I'm not saying
I'm in love
w/you
except
I am.

I’m standing on the edge of a broken porch in New Jersey,
pink 3 AM clouds around a bowl of stars.
This jacket’s been warm for nine years.

Yes,
I still despair sometimes.
But I am learning to claw out of it by writing it.

Also, Jesus.

Tonight on this porch I’m thinking
what are symbols of happiness, what is
happiness, experience of it, etc.

I think of:
driving an overpass into the city tonight
all that color like spilled Christmas lights
like driving up into the sky.

--Think of:
7th grade boy with an earring and soft eyes.  
Angelo.  His name is.
Translating the story into Spanish for his friend.

--Of:
The blue, the green.  Of the reef.
Pacific silence.  Coconut cathedral.

Of: The Avett Brothers song, The Perfect Space.
Of friends who are like that.

: Africa, all seasons.


Also,
Jesus

life

does not
happen
in
a

drive-by

death does

Bald headed mountains with thin tree hair.
We're okay, though
we didn't think we would be.
I got a message today
from an ex-coal miner
with anti social paranoid depression:
keep them coming,
he said, of the poems;
and I too felt less alone.
The snow darkens sky,
lightens ground.
I don't know about you but I think
I've been making too many excuses.
Sometimes I sleep in the coal mine
because I want to, that's all.
Three brown birds say,
"See me!"  "See me!"
Snow falls on my head and I'm thinking:
I don't want any more birds to die for me

'best friday
ever,'

because:

look
around

we all
need
saving

if you think
i’m talking
to you

then
i guess
i am

usually
i'm just talking
to myself

or my brother

i
still
need

those
cigarette
prayers

dear saint broken heart
i'm glad you're here
it's been a rough few weeks
between the cancer and the ward,
his dead brother and us losing
each other, less than nothing
i can do but it helps to have you here
your beautiful silence
your saint brokenness
on my shoulder

dear saint bro
we'll be okay
someday
someday
someday

you won't be so scared
and i won't be so blue
i'll be chirping
i'll be dancing
i'll be trying something new

just
like
you

you've always cried
with me you've always
been my dear my only
saint broken hearted birdy boy

we're god's babies.
tonight
i'm saying

god?

it's me again
with more pain.

god.

gives me a cup of chai
faces me
waits

there
                                               that's why i can never seem to totally despair

we tend to cry
for those who
die young;



why?

I'm standing on weird edges
There's blood in the sky
There's a boy named Pi.

The night is black, so
old blood.  So cruelty,
I've had enough.

I was born with barbed-wire sickness.

Is your blood running high?
Blood is life,
don't spill it.

Watch the mind of day
become the mind of night.
Better is the house of mourning,

better the sky at night,
I can hear God better.
Blood runs from our eyes.

Are you facing the sky,
boy named
Pi?

A lot of people come here just to survive
I'm **** lucky but I'm not better than anyone
It's such a beautiful world

It's such a fallen world
I have this dream that I want to build a home
for a lot of people and myself too

I try to be happy and strong
but I cover up so much fear
that I don't know who I am

so I'm really dangerous.
France, Korea, Panama, Kenya, Greece
it may sound nice and international

but it's hard to feel accepted
when things change so much
I think family is really important

especially siblings.

Life is not a lie
Life is not a fantasy
Life is enough to pain you

Life is so close to death
Guard your entry points
You influence them, they influence you

You could bring voice to a community
Whether you fail or not, you try
The way you think needs to be heard.

We make a fuss about the dying
but what can we do for the dying?
Be a neighbor

Be a friend

We can be easily broken.
I have enough skeletons in my closet.
In spite of the inequalities

all of us are spiritual beings
and the one thing that is equal
is the value of everyone's soul

Jesus is very straight:
You want to come with me? 
Come

Saint Jude says what's up
been in Boston all night
having coffee and tea, I bet
you're doing the same
in Tibet or wherever

They tried everything
on you: the secret arrests
burned Rumi books
poisoned coconut water
giraffes with broken faces

Loneliness is the door to the traps
but you know
who you are
I know too when I see you
on the coast

as still, as skinny as
one of my African statues
as lithe as a palm frond or a jellyfish
You were always going to get free
you were always going to get free

so i've been thinking
don't tell anybody
where we're going
and don't worry
about anything
baby that
challenger
deep
will eat
up the tsunamis like
ice cream sandwiches

Look at us, I'm carrying a basket made of trash
and you're carrying a mouse, well
the dog chewed up your glasses
but you're still rockin it
you have a single drop of coffee on your nose,
we're ready to go to D.C.

I had another where-are-we moment, it was fun.
Good, that's downtown Baltimore right there,
****** capital of the world.  

An elaborate mural graffiti.
Wall after brick wall.
A rustbelt city like Grand Rapids
Detroit Cincinnati.

Did you sleep well?
Yes I woke up feeling like a clam in a cocoon.
A sea creature inside of a forest insect, okay.

I've wasted too much time on both desire and regret.
Yellow bridge.
Blue-green supports.
Singer on the radio saying, we're young right now.

There's a healthy and an unhealthy way of dealing with pain,
I'm sorry for my selfish behavior in the islands.
I want to go back and leave a better legacy.
'Word.'

Last night to come see you I drove I-95 N, the overpass
and though the rest of the city was really moving
I was all alone up there, it was like
driving in the sky.

We pass signs saying: Icy Conditions:
bridges and ramps freeze first.
And a billboard: Learning Kick Flips
Takes Work, So Does College

We listen to our favorite island song:
love the islands, love the islands, oh.

You look like a rasta snowboarder girl
There's something really right
about having you in this car

this is a
song for the
brothers who survived
too much and
too many and
too long ago

it was written
what was written
this was written

what does it
mean to face
reality and accept--

everybody

need

some

hope some forgiving
some company all
of us need
to quiet the
mind and turn

up the music
take it easy
this is home

find the truth
of a truth
in a sea

of chaos, all
love is art
you are art

the world is
art and god
the ultimate

art
is
t
.
.
.

Crowds of weary people
shuffle from life to life

in the bellies of subways
claws of escalators

past booths of seven-dollar coffees
taking off shoes and jackets

as a voice in the roof says that
the flight to Mumbai,

or wherever, is now boarding.
All of it disappears

because--after these many years--
your face

(I shrug off
my backpack)

your voice
in my ears

The Croc has been hacked by her little croc brother...

i want you to know
that every time i see you

i see more of god's work in your life
his love in your eyes

baby we've been crying
these crocodile tears

and everyone said oh
those are just crocodile tears

but i know where i've been
and what you've seen

we were sitting cross legged
quiet and together

in the jungle
when the jungle started praying

started saying
oh crocodile tears

man of sorrows
walk this path with you

i don't know much of anything
i'm just a crocodile

crying prison chains
crying freedom songs

in a world
full of crocodiles

lean on my shoulder crocodile
crocodile let's go home

dear lord i
want to do
things i will

not regret eternally
i sleep in
your hammock love

i am no

longer in

hiding

but rather waking
to the silence
of my hut

to the how-are-you-this-mornings
of the secret friend
and friends

singing
songs
to

each other as
the semis roar
by on the

highway headed for
nyc or maybe
bridgeport

dear lord thank
you for life
for this hut

for this blanket
please wrap your
grace around those

who are doing
without wrap it
around me that

i may wrap
it around others
heal us and

we'll be healed
save us and
we'll be saved

As soon as I said that
God laughed upstairs.

You inspired me at least.

There's two huge mistakes:
when you shoot and you shouldn't,
and when you should and you don't.

Nobody knew
about the killing
but all of them knew how to get out.

Don't fix a mistake with a mistake.
             Don't be pride.
                              Don't disappear.
I know you have a tendency to do that.

We know who we are
but we try to convince each other
that we are something else.

And I don't want to do that anymore

tears
are
not

male
female
straight
gay
young
old

free

what do i have to say
to keep the zebra stripes
from falling off and leaving only white?

what do i have to do
to keep the herd of restless rhino
from stampeding you?

what do i have to be
to get the giraffe to come and eat
from our acacia tree?

peace is less than me
and more than you
but we are almost free

there's a lot
of different
ways

to
speak
english

island english
hood english
mountain english

etc

some carry
many englishes
in their heads

english belongs
to everybody
cheers

for that
on this bright
afternoon

when all of
my englishes,
in one english

or another,
are all
missing


you

everyone
has the right
to be

to make choices
to take a stand
to think

to work for their
own reasons

to value
what they value

to believe
what they believe

everyone has the right
to a life of the body

and a life
of the spirit

even if the crowd
says they don't

even if the government
says they don't

i'll dance in the streets,
cry in them, saying

who god bless
no man curse

The last time
I saw my landlady in the hood

She said, 'I hear you been spending
a lot of time in the woods'

It's true, I said

'I thought so
That's you
you'll sleep in the woods
before you'll sleep in a hotel
have your tea and you'll be happy'

It's true, I thought
happy
in hoods and woods

i'm 9 in nairobi
playing foosball with a masai man
whose lip and earlobe
(both well-stretched)
bounce against his face,
he hangs lip over nose,
ears over ears,
we play on

funny, those kinds of scars
began with young women,
east african, who
fearing ****
and kidnap
from the north,
cut holes
in lip, in earlobe,
lifted skin of stomach
to slice smooth turtleshell shapes,
rubbed camel dung in wounds for better

scars,
which meant:
resistance, meant:
freedom, meant:
don't take me away,
don't steal my life.
funny
those scars
mean beauty now.
funny, these scars
on my wrist, funny how
much i love life now.
funny scars

the purpose
of a home
is to give
shelter

in salt
water
tears

stuck
on
you

ocean
ocean
ocean

please be patient with me my brother
cause this is what the crash looks like
i flew so high i knew the sky
was my friend
and now i can't get more than half awake
these drugs got me in a zombie state
the asylum didn't help and all this heartbreak
isn't helping and i know you'll understand,
i'll feel better someday

but i don't yet

a fire always burns beautiful
but whether it keeps you warm or scorches you
depends on whether it's your home
that's burning into
only ashes left
i wish i had the will to play
i wish that i had more to say
but please be patient
cause i don't yet

i don't yet
i don't yet
i know we haven't seen the end yet
so i promise to hold on, hold on, hold on,
i've never been one
to give up on
something as beautiful as you
i know time heals but i beg you to understand
why only sleep feels real today
i wish i had the strength to limp
i wish i had the strength to speak
but i don't yet
not yet

beg the weeping
heavens for me
please don't let it rain like this for too long
unless this rain means new beginnings
i can't see if it does or not

not yet
not yet
not yet

i'm so sorry for these howling cries
but this is what the crash sounds like
jesus jesus jesus
are you weeping
with me? you emptied
yourself and nobody
understood and unlike
me you were perfect,
you were patient,
as everyone betrayed,
as everyone walked away.
i haven't resisted to the point of death, i won't
till you call me home which i know is
not yet
not yet
not yet

amin abba amin
i belong to you
you won't let me go
not yet
not yet
not ever

amin abba amin

if you
are


happy


and you
know
it


clamp your hams

to me it seems that the truly rich
are the contemplative,
the homed
are the ones
who can find a home
or create one
for someone else
the orphaned
are the ones who have forgotten
to look into the soul of the world
and one another's eyes

the blessed are the ones
who find themselves cradled
in the arms of the stars
feeling themselves more beloved
than anyone on earth
knowing the Creator
wishes everyone
to feel like that

knowing
love is waiting:
like a favorite woven hammock
in the jungle between the betel-nut and the soursop tree

like the tiny waves that seek the shore
to say hello over and over
to kiss the cheeks
of the hermit *****

like the seahorse clouds
brilliant orange and red
mirroring the ocean until
the whole world is a sunset,
i am in the sunset, i am the sunset

and the sun never really sets after all
it's bringing light to india
kenya hawai'i
it will
be back

half of grace
is letting
your
self
accept it

never knew you
except from
far away

never loved you
except from
far away

never
except for
in poems and colors

and  
...
you know

i never wanted to give
you anything more
than what you wanted.

tonight i was thinking
if the moon were one
of the eyes of God

would it rain every night,
or some nights shine so bright
that even the sleepiest birds

couldn't help singing?
i know
you remember.

dear india,
just one
question:

if you're gone, which you are,
and i'm gone, which i am,
gone like refugees,

why do you
keep showing up
in my dreams?

Greyhound station the midnight customs man
goes through my backpack looking
for a glock or **** I guess; instead
he pulls out Thich Nhat Hanh's
Teachings On Love.

You teaching love?
says he; I say

learning it

it's not that
you claim it

rather it
claims you

it's not the box
on a customs checklist

it's the island
calling you home

I am sitting by a fire with a cup of chai,
in Africa somewhere, thinking
of twenty dead children.
The Turkana women keen in the dark.
‘Woitokoi,’ they say, ‘Woitokoi,’
a call of lament.
Oh, mom.
It’s your babies
It’s your babies

I rarely turn on the radio, but do tonight.
14th of December.  Cooking coconut curry.
I watch the last red and gold fall behind skeleton trees
and step out into the cold with my guitar and Willie Nelson’s
‘Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys.’
Is anyone watching the sparrows falling?

You mothers who have lost a child,
you fathers who have lost a child,
have gone where none can follow
but One who loves you, loves me,
even school shooters, maybe;
One who hates evil
for what it destroys,
One who
(for this love
and hatred)
listens to His son say:
Father
Father
Why have you forsaken me.
One who says to you now:
though father and mother forsake you
yet I will not forsake you--


I am sitting by a fire in Shelton, Connecticut,
thinking of twenty dead babies.
Oh mom.  Mom.
It’s your babies.
It’s your babies.
It’s your babies

all of us
want to think
'my place is best'

to have a place
that is yours
though, is enough

i can't believe
you thought i
wouldn't come back

i told bunkle,
if dostoyevsky's right
that the person

god trusts is
the one to
whom he gives

a lot of
pain, think he
trusted us too

much this time,
he said well
we gotta trust

him he knows
what he's going
to do with

all of this
i looked down
at my sweatpants

someone other than
me and none other
than me had

written you say
you have faith,
where is it?

save Your people

...save me
god, i don't
have much left

but bruises today,
it hurts to
wake up it

hurts to try
to sleep it
hurts to think

walking up the cold creek
thinking about the broken
branches that fall into

the water of the world,
thinking about the
poisons that pollute

the water of the world,
thinking about the
curses that make us

fall and drown and yet
today i have to say
the birds still sing

so beautifully i'm so thankful
for the brothers
and the friends
and the family

and i can say
well, bird, well,
hello, you,

many thanks
for
listening

waiting for Jina;
can't write poems
till he comes back

I'm not making
an argument
for the Communist

I'm not trying
to Robin Hood anything
from you

I'm just saying
sharing is so much happier
than nonsharing

Please
take what you want
off my plate

there is a
time:

to be
blessed

and be
cursed

Oh Lord--you know me--
I'd be totally happy with a thatch hut
by a heavenly ocean;
a few birds maybe,
a typewriter,
and cigarettes that are good for you:
you know me so really
I'd be happy
with anything

"Teej" Julie Teasdale  aka MasikaniCrocodile aka Crocodile of Happiness has taken her life after suffering from bipolar disorder. She was 27. She's home with Jesus now, God I miss her.

All her HP family are invited to the service Sunday night at 1897 Little Snowbird RD Robbinsville NC 28771. I would love to give and receive hugs from any of you who were touched by her poetry. Trust me, she was the most beautiful, kind, sincere, meek person you could ever know. She was my best friend since the day I was born and my heart is shredded on my knees crying Lord, Lord.
You can see pics and get some more of her writing at her facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/teejs?fref=ts

-Robbie Teasdale

in a Me society
you stand on my broken back
to climb

in a We society
you share roof & blanket
we look at stars, both warm

in a We society
you share knowledge,
story, guitar

for the good
of everyone because
it's not about Me

in a Me society
you are showing off
if you do that

unless you are making money
(can someone explain this
to me?)

everyone though is always free
to be a Me
or a We

and life America
despite what you say
is not a competition

come be
a We
with me

"Teej" Julie Teasdale  aka MasikaniCrocodile aka Crocodile of Happiness has taken her life after suffering from bipolar disorder. She was 27. She's home with Jesus now, God I miss her.

All her HP family are invited to the service Sunday night at 1897 Little Snowbird RD Robbinsville NC 28771. I would love to give and receive hugs from any of you who were touched by her poetry. Trust me, she was the most beautiful, kind, sincere, meek person you could ever know. She was my best friend since the day I was born and my heart is shredded on my knees crying Lord, Lord.
You can see pics and get some more of her writing at her facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/teejs?fref=ts

-Robbie Teasdale

how lonely sits
the city says
lamentations

guess this mouse has what you americans call post traumatic
stress disorder,
think of it more like
a path for the
eyes.

one where eyes are finally forced away
from the works of hands
by the knock knock
knocking on
heaven's door,
everybody's saying,
hodi hapa? something's
wrong if no one's answering; tonight.

my neighbor whose
name is eej (for
real) came to
the hut with
his friend.

i said do you
have siblings
he said
i did

oh

said i

you are living
my worst nightmare
one thing about an african

childhood, they say fatalism, you say you
would think about death too
and who knows

what you'd
look
like

tonight by the bagel van i said bunkle
i gotta problem
what's your problem said he
well i think i'm not wearing enough colors
no said he you're missing a bright splash in the orange red family

who knows what we all look like
inside the infinite space
of our souls

wonder if
blue means purity or
green means beauty
or red means strength
or love
or love

well
we all look
pretty much
the same asleep

hatred doesn't look
different in one
eye or another

but why does
it have to
be in the
eyes of
anyone

this mouse has
been asking
since
child
hood

why
why
why.

the cruelty

but
yet
still
and
for
ever

(you always did care for me yeah
you always did share with me yeah)

you always make me laugh, still

the book of jonah makes me
think of sea legs
and just everything,
you know all
the palm trees
huts, nonvoices
of our lives

the blessings rain down
an ocean sunsetting
on an Ocean sky.

siblings

be strong the
good kind of
dangerous

is
the



fire

don't be alone
we have all fallen
through the broken bridge's cracks

don't be alone
the worth of our souls
is equal

don't be alone
we are spiritual siblings
sharing this nest of ripped up newspapers

don't be alone
we are all mice
in the shed of god

My mind is a little street beggar boy
covered in scars and sores,
freezing by a bus stop,
no blanket nor expecting any.

                 …Tell me:
if you could remove
pain or fear
from your life
which would you choose?

Mind is a little beggar boy.
In a street market.
In a riot.
Not pretending
that a life of despair
is good enough for him
when it isn't,

more free,
more free,
so far surviving
slum and street,
decorated
with scars,
just as he is

meant to be