere to be but here
The dilapidated refuge of my working dreaming life
The music factory.
The pipe dream machine fuming into the wet night
I know nothing
I worship silence.
Come hold my hand lean closer to the water
These pools contain all the pearls of the world
and all the chlorine.
I laugh because I am alone
and it feels indulgent
The still hours of belonging
only to myself.
Heat Wave
You say the sun burns the layers of lies
until you’re an exhibitionist
Free to be loud, direct,
Fast
Suddenly an extrovert
Riding that wave
The brightness is intoxicating
A clear high until the threshold that breaks you into a scared child with a fever
begging for a place to hide
Tired, weak useless sun worshiper
Is this what you wanted?
————
You didn’t get what you wanted
You got rejected
You fell out of love
Room full of dead dreams with flies between window panes, legs up
Delicate little wings, what are they even made of?
Did they think themselves butterflies too?
You have been here before, rearranging the furniture. Drawing the blinds open
then closed then open
What are you doing here?
Why does it matter if you win or loose?
Maybe this round is for more settle arrangements, half light of enlightenment
Dim glow of not knowing and not wanting to know
Lady artist, Joan of Arc
The prototype
Isn’t this exactly what you wanted?
Keep losing
—————
Embarrassing, but you know me well
All my little buttons, overpasses, undertows
Kiss me slower
Tuesday-kind of lover
You smell of new money sweat
You talk a lot
I don’t listen
Los Angeles, you’ve taught me well
Sucked my bone marrow
burned me clean with your dumb sun
Break me until I am salt
Crystallizing in the bright, impossible
pursuit of constantly beginning.
There is only future here
Only us.
Roksana Zeinapur is a Russian-Amereican opera singer, actress and writer. Recent performances include Barnett Cohen’s Approach Gesture Response at Redcat Studio, Vocal and Glass with Sonic Open Orchestra, Persephone in Dionysus in Hell with Open Gate Theater, a studio artist residency with Teatro Nuovo in New York and an emerging artist residency with Bel Canto in Italy in Greve in Chianti. Roksana holds an MFA in Music Performance from California Institute of the Arts and a BA in Music Performance from Pepperdine University. Born and raised in Riga, Latvia to a Russian mother and a Persian father, she now makes her home in Los Angeles.
The Los Angeles Press 