Sitting on the Porch with Them
He looks from his book
She twirls hair around fingers
They are not talking
He looks from his book
She twirls hair around fingers
They are not talking
When I stand in a lane lit by streetlight & crescent
what is my vanishing point?
When I know the pinprick luminescence I see
is from dead stars, do I vanish?
When temples & churches perch like red-
shouldered hawks on thin shadowed lots
between car dealers & cell towers
is that the moment?
When a new moon casts its deep onyx, erasing
hill & house, will I vanish then?
Or will I vanish with the tiger owl as she turns
her head to regard me with moon-embroidered
eyes & face like a cinnamon disc—
will I live in her
feathers so like
the bark of pines
that are no more?
~inspired by Maria Brzozowska’s “Vanishing Point”
Juneteenth
A day to celebrate the news of freedom
It came two and a half years late
The Emancipation proclaimed all slaves free
Yet slaves in Galveston, TX didn’t know
They worked
Shed blood, sweat, and tears
For two and a half long years
Until that wonderful 19th day of June 1865
Granger’s men delivered General Order No. 3
Here ye, Here ye all enslaved people are free
But all were not free
The news was still hidden from some of the enslaved
Many Texas enslaved didn’t receive their freedom until 1866
Plantation owners held the chains tight
Concealed the news and kept it out of sight
Even today we celebrate that freedom
But are we truly free
I don’t want
to lead
you on
just how
I’d like
not
to be led on.
This isn’t to say I don’t have moments of irresponsibility
when memory is ensnared in temporary brownouts.
I was shocked to learn that you and I linked arms last week.
I have no recollection of making that joke in your all’s company.
Not too long ago, there is a night that exists as a fill-in-the-blanks.
mixed with suggestive smiles and tantalizing flirtations, but
what in the whole wide world did we talk so long about?
Why do I have this feeling that we kissed.
without any recall of the press of your lips
or how our magnetic charges.
might have gotten swapped?
Clouds are bad enough
stacked in blackened skies.
I don’t need to invite
the fog
into my brain.
Life
is hard
even when
we know all the answers.
Best not add
any
uncomfortably
difficult to answer
questions.
And that is why
I make
the effort
to keep
my mind
on its tight leash.
Two little girls on tiptoes, f
reshly washed and pajama’d, Ohio summer night, wet hair, teddy bears tucked under chins And as the moon rises, he sits by his fire
Thinkin’ about women and glasses of beer
Closing his eyes as the doggies retire
He sings out a song which is soft, but it’s clear
As if maybe someone could hear
Magic in what must have been a fraught day for her
So goodnight, you moonlight ladies
Rockabye, sweet baby James
Deep greens and blues are the colors I choose
Won’t you let me go down in my dreams?
And rockabye, sweet baby James
https://concerts.fandom.com/wiki/August_1-2,_1983_Blossom_Music_Center,_Cuyahoga_Falls,_OH
often and gently
like a whisper
like a prayer spoken with no voice just held there gently within the cage of ribs
hope is like this hope just this a wish we barely let an idea held close in the throat
I will always welcome them I am made this way I can do life no differently
never without one yet growing slimmer leaner where the years have grafted away sections
in need of this surface I let it go at will believe as I must I am part of making all things new
All the ambitions I have had, I have reached or given up.
I look at you now and hear all my own words expiring.
An unwritten poem, I don’t know how, shadows you.
All the breaths I have had I have used to write lines
that almost poured flutesong all over the sky, that made me
want to leap, lurch, dance, and all my hungers, I let them grow
in my gut like pearls in mollusks, like skipping stones that want
to skim all the parts of you my hands don’t dare to touch,
and I admit my desire has approached the space between us
even as I hide from bill collectors, from rivers I would drown in,
because seeing you again has pulled me apart. Though we’ve had
leaks like defective boats, a song I could never play
had meanings I didn’t mean but I can be mean like
someone cutting in line to climb up a diving board,
only to hesitate at the top and climb back down despite a chorus
of mocking, but oh, I’ve had other places to go, other words
I meant to say, words that would cool these fires if they could,
words that would assure I would never leap out of myself
and into you, but I think my desire for sensations is ready to roam,
given the green light, across the alleyways and tributaries on your skin.
With thanks to my fellow Rebel Cartographers–words and lines from our most recent anthology.
Basking in the beat
Different lanes
Ink in our veins
Paper fleets fly
Souls divine
Mascara crust
Trust
Lullabies
Anchor deep
Each time
Scruffy turf
Honey hug
Of cool damp earth
Human virtue
Grit to go forward
Clutching jarred tadpoles
Hours fly
Love evergreen
No time to be meek
Careening
Meetin’ greetin’
Eye to eye
Make a plan
Flower wings
Motes of dust
Breath of life
Mt Fuji’s iced stance
Glorious.
anne hathaway and jennifer garner
watch me / clean and windswept /
in the perfume department
of the mall / while my mother finds
my father / a shirt for the funeral
strife boomerang faint familiar yearn
back into me / just want a casual
conversation / just want easy / in
the recording i can hear you
breathing / before you start to sing
deep green forest swallow
my brother / searching for red throated
birds / my body heavy / confused /
my knuckles swell in allergy
once you made me scream in joy
and filmed it / as you mourned
