Posts for June 7, 2018 (page 5)

The best intentions
can take
the cruellest forms.
Adoration
can be
a hurtful hand.

Someone needs
to flatten the palm,
unpoint the fingers,
and repeat gentle brushes,

teach you
how to have a “nice touch.”

Black man spitting his woes
through a microphone
without a power chord;
every syllable instilling a sidewalk silence
like David’s sling and stone.
The giants are cowering in callous defiance
and only legendary arrows 
could keep them from breaking worse.
Robin Hood is feeling cursed.

I am lucky
To have a love
Who isn’t my missing piece,
But knows where I leave things behind.
I call him at work to ask
where’s my favorite hoodie?
My keys?
He has unlocked those from my car ten times this year.
He gets frustrated after my therapy sessions
when I share my new insight,
“I’ve said those exact words.”
He remembers to buy me tampons
even when I’m the one bleeding
and manage to forget.
He tucks me in before going to work
and wakes me up when coming home.
Always with love.
He knows how to wrestle me from nightmares,
and calm my racing heart.
Knows how I take my coffee
and when to expect the crashing.
And the crashing has become familiar
enough to predict.
I have never let myself be vulnerable
enough for predictability.
But to be vulnerable is to be known.
Open and unafraid,
where this love can almost protect us
from the wars
we too often forget we’re fighting.
I am lucky he locks the door behind me.
Leaves out an extra towel.
Leaves the hallway light on.
He makes a little bit more
everytime he cooks,
because I always ask to share.
And now, I always share myself too.
He reminds me,
when I forget again
That I don’t have to try so hard to forget.
There is so much worth remembering now.

Secretly
The luthier, the restauranteur and the racket technician
Sneaked into LexPoMo
and kidnapped all the cats

Some found this horrible and brutal
While others shrugged with capitalistic indifference

At least one was happy, pleased and thankful but
Secretly

Whether it fits,
or not,

this skin you inhabit
is now your own.

A veces
me llamo ‘peritio.’
 
(Borges nos dice esto. Que el animal solo te matará una vez.
Y yo…)
 
Sobre una sombra soñado en mi pasado,
en la noche del cielo y entre estrellas en forma de hielo,
yo—la bestia—pienso y no recuerdo
ojos de color de miel.
Pero en mi corazón, dentro mi pecho, entre mis alas,
sé que son ojos algo familiares.
 
(Borges no dice esto.
Solo hay que fingir y fijar nuestras fantasmas a fin de que no se extingan perdidos en un cerebro cerval.)
 
A veces
quiero (a) ser humano
con ojos color miel.
Una extranjera de raras tierras. Sus dioses les deseo, su sangre, su piel.
Es la sombra, es mi hija, es mi ama, mi alma.
Y yo…
 
(Borges nos dice esto. Que el animal solo se matará una vez.
Pero no…)
 
No soy poderosa.
Los otros peritios por sus labios llevan sangre
por sus cueros llevan sangre,
por sus cuernos llevan sangre,
por sus sombras llevan ciervos.
Pero yo no soy poderosa.

The boy with a clock on his back can’t hear the ticking but feels the motion of the hands’ movement as he walks down the alley, walks on mud-covered cobbles but doesn’t leave footprints, nothing to say he’s been here until he steps into the puddle that’s been waiting for him, where he leaves short-lived ripples and waves on the water, making the sky and walls reflected on the surface shimmer as though they were on fire for one brief moment, but he doesn’t notice this or that his shoes are now wet, he only sees the line where alley and plaza meet, the door-goal on the other side, while he prays silently to do this one thing right today, to be safe from the burning scorn and ridicule that drip from his mother’s mouth like a rabid dog’s foam-flecked blind anger, to be a good and acceptable son, to be on time.

This heat clings, a wanting
child unmoved by ice cream
and too far flung from sleep.   

Air serious as a red
bandana soaked in steam
and draped over our mouths.  

This city balcony
no porch of sweet
tea and rocking chair.  

Hill breezes cannot
find me among this maze
of stiffled brick and steel.  

Some nights are like that:
The body’s red sweetness
in mismatched glasses,  

wondering what star
will blaze our name,
what deep root
calls home the bloom.

a midnight blue stallion, captured in fused glass.  White wisps
of mane writhe and twist away from his neck in a tease
of forward movement.  Iridescent fire is his corral: sun-flamed ocher,
umber, sienna.  No bit, no halter impede the thrust of his neck.
I stroke my hand down his cool surface.  Do I sense a quiver?

I dream of moon-shimmered mist, a glint of indigo.  Hooves paw
the ground; he whinnies, come.  White hawk feathers glow
and twirl in my braids as I run to the one who waits.  I curve
my arms around his neck and we ride, seamless, through scattered
pearls of light.

Kinsman Lake

green herons are out in force.
a greener sun than that subdues the old world
sparrow chorus, as i reflect in the lake
filth makes fractals in.

i dont get around easily. my feet sink
in questionable wetness. a leech attaches
to the outer edge of a grey fungus
broke off from its stem, and we
are also detached.

a lone nighthawk flaps with the grace
of Mother Mary, in blue veils of sky
which thinnish clouds drape in part.

it has all been so sodden.
i have been taken aback and aback, and yet
i walk this trail alone forever. there is no one
to remind me to kneel down.

the ancient hawk doesnt care about me
this time. he faces the direction of rain yet
to arrive. i see right through this murky water,
but to save its face i carry on as though
it, and all things are utterly opaque.