Posts for 2020 (page 172)

Wind tumbling through 
knocking over all 
in its path. Temperatures
spiraling down,

there’s a storm brewing.

As the small drops
merge into ginormous clumps,
the scooter you left 
in the lawn 
begins to rot. 

The pitch black
only illuminated
by those jagged
white arrows
paired with clashing
so loud
dogs are howling 
back. 

Feeling the house 
begin to shake,
the screen-door cries
out for help.

Small chirps emerge 
from the back porch.
The dozen or so
wind chimes your grandmother 
insisted on hanging
sing to the storm.
—

Sun beams beating heavily 
creating a perfect 
ring, like an umbrella,
inhibiting any rogue pellets 
from striking 
your grandmother

displaying your favorite chime 
decorated with cherry red
cardinals.

When you say #AllLivesMatter
I hear that only lives like yours matter

Begging the question…weren’t you once
A young child like Aiyana Jones or Tamir Rice
With parents like Pamela Turner or Keith Scott?

When you say #AllLivesMatter
I hear that only lives like yours matter

Begging the question…don’t you have
Dreams like Breonna Taylor and Jordan Davis
Lives like Atatiana Jefferson and Botham Jean?

When you say #AllLivesMatter
I hear that only lives like yours matter

Begging the question…don’t you know
Neighbors like Sandra Bland and Philando Castile
People like Yvette Smith and Jonathan Ferrell

When you say #AllLivesMatter
That should include all the lives like yours and so much more

Alchemy is sifting dry ingredients into,
The mush of wet, to stir and stir,
And hope to dissolve, mix, combine,
Sending complex particles to heat,
And rise, or hope to rise,
To create and wait,
Then create some more,
Then wait some more,
Nearly ad infinitum.
The cakes cooling on plates,
Because we have no racks,
No proper tools,
Doing the best we are able,
Because this work is important. 
(Tribal, ancient hands building the fire,
Boiling the cauldrons, waving the smoke,
In signals for gathering and feast.)
Reductions simmering,
Making paste from solids,
Turning almost nothing into a fully,
Complete something.
Hopefully something.
(A ritualistic dance being done from,
Counter to counter,
The timer the beat of a drum.)
Oh, please turn out like magic,
That will entice the company of others.

Alchemy has nothing to do with gold,
But everything to do with curing the pit,
Of loneliness that we host in,
Each of our concaving stomachs and,
Subsequently,
Our concaving, hungry hearts.

When I was eight, Grandma Clara initiated me
in her wild side yard garden, a raised bed eye-level,

fronted by a composite wall embedded with shells
and colored pebbles the sun gleamed. A tangle of small

shrubs, annuals, biennials, perennials, bulbs, some in pots
on top of the wall, others in hanging baskets that swayed

above me. Amazed by all the shades and shapes of stems
and leaves, textures, and colors of petals. The sequence of bud

to bloom to seed. She’d say their names, some gifts from friends
who traveled—Mrs. Wong she did seamstress work for, who gave

her a parakeet. In the front yard she grew leaf lettuces near boxwoods,
pulled off a leaf for me to taste the tender-crisp, the sweet liquid pulp.

as of today, august 21, 2003,
i would like to state that
I am absolutely out of blood! Empty!

theres is no more blood!
Its all gone! just seeped right out
from my pores and into the sky

if you cut me you see meat. 
either god could not find room
Or he’s taking me up bit by bit

I hate writing
I hate the thought
I hate sitting here
I hate staring at a blank screen
I hate the sound of keys clicking
I hate the typos
I hate prose
I hate the rhymes
I hate it all
I hate that I love it all

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