Posts for 2020 (page 65)

The streets aflame with injustice
Curfews imposed do not negate
the fear instilled
It began as a funeral pyre
was hijacked
Turned into a molotov
of burning distrust

Let it burn

Scorched earth cleared
reveals a hardier crop
You have to peel back
the scabs from burnt skin
to allow for the healing
to begin

since you need to go out to eat 
like your life depends on it 
(or your death) 
i serve you 
through a mask 

your humble middleman 
of high cholesterol

you give me orders
like my other bosses 
but you’re the one who pays my bills
every check i get
says this is not a check

but how much can all that matter
especially in a time like this
when i can’t help but wonder 
if black lives really matter to you

between the concealed 
thespian smiles

i can’t help but wonder 
if i’d want to hurt you 
for who you are 

now i don’t mean to be judgmental 
but i know where i am 

now here’s your bloody 
ketchup bottle
i’ll be right back 
with your extra ranch 

while i fetch you 
more sweet tea 
i can’t help but wonder 
if the world also waits on you 
to die so it can change 

or maybe you’re a lovely person
but you can’t tell me 
a good chunk of you 
haven’t spent your lives
eating away 
at someone else’s freedom
until there’s only bones

A friend challenged me, “Sheep Stink!”  

A pen may stink.  Sheep crowded like detainees,
forced to lie in feces, will not be pleasing.   

But 1507, who shall remain unnamed
as food not friend, stands out among ewes:
smooth, muscled, sleek, her two eyes
set at just the right slant, gold-filled.   

Like any beauty, she holds herself aloof,
evades, cocks her head,
slowly turns her elegant neck, cuts her eyes
my way, if only a bit, for my appreciation.  

one day, out of the blue,
you will think of me.
you will look for me, and
i will be gone.

there is a map,
but i took it with me
for i did not wish to lose the way.

do not follow.
this road is for me
–only me–
and i will travel it to the end,
which is, i believe, just–there,
beyond that dim blue star
in Cassiopeia.

sometimes, the road is so very dark.
leavings of ancient travelers,
like unanswered questions, abandoned nearby
in the ditch, the high grass.

soon enough, i will near the exit.

did you know?
there are,
held tight in my fists,
entire worlds of memory–
laughter, touch, tears, love.

most of all, love.

perhaps this journey
is not leaving a place,
but finding a place.

i relax my fingers.
my feet leave the grass.
i am light, as the air.
the map, left beneath the Great Tree.
my eyes, wide.

Jupiter’s moons

The forgotten beauty’s

I try to recall their names

But like the faded photographs

Of the sepia relatives

I can’t seem to recall

Faces mix

Names disintegrate

And I’m left with nothing

But the sunken feeling

That somehow I am forgetting

I open a purple envelope,
misplaced mail—
a postmark:  May 1

I imagine my deck
a lofty mountain peak,
each warm, breezy gust
a violent wind
whipping through the threads
of my invisible down parka,
rifling through hair
unburdened by the fur-lined hat
I carelessly forgot.

I deftly scan the horizon
and see before me
Alpine valleys
unfolding on the other side of
those rooftops,
the pristine mountain springs
disguised as gutter run-off.

My descent looks treacherous;
perhaps I should linger here a while,
sipping hot cocoa
from my Smirnoff Ice can.

It was one of the few things
I recall them agreeing on,
the grossness of olives.
When I put them on my
fingertips and waved in their faces
Mom and I were
a united front,
making them squirm.
My sister, who grew up in the same house and
somehow had a completely different
childhood from me,
made quietly animated sour faces.
My dad, who once went so far as to
eat ants off a windowsill to
convince us he was in fact
a vampire, would say, “Disgusting.”
I wore black olives on my fingers
as often as I could.

Props to visitors for not norming mysticisms.
Conditioning is no picnic. I’d risk ignoring victory
if it got toxicity to stop. I’m stoic if my mirror’s stoic
(not oft)—I mimic it, groping. My form is my commons.
Sick doctors trip, voicing, “Skin’s minor koi pond stinks.”
I find synonyms for insisting, “I’m opposing!” Not condoning?
Moving into “no,” “for good”? Skin is prison stock.
Proving sordid. Dirty coin. If I root my scion, forging spring,
my prognosis is off—I’m citing gods. I’m stooping.