If you will tell me why the fen appears impassable,
I then will tell you why I think that I can cross it if I try..”
-Marianne Moore
When this world teeters on the abyss of emotion
and those I shepherd cannot find a way through the fog,
I try and hang a lamp from the front of this old rowboat
and paddle out slowly into the fen. That mind/shadow space
that surrounds and swallows their light.
I ask them what they need, and offer a steady hand
as they step onto the old planks. The children always begin
in silence but something about the way the water
Whispers to the wood, how the boat glides almost
unheard that always drives them to eventually speak
Of what carried them out beyond the threshold
of what one might bear stoically in public.
The oars provide some solace, something physical to pull
On that moves when these hands claim strength.
So much of what anchors us cannot be unshackled from skin.
They are loads we must drag along the deep until our hearts
forgive us for their weight. This is why I travel slowly, accepting
Silence as a cleverest answer, I ask my travellers where they are headed.
To acceptance they often say, or vengeance if they are not ready
To escape the shape of their shadows. I to dress in gloom, but
only when I put down the oars, while rowing there is no room
for night to claim my kingdom.
Often there is nothing to do but listen to their stories
Let the sound of the lake lapping lapse into whatever tale is waiting
To be told, and sometimes just speaking its name is enough to banish
The wendigo that hunts behind teenage confidence, and sometimes their
Is nothing I can do but row. Rarely, they jump overboard but I
Weep but only when even their echoes have faded. Carve
their name into the planks in salt tear and let it mix with the bilge
And yet, there are those days that if I row just long enough, and can
Keep the silence within my cheeks, that suddenly a soft glow
Will rise from out of the darkness, bubble up like a lighting fish
and settle upon the bow. Those are the days the calluses are worth
Their calling. Those are the days the docks rise up from the mist long
Before fatigue creeps into these old bones and we spend the end
of the trip almost in each other’s arms, holding tightly to each other’s
Essence as my hands pull against the sea of time, as both of us heal,
And I call out goodbye as they step ashore, but they are already dressed
in gossamer glow, shining in the early morn, already wandering back into the light
Jun 17, 2022
Jun 17, 2022 at 5:54 AM UTC
We celebrate Juneteenth as if the war was not still being fought
Across news stations and echoes of Jefferson's dreams
The last slaves freed, but this country was never
Reconstructed, just patched up just replaced
Chains with debt, a Theseus ship of spoils pulled
From the wreckage of **** And I sit the echoes
of police sirens slung like clubs across the backs of the
Boys that sat in my classroom and wondered
Why every white person they met always had
To yell so much. As if there was nothing at all
to be exchanged besides recreating Hegel’s dialectic.
As if the only way to win was in blood. And perhaps
That is what Juneteenth really teaches us, that blood
Shed long enough will lead to ghosts, whispered
Warnings we ignore. As if a million bodies buried across
The South was not enough of a reminder that we needed
To **** to have the enslaved seen as people. We celebrate the
Day we no longer had to bury bayonets in bodies
To treat humans as humans. And they still can't see it.
Don’t realize that if you take away the last plate of food,
That if you turn off the power, that if the dollar can't fill the tank
What comes from desperation is a blood-born tsunami
full of the ghosts of dead racists and stolen children,
full of collateral damage and crackheads hooked on crystal
Sold to them by the CIA.
This country cannot swallow the blood needed to clear its cup.
But at least we gonna barbeque and vote, and Dream, and read.
At least we gonna explain to the children that this was the day
The last slaves were freed when there are still hungry mouths to feed.
At least we gonna sit with Baldwin, or Miles, or Kendrick, and unhinge
Our throats like snakes swallowing what the storms sing from suffering.
At least we can carry that truth. If only for a day. If only to free the last
Mind slaves still believing that the war is over, the dead silent,
The constitution holy, the senate fair, the president controls gas prices,
The bullet not already loaded, the school doors not already locked,
The rich earned it, the news aint propaganda, the children martyrs
The blood in our bodies not singing requiems to the pain of our ancestors,
At least we gonna pretend that this country actually free.
Jun 17, 2022
Jun 17, 2022 at 5:48 AM UTC
Come forth, bury your skinny
necks in the full breath of sky
This world is a guillotine
falling and we sing of blades.
Perhaps then, before the flash,
the drifting listlessness of void,
we might dream ourselves
into a room full of our echos.
Masterpieces of memory,
paired and painted with
our love. Perhaps,
we might learn that prayer
Is the creation of something
beautiful. A single glance
across a crowded room,
a students smile, a poem
written with all the shades
of my mothers laughter.
Mar 1, 2017
Mar 1, 2017 at 10:27 PM UTC
We have broken ourselves for less
Then the dreams of our forefathers,
Their bones still singing in the dust.
Fallen tombstones bring faithful children
To whisper lullabies to angry ghosts.
Our hands are capable of so much.
Love comes to those who leave their
Palms open to the futures that
Whisper just as memories do, and yet
The dead are not silent,
They twist and burn
In the mirror of our eyes.
Their struggle sings through us,
Asking if we too are already buried,
or perhaps, if we the living will
speak for those who cannot.
Mar 1, 2017
Mar 1, 2017 at 10:25 PM UTC
The carvings on the stones
Read like scars
In this city that has bled for centuries
And I’m no clot to slow the flow
The veins of this country have been pricked
And punctured
And the skin ripples in the wind
Like a half flown flag
I have come here to bury my past
In the tombs of my fathers
And build a bridge
That will still be standing by morning
For now
I tread seconds in this liquid night
And press my palms
Against the scarred stones
As if maybe they might whisper me their secrets
And clot my bleeding history
Dec 24, 2013
Dec 24, 2013 at 9:14 PM UTC
When I went to Dachau
I expected death
I expected ghosts
And barbed wire
And ash
So much ash
I could not have expected
The still lingering stench of burnt hair
And the weight of a silence so heavy
That it sealed up the sky
A realization
That this is where I would have died
Had fate burdened me to be born
In those dark years
Inside Dachau
Something is still screaming so loud
You become deaf
The horror
The horror
It was my soul that tried to silence
The sorrow
Some part of me was buried there
Dec 24, 2013
Dec 24, 2013 at 9:10 PM UTC
Like the shifting ways the ocean reaches for the shore
Or maybe how summer sun falls gently upon the backs of children
You came into my life softly
With little more then a doves whisper to announce your name
I, like those before me, found solace in the illumination of your iris
And together we practiced the sacred art of breathing
While trying to remember the names of past loves
Who like smoke had twisted and spun its way out into nothingness
We talked of the texture and shape of egos, and remembered what hides behind eyes while they rest shut
We watched the cars fly by and in their absence listened to the sounds of the city
The echoes and whispers, made by the subtlety of cell phones and tears of babies
Like Juliet you sipped tea and watched time invade our bastion of an afternoon
As we sat and drew pictures of children whose faces had not yet be pulled south by time
We walked with the cool autumn breeze kissing the backs of our necks until the sky began to feel God’s hand reached up and painted it golden
We sat in perfect silence as the sky pulled on its dress of twilight
And let the soft sounds of dusk lead us back to my apartment
Darkness crept into the corners of the city and with it I remember you running the maze of my poems
As I worked quietly on some version of a home cooked meal
You ate my words as well as pasta that night and fell in love with something that pulsed far beneath my skin
I watched you reveal wings and float softly into bed
Discovering truths we spoke of things that have yet to be named
And forgot about redemption and the city and all the stars that surround it
But as dawn rose softly to the east
I awoke to see you sitting at the window
Staring into the sunrise
That moment has never left my dreams
The silhouette of your figure
The sky a pale gold
And the world softly siring
So far beneath us
Dec 24, 2013
Dec 24, 2013 at 9:09 PM UTC
The old man
A broken down factory
Sagging within the crumbled graffiti of his skin
Sits and stares out the window
An anachronism
Out of place among the smooth
Modern hospital walls
The man sits in his wheel chair
The thrown of landless kings
Carrying all the memories of his years
Like a net
Hauling in the silverfish of his stories
Though many have swam away
And in his hazy recollection
He remembers the feeling of bare feet
On summer grass sprinting
The shotgun of a ball exploding
From the barrel of his bat
The hush of a spring storm
As it dresses him and some lover
All the shades of wet
Staring out the window
The old artifact
Wiggles his proud toes
Following them back to
The night clubs in Chicago
The handshake of the president
And the feathery wings of jazz
In his feeble arms he catches
The kick of a rifle
The whisper of a bullet
As it reaches out to bury itself
Into the lullaby of his bones
The dirt of war in his teeth
And the smell of burning hair
But most of all he looks back
On the empty picture frame
The days that have blurred into
Darkness and smoke
What did I do on all the days
I have forgotten
This question hangs like the last petal
Still clinging to the branches
As the winter wind grows bold
It is unfair he thinks
And looks out among
The dogwoods in full swaying dresses
That line the hospital
I am a barren husk
Of bark and bone
But this world blooms so brilliant
Lean back in his chair
The old man thinks
I am so happy I got to see
The trees laughing with the wind one last time
And smiles like a toothless sunset
His soul swallowing and swelling
On all the beauty he has ever gathered
Behind the cameras of his eyes
So full of life that he can no longer hide it inside of him
It must go dance with the blossoms
When the nurse found him
The tears had not dried off his cheek
His mouth frozen into a smile
Like a sunbeam burning through the clouds
A single dogwood flower folded in his fingers
As she looked upon the hallelujah of his death
She wondered
What secrets did you take with you
You old geezer
What was so beautiful
You smiled so hard your heart broke
When you saw the other side
Did it have dogwoods
Dec 24, 2013
Dec 24, 2013 at 9:04 PM UTC
1.
I once met a rich poet and asked him
What we writes about?
“Nothing.” he answered
2.
How many poets does it take to ***** in a light bulb
One
3.
The difference between a great poet
And a ****** poet
Is mathematically calculable
To how recently they’ve been laid
4.
When the pen ran out of ink
The poet gnawed of his finger
And wrote with the blood
5.
The lake froze over
The poet wept
6.
If you took all the poets that ever lived
And placed them in the same room
There would be many empty seats
And not nearly enough pens
7.
When a man asked him what he did
He answered, “Teacher.”
When a pretty girl asked him what he did
He answered, “Poet.”
8.
One day there will be no more poets
And a great silence will cover the land
9.
Cain was a soldier
Able was a poet
Look how that turned out
10.
Each day is a poem
Still being written on tombstones
11.
We fell in love by showing each other our poems
We fell out of love when we stopped
12.
The children Laughed and mobbed
After the soccer ball
The young poet stood
And watched a blackbird
13.
If you dream
And can remember it in the morning
Then you are a poet
Dec 24, 2013
Dec 24, 2013 at 8:52 PM UTC
I.
A rose
Is a rose
Is a breath of flame
Beauty must be dressed in thorn
To survive more then one love
II.
Rose
Contradiction
You like a woman
Are dual cast
Bound in grace
Prone to torment
A knot of flame drawn inward
Never to untangle
Dancing between the thorns
III.
When the blue rose first changed its color
Lusting after the sky
We could do nothing more then let it grow
Dressing itself in reflection
Something drawn up from the earth
To rival the heavens
IV.
Oh clenched fist of a lover
You were a rose of too many
Dancing thorns
The blood
The blood
I could not hold on
V.
A rose
Is a rose
Is a barrel of flame
A shotgun holding red
This is the way the world
Reminds us it is beautiful
This is the way the world
Reminds us of its thorns
Dec 24, 2013
Dec 24, 2013 at 8:50 PM UTC