I had cried out for home    
In the midst of all out wreckage  
An onslaught of bad days  
Bad people    
Bad things to do    
To good people    
To feed a bad habit    
    
There lay my bad seed soul on the filthy carpet    
I had rolled on it    
I had taken a nap on it    
And the polyester fibers    
Had attached themselves to my brain    
The pseudo soft mesh of red *****    
twisted into grey matter    
    
And I cried out for home    
God I believe    
And no words for him    
Aside from that thing    
In my tummy    
Wrenching that I needed him    
    
And to the alleys again    
Once more in the morning after    
I pulled myself up    
Sticky faced    
And mouth curved an OG grin    
With hip walk down lick street    
My lean serious    
My intent Ill    
The illest    
    
Then behind me sirens spin    
‘‘Twas the cop    
From the night before    
Or, the night of    
Whenever    
Or the day I    
And I probably did    
I don’t remember    
    
But he was sure of it    
And my wrists were soon tight with steel    
Key lock    
And pale faced feeling    
Drained to my knees the rest of me    
Slid into seat    
Customary head tuck    
And to county jail    
    
Booked in    
****** up    
Off grin    
I had been too tired    
To argue much that stripes and numbers were not my color    
    
I was going to stay a while    
A little vaca a go go    
Hell no you can’t leave    
But    
At last a place to really sleep    
And eat    
(Insert here any form of gelatinous ooze)    
    
And just to break the serious monotonous    
Time......    
....................(you cannot imagine what whir lies between those kind of) ........ticks....    
    
I found my hustle    
  
For a beautifully    
Artfully    
Passionately rendered Madonna and child I did for a stud broad    
She traded me three e gig filters    
(I shoved up my *******)    
Aughhh...    
“nicotine baby, hadn’t seen you in a while.”    
    
And I considered this    
And I asked why    
She had fortuned my ****** with this wealth    
    
A big woman they called Squirrel    
Who had sported stripes on the daily    
And would be for 15 plus more years    
Said to me    
“Because I need to make these grey walls home.”    
She stuck up the Madonna    
With toothpaste and spit    
And sat down to pray    
    
And here’s the thing    
About God    
And    
About stud broads called Squirrel    
Both have quite the surprising answers    
To questions    
You ask    
Or prayers you did not know you’d cried out    
    
Prayers like    
I want to go home    
  
And big bad women    
With our lady of perpetual hope    
Lightening the dark of their eye    
Show you how to make it

for all who understand perfectly why perfection can never be,
                            and Adriana Barreiros~**


                                              <>
Todays new millionth sunrise bids me stand,
observe the river traffic from my kitchen window,
accept that my takings are debts,
a few, even paid back,
yet, most still owed,
for the origins of all my poems,
are oddly and oddity old,
unoriginal, second, third handed
as I look through the eyes of the dead,
and yours too,
this my unoriginal,
original sin....
(pretending  I am a poet)

When were you cast out Brother?
I had named you
Adam
Your woman still lies
In great beauty  
Red hair spilled on the desert floor
Great sands pillowing against  
Open thighs
As sometimes
In its infinite piling
As it would be rough
With your fingertips  
Pressed  
Preparing her for entry
  
Sweet tendrils  
Wrap vermillion and dark
Like the cinder curling of  
My word as it burns
The ink bleeds mankind
Into ashen wandering  
And back again  
To dust
In only the blink of my eye
  
It is not the fragile kind
My weeping  
The tears have purpose
And would filter in  
To flood this valley of loss
And wipe it new
And not without her
  
One existing soul  
Will grow and thrive and exist  
In another’s body
To dance and sing with the great spirit  
Of thousands
A sound mind  
And purpose  
That survived outside  
Of the red tent
Even without the hand  
of Jacobs lead

I have stroked my way
through great lengths
And currents    
Of uncertainty    
    
Come ripple    
Come shoot  
And it seems    
In this moment    
I did not miss  
    
It's pull  
Through doubt  
Through once devastating    
Remorse  
That had grabbed my ankles  
To tug me under  
    
To see my face    
In airless whisper  
Bubbles of scream    
I could not muster    
Rise  
And rise slowly    
And swallow into it  
    
Hollow panic    
I could not choke    
But only beg for wind  
Until I surfaced    
To the welcoming sun    
And beloved movement  
    
To float into    
Destination    
Would have been lovely  
To ride Christ like    
Down blue waters    
Seems choice    
However unattainable    
    
I can only imagine  
Caressing the ease and cool    
With fingers that did not curl    
With desperation  
    
But that was not my case  
Was not my stream    
Was not my river    
    
I imagine Congo bends  
And U shaped turns    
Of ambiguity and great confusion  
Or the dense and uncharted    
Regions of the Amazon    
And like minded    
Extreme    
Highly unpredictable    
Pourings  
    
And in them I would recognise    
My journey  
And feel kinship    
And great pride    
In spite of the struggle  
And uneven pace of my dig  
    
For every stroke has taken me    
to where I am  
And away from where I've been
  
I let the residuals  
Drip down my thigh
I finger them from my hair
And am reminded  
Of the hard motion  
And deep waters that cling
  
I sigh and watch them  
fall from my skin
And direct my gaze
And satisfaction  
Up and towards the sky