summer
I’m so glad you made it
finally and officially
I welcome you
the fireflies have already commenced festivities
sunflowers will soon join
blooming gold, bright
illustrious
my hope is I can too
find a reason to illuminate
finally leaving all that dulls
where it belongs
not here or now
may today be the elsewhere I dreamed of in February
Knives on every other page of your despicable novel
ripping through the guts of your enemies, like you think
in a hundred thousand words you’ll strike down all conservatism.
Stupid, idiotic, fucking moronic you called us, vilely
twisting us into every kind of overblown caricature.
I shoulda given you up at page one hundred, but I had to see–
Nope! You never acknowledged us as feeling human beings.
Can’t stand a person with a different opinion, can you? But
as much as I’ll agree that we need to start getting better,
shitting on people you don’t like won’t a nation fix;
hatefulness only paves the road of our continued downward spiraling.
One day, I hope to tell you that, in person, how your book left me
reradicalized, stalwart in 2016 decisions and palpitating at how
eventually, all in spite of you, I might just vote the wrong way again.
Willing to learn how to write poems
Dedicated study nurtures
fragile seed planted; Lexpomo
community trusted support
Speaking from heart genuinely
Guided by skilled practitioners:
Gary Snyder, Joy Harjo, Andrea Gibson
Gillian Welch, Guy Clark, Alynda Sagarro
Write what resonates deep inside
My own source of inspiration:
it dwells nowhere and everywhere
overtakes my physically
Words reveal authenticity
Give voice to my expression
inviting the real and the true
feeling for just the bona fide
Begin with what I need to say
Open to the unexpected
taken aback by what wells up;
I was earlier unaware
Yes, honing my creative craft
Sharpening those poetic skills
take works in progress as am I
and workshop them at Lexpomo
In gratitude to each and every participant
in Lexpomo community
Do not follow me
Don’t try to touch my thoughts
that rest upon this pillow,
I will not stay.
You are amusing, yes.
Well, all the others here are too.
Let’s sit and put our toes
into the cool blue sea
and watch as
parachutes drop into boats
that jump the waves
and pass above our heads
like porpoises with wings.
Let’s drink to our good health
and dine on golden wings
from albatross
and other feathered things
the likes we’ve never seen.
Let’s fly up in a blue balloon
and search for bonfires
down below in forests green
and dark with shadows grey
Let’s run and run and leap
high as we can
then ride the elevator down,
down
down
down
No, wait!
Do not follow me
for I awake and flee!
Same things are happening here
for what it’s worth, it’s pretty darn clear
there’s still a man with a gun over there
tellin’ us all we better beware
It’s time they stopped, everybody
hear that sound,
can’t you see what’s goin’ down
too many lines been crossed
and there’s no peace, if everything’s wrong
Queer people standing up tall
Mind manipulators wanna see them fall
It’s time they stopped, Queer folx
hear that sound,
everybody see what’s goin’ down
Time to march in the street
millions of people in the heat
wearing flags and dancing with pride
all them sayin’ this is our time
It’s time they stopped, all of us
hear that sound,
everybody sees what’s goin’ down
Propaganda strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
You can’t fight if you’re always afraid
Step out of line, masked men come and take you away
It’s time they stopped, America
hear that sound,
Everybody see what’s goin’ down
They better stop
hey, hear that sound,
everybody see what’s goin’ down
You better stop
yo, what’s that sound
everybody sees what’s goin’ down
Inspired by / written to the tune of “For What it’s Worth: ( Stop, hey what’s that sound)” by Buffalo Springfield, released by Atco Records Dec. 1966
This poem begins where the ditch forgets its name—
becomes creek and then river. Begins
in the soft shush of a compressor’s next breath,
in the crawlspace crack beneath this very brick apartment.
It wears no gold. Carries no saint’s remains.
It’s the wild onion stench on a spill of bent clover,
this poem that blooms where the ditch forgets its name.
It won’t come out in clean light. Prefers the lies
told by glow on a nicotine-stained sheet
while, outside, the ditch forgets its own name.
It maps what wants buried:
there is oxygen’s next complaint,
here is the rosebush grown, over–flowering
still in a tangled bramble
outside this very brick apartment.
The poem holds the silence of a shuttered country store
at midnight,
faint as hymn from a shuttered church. Holds still
where the ditch’s throat
forgets its name. Holds the crack.
Creates the frame.
Forgets its name.
Saltana the Singer in Porto, Portugal
by Marianne Peel
They can’t help moving their feet
to his music. A microphone
and a reverb machine
and there is magic in motion.
Obrigando. Thank you.
A child puts his ear to the speaker.
A woman in a wheelchair
spins circles around the singing man.
They are an orchestra
of belonging, here on the sun-slick pavement.
Everyone in this water-side restaurant
lifts their glass of Porto wine.
Applause rattles the limestone cobblestones.
No one can keep from singing.
Leonard Cohen’s Halleluiah
in Portuguese. Communication
across oceans, across where the river bends.
A man wearing a fedora asks me,
Where are you from?
I raise my glass and say:
Here. I am from here.
Upon Being Released from the Amber:
What colors
Yellow
Like a highlighter
Glow
Like a lightning bug
Or
Glow stick
Blue, pink, green
Species at the deepest depths of the sea
They are magical and create
Underwater rainbows
Blink and glow
Hundreds of meters below
Do they know how beautiful they are
Do they know the light inside their bodies
Blink on and off
Like a Neon sign
Do they blink to attract
Do they blink to defend
Or do they blink to show off
An electric light battle
Who would know who wins
