Posts for June 6, 2019 (page 6)

last night i watched the lightning
and the lightning bugs flashing.
i stood out on the back porch
with the air all charged and electric
and stared down the storm
ravaging the next ridge over.
i could feel the static crackling
and connecting.
i chainsmoked two cheap cigarettes
and downed a half a cup
of half cold coffee
that was mostly sugar and cream

and i wiped my sweet mouth
on the back of my hand
and tried hard to recall
how stormy, summer, kisses taste
till the raindrops and the memories
nearly drowned me.

Grit on the bottom of gravel-toughed feet
with different and wide waters spread out,
planting the perfect spot for a seat
while two little brothers excitedly run about.

If we hadn’t only left the mountains of home
the flatness of the Atlantic skyline would almost suggest that the world weren’t a perfectly round dome. 
But then the waves beat back and forth reminding us of a bigger design.

The heat of a blaring sun
sets the world and our skin aflame.
Just out of earshot a beachgoer calls out a vulgar name.

Hatefulness is unleashed as a man in the water unzips his pants…
I run to grab my children playing feet away in the sand.

We can’t always shield our children from the badness in the world, but we can teach them how to respond:

Love over everything, even when this life is anything but a day at the beach. 

Just being here     just being another capitalist

drone again     seems like magic     like a spell

cast around my once-defeated heart     how I am

able to walk again for hours and still speak

without collapsing in a pool of phlegm and sweat

how I can focus just long enough to understand

the language of barcodes when before I could

barely say my own name     it must be a satchel

of orange peels in my pocket     a glaze of citrus

and mint rubbed against the glands in my neck

the musk of tangerines lingering in my beard

these are prayers I can hold in my hands     this

is pulling the sun from my pocket in the middle

of my long night     I am eating this to stay upright

I am chewing this flesh to keep mine just as sweet

PROSESSION OF TAKERS

tight rings electric
tic aflutter, are thinest waves
crying to the sun for mercy
ripples spread on surface flow
the strike reveals
a lair below
fish and mosquito

red black and white fin fibers align
dots along his side
list the seasons in an unknown speech
like mathematics but clearer, more precise 
worm like marks and whorls
the body defies geometry. its look summons nature
a lightning snapshot of abundance
spasmed wings and thread legs gone,
the surface now is blackness, nothing
the white whale
dull terror
no redemption
but that was another day

remembering his voyage
still brother to the moment
the host satiate, an insect
lover of blood
parasite and predator
had left complacent flesh in
drunk inspiration
the payload within his
rigid frame,
so severe,
heavier than flight permits
inevitably compromised.

The sun-lit sweating arm
had strayed in contemplation
from its purpose
The pain was minor.

A thrush call and a smoke break later
he casts to an ancient pool
where the glutton waits
again
circles of different sizes
grey white blue orange brown, seeming torquise
the lining of the water’s belly
smooth pebbles are a path,
whisper a million years
the rod and dry fly a tongue
coaxing his zeal.
The brook trout answers.

blood of the fisherman
walking the chasm’s roar
where the bold red Hawk sings
over the water snake.

twice fed, once murdered
says the river.
no mistake
the eye of God was watching

a white man once postulated
it is skin deep, the way i
apologize too much
savagery, the simmer of
a spice they crossed oceans
to find, barbaric
the way backs buckle
into plantation soil, or colors
overflow into our
garlands, inferior
revolutions churning in empty
stomachs, declare this:
in the pursuit of happiness
who is leading the way?

baby doll hugs 
and 
sweet angel kisses 

what I wouldn’t give 
to go
back to that 

me as a pool
player & a lover: 
i always miss 
the wide open shots. 

take me to your hometown
and i’ll take you to mine
i said
and maybe then, i chuckled
we’ll both be able to get outta there

treat me to your petite, coastal village
show me where your mother bore you
tell me about how liberating
a natural birth was for her
let me listen to the painted birds sing
and bathe me in the cool water
where your mother took you to swim
show me that hardy restaurant—-
the one that’s closing in on bankruptcy
(the only one your mother could afford
and it became a birthday treat—-
a tradition)
i want you to order for me
and when we finish eating
touch me
caress me
until we cry
take me to your first kiss

i’ll shudder as i show you
the place i grew up
(what feels like a boarded-up shell,
now)
you can touch the ancient trees i’d climb
and at dusk we can take off our clothes
and lay in the grass
and when the crickets chirp
we’ll jump into the slimey creek
where my grandpa took me fishing
there’s a local diner
where we’ll eat breakfast at six a.m.
and watch them flip pancakes
as we sip bitter coffee
and listen to the music of our childhood

on our way out
right after we cross the border
into the bigger city
(the one i first fled to)
we’ll stop at a barbeque joint
breathe in the smokey flavor
and chow down on freedom
and i’ll reminisce
on the day i finally escaped
and relinquished the fear
that i never would

we’ll sing as we drive away
down the night-lit freeway
headed to new dreams
and maybe since we savored it all
this might last

and one day
far in the future
when we’ve got grandkids
and our hair’s turning grey
we’ll head back
and we’ll stop at that barbeque joint
just at the border
right before you enter
my old stomping grounds
and we’ll eat there
and then we’ll turn around
because we left while we could
and why would we ever go back?

something breaks me about that
and i thank God that it does

When your thoughts are stuck in quagmire
     and nerves torn asunder
          Run porcelain under water and soap
              collect eddies of dust with spindly straw
                      Become more machine than man and
                           rejuvenate yourself through function

The nobleman nods at the damsel in ruby pumps,
her ultramarine peepers dilate, locks spread like wings
as the melody relaxes from jazz to chamber,
tranquilizing the maiden’s gray matter.  

This bewitching, pirouetting, skyscraping, crystalline manor salon
where mortals promenade, flitting into moonlight like champagne
as blush tapers twinkle on chilled, silvery panels,
reverberating the radiance of umpteen goblets.  

And well-formed pairs flow as if they are in rapture,
shadowing the luxury of this gala birthed ages ago,
up to midnight when the unearthly belle
blanches, freezes, clutches the nobleman.  

For despite the thundering melodies and hushed babbles
her ears make out Big Ben’s uncompromising tick-tock.