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Jonathan Moya Jul 2020
Outside of town a man died
naked beneath a nice tree.

Some said  he was old
and that the tree was an elm.
Some said he was young
and that it was an oak.
Others, that he was a child
and that it was a magnolia.

The only thing they agreed on:
that he was naked, dead, under a tree
and they felt sorry for him.

So, the Widow Smith secretly
dressed him in her husband’s best shirt
because she was still mourning
the loss of Tom’s chest.

Mr. Aglet, who owned the shoe store,
privately donated the old Nike’s
Timmy abandoned when he went to Harvard
because Aglet missed Timmy putting them on.

Haberdasher Scye donated his swankiest cufflinks-
the one’s left behind when a newlywed customer
learned that his wife was in labor—
because Scye hated the look of an unadorned shirt.

He then gave his favorite top hat
for no man should be buried with bad hair,
his finest knee-high dress socks
because that’s what funeral’s demand.

He than gifted his finest silk tie,
a nice leather belt of the man’s waist size,
and just to finish the look

a properly somber black jacket and pants.

Optometrist Eyear noticing the man
was squinting rather oddly
crafted a fine pair of designer spectacles
that fitted perfectly on the dead man’s nose.

Everyone in town felt good about their gifts
and the funeral was well-attended.
It wasn’t until he was deep under
did they notice that they forgot the underwear.

They found them, the next day,
the one thing that knew him best,
hanging high in the branches of the tree.
Jonathan Moya Jul 2020
Winter  
The rain sheds  precious jewels this winter night,
the oaks untangle their branches in clarity,
musky solidarity, and affirmation of their place,
an unlearned wisdom  of existence  that
allows them to bear the staggered light of
unhurried clouds spreading their endless
laughter to all those fixed below.

Fall
The cold, crisp wind of change kisses
and abandons all the oaks of the field.
They shiver off their acorns knowing
they must be naked for the dark days ahead.
The clouds dark smiles are just beginning
to bear their light for winter’s derision.

Summer
The sunshine dances with the wind
and the oaks of the forest sway
in the merriment of unfiltered days.
They embrace a child’s shadow,
generously mixing it with their own,
bearing a tempered light for those
who breathe beneath their branches.

Spring
Diamonds of rain embellish the thirsty oaks
and they drink it in in tangled unity,
not scornful of the others judgement.
Fickle clouds grudgingly bear the light
until the sun forces them to share
its unending generosity with everything below.
Jonathan Moya Jul 2020
You were unburied
10 years before I was born,
pulled from the Arie riverbed  
the day Nagasaki burned.
You died like a samurai
in your daughter’s arms,
bowels flowing,
head severed cleanly,
falling to the water
amidst the silence
of dead human trees
with their bark skin turned inside out,
among the screams of the living
realizing that not even water
can stop their burning away.

You were unburied
65 years before I was born,
killed by the big guns
with Conestoga wheels in the
ravine near Wounded Knee Creek.
You died running with your nursing infant
in your arms trying to touch the flag of truce,
your child still suckling long after
the Great Spirits call—  still suckling
as you were piled in the mounds
of mothers with no ghost shirts.
Others children’s children still
Ghost Dance and tell your lore.

You were buried
32 years before I was born,
shot in the back after
you had dug your own grave.
Shot in the back after
you had watched your house
burn in a kerosene blaze.
Shot in the back after
you knew the children
were safe in the swamp.
Shot in the back after
all of Rosewood burned
from the fury of white rage.
Shot in the back
until you were erased
from existence
except in the memory of tears.

What am I meant to do?
It’s summer and the
magnolias are blooming,
the cherry blossoms are ripe,
the black hills spruce
admits its forever mildew stink,
reminding harvesters not to
ever make it a Christmas tree.

I call out not knowing your names,
giving you invisible ones
that will reflect your death and life.

What am I meant to do?
Your unburied ash, spirit,
your buried charred bones
exists in wretched longing,
your names bleed into
the riverbed, the ravine, the clay.
I mourn as I freely travel the spaces
that others had trampled over you.

What am I meant to do?
Jonathan Moya Jul 2020
Everything’s broken, diseased, sold and resold.
The pandemic’s breath blows on us.
Everything’s is devoured in a hunger never filled.
So why do I see a glistening in the distance?

In the day dream, a forest appears on the border.
The scent of lavender and lilies exhales out.
In the nightmare,  the zodiac is ****** into
the black hole of a distant dissolving galaxy.

You wonder the miracle, if it comes,
will arise from darkness or dawn.
Will it arise from the first
natal nightmare or dream?
Jonathan Moya Jul 2020
Her name you may
or may not recall.
It was Chrissie,
the body in the sand dune.

You do remember the shark,
the blood on the water,
death spreading like
a virus in the town of Amity.

You do remember that
the beaches should have been closed
but Amity was a summer town
that lived on summer dollars.

You do remember the shark
doing what it was built to do—
killing Mrs. Kintner’s little boy
on that beautiful July 4th day.

You do remember Mrs. Kintner’s
cold blooded slap
on police chief Brody’s
warm blooded face.

“You knew there was a shark out there.
You knew it was dangerous
but you let people go swimming anyway.
You knew all those things

-BUT STILL MY BOY IS DEAD NOW!”

“She’s wrong,”
the mayor says.
“No, she’s not,”
Chief Brody acknowledges.

Suddenly you remember
reading a news piece
that Mrs. Kintner (Lee Fiero)
was a victim of the pandemic.

You realize there is no
police chief, scientist, grizzled old salt
banding together to do the right thing,
uniting to triumph over disease, death,

Only the orange hair President
standing deep in the drowning tide
smiling and waving and
telling everyone the water is fine.

“We are all Mrs. Kintner  now.”


Note:

The final line is a quote by Mary McNamara,
the obituary writer for the Los Angeles Times.
Jonathan Moya Jul 2020
What is the land
but dust
but mountains
but forrest
but mud
but lost sorrow

What is sorrow
but torn soul
but wounded skin
but a trail of tears.

This day
the Chickasaw
Choctaw
Creek
Seminole
Cherokee

wipe the
white mans dirt
off their right foot
with their left foot

wipe the buffalo’s blood
off their right hand
with their left hand

walk ******
bare right foot
to wounded left foot  
on the dust
of their ancestors
their sacred hills

walk away from
The Great Spirit
to the not greater
white man’s God
slow sad right foot
to slower left foot.

Walk dragging their
dead still right foot
to still left foot
far away from the sun
of their monumental land

to this country
of bullets and blood
marching, running
blue right foot
towards gray left foot
in a frenzy to *****
bronze monuments
to all their dead

And when they cry it’s
the prayer of the white man
buried in Indian pain

May the wind
that is blowing
now and always
the dust of our memory
blow beyond your
fear of us
and all different
colored spirits

May the wind
turn from you
and only return
until you love not
the scars you
put on our backs

May you open your
eyes to unbuilt land
and see finally
The Great Spirit
calling every one
to share the
sacred hills
even the dust
with all that
have always walked
right foot to left foot
Jonathan Moya Jul 2020
It’s a fizgig, a gadding
of damp powder
hinting to explode,
assuming your surname
without any legal ceremony.

It flip flops you with trust
burrowing into the one
perfect position,
sleeping ahead of you,
waking you when you fall behind.

Not at all heavy, yet the
heaviest thing you’ll ever have.
Every breath heavy with airy death
that stunts your budding
wings from taking flight.

You measure the weight of
every thought until it always
pulls you down and your soul
takes flight jut to live…

…and you don’t t bother to chase it.

Notes:
a fizgig is both a flirting woman and a
firework of damp powder that fizzes or hisses when it explodes.

gadding is to go around from one place to another, in the pursuit of pleasure or entertainment.
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