Posts for June 18, 2022 (page 6)

Tend to discredit myself as hypocrite,
dual-minded middle-of-the-fight,
keeps the peace, a loud pajama

knife of a woman, who, when has to spit,
spits, when no one is around,
stays behind to smoke a cigarette.

Every attempt to side, foiled by flits
of this is a little wrong, a little right.
I push twin mattresses together.

When I sleep, the seam is my night,
quiet, I grow freeform spine, emerge
another hunchback from all this trauma.

I carry myself in a whopping skirt,
goatkid-white, I ring them bells!
Drama plays deserve their drama.

The text comes through
from an unknown number:
Mom bring paper and ten dollars
and would you bridge me lunch
Language a bit odd, but I get it
and I have an urge to help
and I want to assume she will
do those things, it’s not a lot
to ask of a mom, but all I can say: 
Sorry, you texted the wrong number. 
I am not your mom.

So who is this new bird a-treed in my yard
With a call so unusually stark?
I have dozens of trees here with feathery folks,
But not one with a sound like this bark.
He maybe she gives out two too-loud bleats,
And the first time I heard it today,
I thought it was FedEx or else UPS
Backing up in my private roadway.
As I listened longer, it tweeted again;
The noise sounded like a hinge squeaking
Or maybe a driver that pounded his brakes
With two jabs (and interior shrieking).
I can’t see the bird, though, because of the leaves
It’s June and the greenery is deep.
Birdie’s welcome to stay here as long as it likes A
nd continue to bleat out CHEEP CHEEP.

I feel like a crazy person
As I’m sobbing in the shower because
You said “Remember, I love you”
Before leaving your phone at home,
Because I asked you to.
Because it was the right thing to do- so you could be present with her without me.
Yet when I towel away the water and tears, and the dog is still asleep on the floor,
I remember I’m not.

You invited me to meet your mom,
& your dad, & to swim in their pool

but then you second guessed
the request, out of normalcy,

& I wondered why
I was not intimidated
until I second guessed
the request, out of propriety

& the presence of a full back tattoo.

Twelve years ago, I took a step
two decades in the planning:  This embracing
of an image to capture the pairing
of eastern philosophies:  The balance
of Phoenix & Dragon. 

I was innately borne by Phoenix,
her creativity, her resiliency, her rebirth,
her elements of wind & flame.

At times, I listened to Dragon,
his wisdom, his strength, his solidity,
grounded in earth and still water.

Perhaps it was Libra Sun that yearned
for more:  Equality, consistency, accountability
to be led by the qualities of both.  Perhaps
(I imagined) wearing the two on my flesh, I might
remember to espouse attributes in accord,
rather than swing like a pendulum
to polarities.

A psychic, a friend, once met me
while traveling the astral lanes
& there, my back was bare.  She said,
             It is behind you—you don’t see
            & you don’t remember so it’s not
            a part of how you envision
            yourself. 

You invited me to meet your mom
& your dad. & to swim in their pool

& what began as self-awareness
of seeming yakuza semblance
in a tattoo,

                     became
self-awareness of a change
from then to now; 

with so much behind,
somewhere between,
                                        I became
what I’d sought
to obtain:  Balance.  Peace
between flying her fiery wings
and swimming his cool depths.

Sitting here before dawn, writing,
waiting to see which way you lean
on the decision for our day, I know
why I am not intimidated, but wonder
why I am not surprised
to realize how much
I’ve changed

or that it all had to happen
before I received
your request. 

I wait for your text
& the beginning

of all that will come
bearing both

feather & scale.

Booty Call
1
lights in tonight’s sky
flicker flashes of yellow
talking tails call mates

2
Summer lights in trees
flies force flashes of yellow
glow worm butts call mates

              Fireflies 
                 fancy
                  free
    they      skirt    grasses
  feather   leaves   of trees                        
 flaunt     electric    fannies   
   flicker      flit            and
     flash     with      force  
                   lights       
                     in
                   June                            
                  nights                  

Whether it be taut or
drapey flat or gapey

Let your batwings sing the song
of holding lovers in the night  

Let your cottage cheese thighs beat out
the rhythm of hikes in Muir Woods   

Let your sunshine lines tell the tale
of splashing in the waves at Sand Dollar Beach  

Play connect-a-dot with all your weather spots
filling in the drawing of a glorious, messy, delightful life

The villagers gathered around
Mehboob, who always brought
the best mangoes and his
stories of Allah
and of the village

Each man and woman would
purchase enough mangoes
to hold them until Mehboob
would return

Mehboob thought he was
seventy, though others said
he was old as the hills, for
every villager remembered
Mehboob and his mangoes
from childhood, and 
his stories, and his laugh

Mehboob loved the children
most of all, and always had 
trinkets for them when 
he came to the village with 
his mangoes

Mehboob had no wife,
though many women had loved him–
Naseeba, most of all–
still, the villagers were fond of him, 
with his fruit and stories,
for he was a reminder
of the old days
when things were 
simple and good

The men and the children
would call out to Mehboob
when his cart was empty
and he began his
long journey home

Mehboob would shout blessings
to them all, and sometimes
would sing one of the old songs
until he was lost from sight–
songs that told of Allah’s Love and of
His Hand upon the people

Some nights,

when I can’t sleep,

I hang my arm over the edge

to hold hands with the monsters

under my bed.

                                                Night sky

				I walk to the end of the field,
				far from the streetlight
				just so I can look
				up into the night sky.

				Alone, in the hay field,
				near an ancient campsite,
				I listen to the singing brook
				without blinking an eye.

				The new moon hangs low
				in the east. Stars are tattoos.
				Black is endless
				and beautiful.

				I imagine you in the moon’s glow.
				Your eyes, bright as stars, muse
				me toward words. Windless,
				the night dews fescue, jonquil,

				and me.