The carrots & beets & turnips & parsnips
beg to be planted
while the waning gibbous moon
nods, my backbones bend.
beg to be planted
while the waning gibbous moon
nods, my backbones bend.
The gasping russet blush of western sun on the beige sands and distant mountains carries visions of your feathered tresses, tangling in a titianscape, a flushing wind rose, the breast alighted with gulde, buckets of sap boiled with skinned knuckles, the stirring glances of owls, dripping garnet, flesh burned brown, the rabbit’s footsteps in rust beds of ferric oxide, the quickening of blood, the sleepy passage of time, all fire and wine rising up to Bootes, the tobacco burning in the pipe, the tongue on the gums, the deep stain on cherry chests, the purplish kidney bean skin, the song emanating from the trees, the mermaids hair rising in the deep darkness of briney secrets, the intention of the lover with the special ink purchased, to stir some jot and tittle of feeling, the soft touch of leaves or feathers or tail on the face, the brush of lips, all that seems to describe my love’s hair, which fills me with a joy I could carve into the earth’s crust to be spotted from mercury, to be whiffed by the passing comets, to be sipped by mythic beings under eclipses
Tangled tamarind tendrils
Taming tigers
Teasing bowstrings taught and teaming
Always seeming to be citrine and tangerine tipped, dipped in coppery golden drips
Leaping and embrangled
Vines over laden with sweetness and wisdom confined to stillness in the dusty dark, a fuzzy fecund ferrous dross
of all that’s known of casting spark
The line of fault, the crackling light, the magma pitted with lightning strikes
Running on slim, dirt trails
beneath the deciduous canopy
hides my fears–
of everything
of nothing
of being someone else’s everything
of being nothing once I’m gone–
When the world’s weight
exacerbates gravity’s pull
I stay in motion
because
to remain fixed would
be a bandaid on long-established wounds that
the earth’s revolutions cannot heal,
no matter how close I get to the sun,
no matter how warm it feels.
Movement aids my flight from destined execution:
pressing or crushing, perhaps?
and the earth’s rotation fucks with my head
because I can still jump and catch air,
an illusion of floating that still excites me.
But I know that one day
the sentence my body serves will face its end.
I will unwillingly confess to crimes I’ve secretly committed
and unload burdens I never asked to bear.
A holy fugitive understands this pain,
but no blessings ever stick around long enough to acknowledge
this mutual torment
because my sweat salinates the priest’s clean water
and drips from my forehead to my legs
along those dirt trails
that somehow keep the end at bay,
so that I may remain on the run
and taunt the Reaper between labored breaths,
“Catch me if you can.”
I woke up this morning thinking
Of brutality and what gives people the right
To feel like they can murder someone
To hit someone
To slice open a hand
To molest
To strangle
I woke up this morning remembering bubble gum
Accidentally falling asleep with it in my mouth
And being hit
Being yelled at
Being abused
Hoarding purple bubble gum from the bank was a hobby of mine
But they said I could have died
Then they beat me
I woke up this morning thinking of power
And what makes anyone want to have power
Over someone else
Power always sickened me
The upper hand is unnecessary
I woke up this morning with names
Innocent black names floating through my mind
They died
I woke up this morning
Alive
I woke up this morning
Privileged
Free to have bubble gum
Free to use my voice
White silence is violence
Black lives matter
Defund the police
Police reform
My protest signs
tries and errs;
flickers and flares.
says she’s sorry;
continues to worry.
reads and learns;
takes her turn.
can’t deny when she is to blame;
is a light if not a flame.
I try to write a poem that doesn’t rhyme,
but dammit every time these phrases flow,
from where I do not know, and I’ll not
be the one, when asked to dance, to say no.
Bear with my antiquated steps, though
I am light on two left feet, I’ve never let
it bother me, this being obsolete.
To be fair I know it’s rare this day in age,
I too prefer blank verse, and mean
no sacrilege. My acquaintances
all say it’s that I was born too late,
I should have roamed the woods
with Boone and hunted all I ate.
I should have danced the firelight dance
with beating drums and hallow chants.
I should have slept on straw
and saw each night the darkness fall
and count the meter of the sky
as the rhyming stars spun by.
I wish I could neatly pack into suitcases
my sentences soaked in adulthood
and take them back to that sun-filled house,
where the only bad dreams I had were
gone when I woke up. It was the house
where my words were clean as the summer rain I played in.
I still remember the spaces in which I used to hide;
forgive me if I daydream – it was a habit I developed
when I became older, just like my habit of packing away
my sentences into suitcases until
they overflow and stain the carpet.
But these stains are no masterpieces,
the colors dance around until they’re dizzy and forget their places.
I may only be eighteen, but I know what it looks like
when you drink too much
and that’s what I see on my carpet – my dad always mentions
the odor my shoes carry, neatly packed into the laces woven
by sweating, shaking fingers.
Forgive me if I daydream – there’s simply nothing else to do.
