Posts for June 16, 2019

there are three things in this image:
1 a bull, still, statue, eyes like Plouton’s gaping wait.
2 the hands, weighting down their arms, gulping down their vengeance, veined and strong and stiff.
3 a woman. let’s say you can see her face.
you can see whatever face you want.
 
there is a halt and falter in one hand against the black bullhide.
whose fault? it asks as they halter her against the white bullhorn.
 
but ‘fault’ is all just bullshit after all.
 
the bullhooves will beat whatever face you want
into whatever face you want, whatever place you want.
 
they strip her body off the bullside and stomach
and toss her name into a spring.
 
how nice.

When we gonna know?
it won’t be long now
it won’t be long before we know
how regime change wars
create 65.8 million refugee human flow.

US out of El Salvador
US out of Peru
US out of Columbia
US out of Guatemala
US out of Honduras
US out of Venezuela
US out of Afghanistan
US out of Iraq
US out of …

Notice a pattern?
We, the great liberators.

Is it really me in the newspaper
photo on Father’s Day in 1953?
Dad was named Father Of The Year
by the Paducah Sun Democrat
and we all had to dress up
for our picture on the front porch
and my memory starts
with the pushing and shoving
that ensued to make that happen
and the photographer’s impatience
at our display of group disorder.

Did he really think we were a model
family?

Because the framed copy
of that frozen instant
hung on the wall of the great-room
at our next house on Broadway, I began
to know that time does not go
in a single direction.
I am there
on the porch on Jones Street
at five pushing my way into the front,
and there again twenty-five years later
with a sister not born until 1957
who’s reading the flowery article
thinking she’s somehow missed out,
and there this moment in my body,
that’s changed it’s cells ten times,
telling my not-yet-born sister:
it will never be as stated
but every word is true

Body positivity 
body positivity 
don’t think you a hottie
you gotta be kiddin me
whether you thick or you thin
whether you big or you slim
just know you look good in your skin

If you’re plus size
that’s a plus in my eyes
i just wanna touch and love on dem thighs
can i slide slide slide 
can i slide slide slide
i love your lips and your hips
and your tits and your clit 
and all that other shit
i can’t lie lie lie 
i can’t lie lie lie 
i like to kiss your tummy like you’re pregnant
then go all the way up 
then go all the way down
i must admit that’s where my head went
you all the way down
not a lot to say now
it’s all on now that you said it 
relish the feelin
with your taste still in my mouth 
got me lickin my fingers 
through the ceiling 
off this sexual healing
Marvin singin
i think your body perfect
i wanna worship
at the altar of your curvature 
it’s intoxicatin 
got me slurrin my words

Body positivity
body positivity 
don’t think you a hottie
you gotta be kiddin me
whether you thick or you thin
whether you big or you slim
just know you look good in your skin

Your freckles are i’s dotted with God’s paintbrush
and who the fuck said thighs ain’t supposed to touch
let me rest my head on your ass and your breasts
what’s as soft as your skin
make a Tempur Pedic feel hard as a rock
that ain’t the only thing hard as a rock
stop
make me sing to the gods
bring me to the top
get each other off
the edge
then drop
dead
la petit mort 
but i know it’s not just about your body
it’s about your mind too
and what defines you
how would you define yourself other than beautiful
it’s about time that i find you 
i wanna say somethin that’ll move your soul
but you leavin me speechless
i wanna get you wetter than tropical regions
my lips against your lips 
my lips against your eyes of flesh
i wanna be your best
i’ma try my best
how you gonna be shy when you undress
when you look like that
when you look like that
love that look in your eye 
when you look like that

She say her thighs too thick
shiiiit
she say her butt too big
shiiiit
she say her stomach ain’t flat
shiiiit
she say she’s too fat
i just don’t see it

Body positivity 
body positivity 
don’t think you a hottie 
you gotta be kiddin me
whether you thick or you thin
whether you big or you slim
just know you look good in your skin

Raindrops on my window

Just sitting, not rolling

What a work of art

Mother Nature is a true artist

The way each leaf looks

On each unique tree

How one beach has clear water

And the next as green water

How the crabs move

With the waves

And she concentrates

With her paint brush

When painting each evening sunset

And morning sunrise

She takes her time using different shades of yellow

For the sun

Our goddess is her

-or they-

What is here is all her doing with some help

I don’t see people starving in

Leonardo’s ‘The Last Supper’

And I don’t see toxic smoke

In Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’

There are no tears present on

Leonardo’s ‘Mona Lisa’

I see no waste in the sea

In Monet’s ‘La Terrace de Sainte Adresse’

The elephants are alive and and healthy

In Tournemine’s ‘African Elephants”

The ice bergs are present

In Church’s ‘The Icebergs’

And the people are happy

In Renoir’s ‘Luncheon of the Boating Party’

Paintings worth so much money

But our Earth is priceless

Pick up your paint brush

And help

you went to the beach
and i hoped you’d come back with a tan
so i could admire you in a new shade
but i could see the sunburn on your face
and i wanted to take off your clothes
to search for more burnt, red-hot-to-the-touch spots on your flesh
i wish i could tell you how i feel
and i wish you’d feel the same
so that when it starts to storm again
we can kiss in the rain
and the water will cool
your sunburnt skin

Weedy bluegrass, begging
for trimming, yew bushes too  

frame rain-drenched red
bricks, mold-stained mortar  

as June sprouts unbidden
in my backyard patio’s cracks  

adjacent to a January’s
black ice slip, head smack   

whiplash, when I ventured out
to hang a suet cake – today’s  

eaten up, by blackbirds now
departed, like dear Nance.  

Ha! A young chipmunk, posing.

Consider yourself 
lucky
when you see the
‘no outlet’ sign
at the beginning
of your 
adventure.

If ever a cloud aspired to rain down,

it would find the sheet

a most appropriate form.

a few stanzas at a time
screenshot lines, send
electronically, digitally
as he likes to read
instead of in cursive
handwriting (which we’ll
work up to eventually)
i’ll feed him one bite
at a time. perhaps begin
on those with good rhythm
a few with discernible
rhyme. find subjects
he finds pleasant, topics
themes that go down
easy, sweet as blackberry
wine. feed him authentic
unpretentious lines and
if need be, send him those
i write and write about
our favorite pastimes, like
playing video games
streaming to viewers online
discover verse about
accounting and pharmacists’
lives. increase these portions
of poetry until he pines
for plates of it, throws down
like me, hoping he finds
pieces of poems so appetizing
he can share in their flavors
smells, recipes, the cooking
with me, be in touch with
divulge a pinch more of his
own humanity for other shy
chefs in the world to take heed