You can not
see my face
for once
behind sunglasses
and mask
I do not
have to smile
in just the right way
to appease
and avoid you
at once
You can not
see my face
You can not say
I encouraged
or provoked
or antagonozied you
My face is my own
behind sunglasses
and mask
for once
I am my own
At dusk, after a softening rain,
More than bitter dock bites the dust.
Yellow dock, curly dock and sorrel
Is cut by an expert hoe in an act
Of exacto against the weedy world.
The expert hoe, as if it is
On its own…a volition
Of wood and steel so trained
To rule this plot of green and so
Able to distinguish invader
From the real, drags its blade
Across the miniscule of air
Twixt dirt and stem
I think you’re asleep
Behind the wheel of your arm’s
Machine that propels itself
Like a barbarous guillotine
But your sudden twitch of eye
Catches me in a state of guilt
For my venial sin of sloth
In our okra bed has grown
To mortal level. You slow
Your hoe to watch me flail
Through my Garden of Morass:
An overwhelming wave
Of Johnson Grass
Cigarette drags are what this memory smells
like. Dancing with burger smoke to music
of youth nostalgia stealing bases, throwing
heaters; parents are fans filling bleachers.
One-hundred-degree days, a sunburnt
face and hands holding trophies gripped with
blisters that callus into off-speeds and sliding
two-seams that changeup into no-hitters.
Green gatorade was my first example
of replenish, I think those days are what
taught me how to finish. And practice made me
get used to repetition, failure, and commitment.
A twelve-year-old audition to learn to work
and earn every position. Cuts can hurt and
some never picked up a bat again. But others did learn
blood is only temporary, pain can’t last forever,
and scars are revenge.
yes.
i am fluent in the language of flowers
and know how to speak in numbers.
i have stalked game along with artemis-
and i did not bow before the beast.
i have won wars attributed to athena-
and i will fight for her again.
i have stared deep into the sullen eyes of medusa
and i did not turn to stone.
i am a purple-haired pandora-
their curses passed to me some time ago
sweetly, as a gift…
i’ll show my hard-won armor off in battle
while none of you thought to carry shields.
All day
I searched for poems.
They were not in my coffee cup,
nor in the early morning light,
where I often find poems
to write.
I checked the refrigerator,
just stale milk, some eggs.
I checked the sock drawer
and under the bed.
I asked the dog
and looked outside.
Where do poems go
when they want to hide?
you know, my friend says, these kinds of clovers are actually endangered. and here we are, standing in a field full of them.
he’s right. their stems are wide awake in the breeze, furling out into petals, like they don’t know any better. like it’s just that easy.
yesterday i learned that in an alabama prison, death row inmates rattle the bars of their cells, bang their metal cups and plates and scream, each time one of them is being strapped into the chair. i wonder when they decide their last words. how many choose to say nothing at all.
i see it more clearly now, how life is a fragile thing, and death in someone else’s hands. sometimes, even, in a child’s hopeful fingers, digging through entire fields for a stroke of luck.
Nothing ever comes
completely back together
and even what can be reconstructed
is never without weakness.
If pressed, the healing
will crumble and revert
because we’ve learned fear, cowering
at the slightest ill-born glance.
All I can ever ask of you
is be mindful of how small I am.
It doesn’t take much to derail me.
The journey is so long
when no one meets you in the middle
and the weight of being
the bigger person
acts more like ball and chain.
The only advice I receive
is that people just don’t care
but why does that mean
I have to give myself up for them?
Forgive me if I choose to hide
in the moments you make it hard.
My retreat will be as temporary
as your insensitivity, I pray.
Oklahoma June Twenty-Three
The King stood up
from his throne…
his people cheered
when he mocked the peons.
His words
spilled out over the hordes
spraying them with a deadly mist of lies.
They cheered his insanity and
waved flags of ignorance then
went home to die.
The king prayed for them
with his upside-down bible and
mocked the soothsayers.
He will reign down on the world and
leave us with nothing but…
Who knows?
Tony Sexton
toes
gifted with grip–
innocent, dirtied bare feet
with tiny scrapes
climb the rough, oak bark
i feel Your presence
with my soles firm to
the soft, damp soil
from the sky’s weeping
knees
my shorts ride up
when i kneel to the ground
my body solid on
the sun-heated rock
something about this
is so childlike and vulnerable
as i bow down to You
waist
bending and folding
with sacred, gifted pleasure
Your name is said in whispers
like a secret
as my every movement
gives praise, glory, and beauty
fingers
where me and my lover
kiss so delicately
i offer rejoice to You
through my words
and my loving
and the way i touch
the pedals and the rain
lips
the numbness of Your touch
lingers like a storm
in the way i find rain
coating every surface like dew
all power is held
in this silence
and with it
peace finally
settles into my bones
