What do they know,
these tourist-birds circling Rome?
Are they amused at the human pace below,
hustling toward gelato or pizza,
posing for selfies before antique fountains
or the vista from the Spanish Steps?
Are they pleased at the lovers
entwined in public,
enticing discovery and inviting fantasies?
Do they know more than we do
about those builders of deteriorating sureties
that once were the boast of empire,
the braggadocio of tyrants,
the certainties of pontiffs
(their naming rights carved in stone
across this urbs aeterna)?
Or do they mock me,
listening at my courtyard window,
a fleeting visitor like them,
longing to return to the sea?
Sometimes I feel limp
Stella trots through the living room,
stub tail wagging, pleased
with herself for having found the baby
bird that now writhes in her mouth.
Frantic, I drop the laundry
I’ve been folding to the floor,
press thumb and fingers against her jaw,
lift her muzzle until she releases the clutch
of her canines and delivers
the nestling into my palm.
Bloodied, it gasps, desperate for breath,
one of its wings entirely gone.
I cradle the creature, whisper
Oh, I’m so sorry, baby. So, so sorry,
over and over as though my own mouth
inflicted this maiming.
I’m down on my knees again
in the middle of nowhere, a place I hate
but plant myself for marriage’s sake.
My husband takes the bird outside.
Maybe the problem is that I love
too much, can’t accept when a thing is bound
to die. I press my face to emptied hands,
wait for the gunshot.
Drag Queens at brunch,
dolled up in their finest bedazzled cowboy boots stuffing cash down their handcrafted bosoms
Cocktails strewn haphazardly across the table,long stemmed glasses reflecting the sheen of liquor spilled by stray elbows
Bright decor boasting neon signs, paper umbrellas and extra straws sitting pretty at the endcap of the undeniably sticky bar
Queers and peers and souls of every flavour, shamelessly gathered in celebration of their resilience
breaking through eternal time
life exists in this quivering
the iron cage of conviction becomes the sight of all things no thing the eradicable what if
even the stoics bow down
awaken from long darkened slumber
100% of everyone will see the light they long for
angels appear in your path
cosmos crinkle in the heat
herald the coming witness the sunflowers
there march willful shoots proclaiming the next awakening
Oh, what I’d give to have given my life to art,
and to have been good at it,
so that people might speak
my words aloud,
mimic my breath,
some going so far as to memorize
a stanza or two, or pick up pens
and craft imitations
that outshine the original.
But, I’m no once-in-a-generation talent,
no voice of my times,
no mover of masses,
no Bob Dylan.
So then, what’s the point?
Rubbing two words together
I create sparks
— even in downpour —
for this one soul to make his way by.
lost my good sleep streak.
i can already smell the
coffee i’ll make soon.
A poem holds readers hostage,
demanding interpretation, its words
stopping the hemorrhaging of all humanity.
Loving words massage hearts when they stop
caring, funneling hate into long necked bottles,
stopping blood and War words that maim
limbs, amputate families, starve love.
If only a single poem could heal the world
I would write day and night just to find it,
seeking until swollen eye’d & word-slurred
breath, I’d write, free, free, free ……..
