Posts for June 1, 2020

We’re not even close to death
I made that list in the can
And I listen to that sizzle
it wasn’t a great translation
keep the bed warm for them
vote for Charles booker

is five minutes enough
for events deserving
of a lifetime’s words?

no.

The sands of time drop to the bottom of the vessel
just like my eyelids
before deadlines

I had an uncle that
burned our trash
when I was younger
and he’d tell me
he was an expert
in fire
that he could make
a fire that burned so bright
that God could even see it

and here we are
making fires
hoping God 
or someone
will see them

a cry for help
in this dark lonely 
planet
where we waste our 
time

killing each other

When I die I want to grow into moss.
I want to decay in a rich and fertile way
and feed the roots and the worms and the dirt 
like those lost babies at the home cemetery did.
The ones who didn’t make it through the last pandemic, 
the ones with no names and no headstones. 
I plant plastic flowers next to their makeshift markers,

Olive Hill fire bricks growing crooked out of a patch of green
so lush it tickles and soothes my bare feet. 
I can’t stop myself from lying down in the shade of the ash tree
to feel the damp ground on my hot shoulders. 
And I coo to my unnamed babies buried deep beneath the moss
and assure them, they’re gone but not forgotten.   
As long as I’m on this side of the soil, they’ll keep on getting flowers. 

I ask them about
their wedding day.

He remembers asking
Harold to borrow
his Hudson Hornet
for something. She insists
they had her Daddy’s Jeep.

He asks how many
months they’ve been
married. She says,
Almost 63 years.

He responds, No, months.

I intervene with math:
(62 years x 12 months) +
December, January,
February, March, April,
and May, this time around
the sun gives you 749.

He says, That sounds about right.

i was never told i was beautiful, 
so i didn’t think i was. 
i didn’t know i could have told myself. 

Eleemosynaries reaching
in streets steadfast, grasping at air
to breathe;

What can be given,
rightful retribution?
Who shall give it,
for whom should we call?
Will they stir from chthonic slumber,
is there blood enough for them?

Will the torment be justifiable?