i don’t ever listen
to anything you say.
i can’t help it
when your smile turns my way.

how do you expect me to hear
the words you’re directing to me,
when a laugh accompanies it
and it’s all i can see?

i still
do not know
the poem i've been trying to write
and maybe
that's because
i haven't been
writing one at all
or maybe it's because
the poem i've been trying to write
is not ready for paper
and maybe
i'm the paper
that's not ready for it

Collect me from school,
Big feet,
Small feet,
A purse in one hand,
And my  little hand in another,
We  walk along.
She is never in a hurry,
She seems not to mind if I splash in a puddle on the roadside,
Or stamp on dry leaves under a tree,
Play balancing act on the edge of the pavement,
She will stop so I can pat a puppy or a kitten.
She always has candies for me in her purse,
Sometimes she buys for me an icecream or a hotdog on the way home.
I ask her tons of questions as we walk along,
She answers them all,
My sweet unrushed grandma.
8/4/2021

I know I can forgive you
as that iris laps in the view,
of a knife up to my throat.
Your eyes, in sweet loathing; afloat.
The red truth on rings,
frantic in my ears
soft as butterfly wings.
Soft as butterfly wings.

Your voice, so near me, an ocean away
crashing and foaming
cursing my life, begging I stay.

Curled, unsure fingers
beneath the dark of my hair,
shadowed and lingers.
The day so forgotten, the moment so there,
forgiven, unfair.
Felt like an animal, fighting be tame,
and your hand - domestication, clutching my veins.

Thought of the clementines you so cherished much
as juice dripped down your boyish arm,
on and on, until crimson pulp, to touch.

Pulls at twin cords,
cold, practiced fear and warmer words.
Same pulse along the jaw.
Familiar flush of jade stroked wings.
The end, hopeless and raw
and the feeling your name, on brings.

Through all spite and longing,
days of sun forever dawning
I get fluttering creatures
still as a hand so seizures.
Deep in place unknown
between belly and throat.
Under gruffest tone
and nights alone.
They will never wish a wing to know
the hurt of hidden bones.
How it come, ever slow.

Your taste, your say, your meaner things,
soft as butterfly wings.
Soft as butterfly wings.

The angst of pain
is so foolish gone
when blade of gruesome lust and flushing hate,
is in your hands.
So, at my heart, it stays.

Mouth to plum, bruised blue and black
it's always guilt, the wild eyes lack.
It's always pansies, blooming down my back
If you could ever think to love me - attack.
Feel my fingers, feel my nerves
boy,
relish my blindness, dampen my words.
Eat me alive,
I've forgotten what it is to die.
Forgotten how to bring my ****** lips to wine
and let you shove away the tears - I'm dry.
The beauty of petals, what do they serve,
to only dry and fall dead from a flower,
when the sun is not hers?

The devil stalked my boulevard,
in the days of summer's heat wave and cigar.
The times I forced my heart to beat so hard,
and risked it all, against your guard.
If I love over and over
what is fear but to stay sober?
To draw you closer on closer;
take my weakness and expose her.
You came with a name to keep reciting,
eyes of blue, igniting.
It's saintly to save
but we stay fighting.
Curl my long dress
right between your fists.
Catch my breath,
you breathe risk.
Oh, you did it again
you've done it all over again.
Washed under tides of sin.
What is pure? What is holy?
When there is you, and you only?
Blessedly, I am marred.
I try to forget, so fast, so hard.
Still, all the heavenly hues
become colorless in your muse.
By your mouth, I bruise.
Angel; corrupted, mine to lose.

Sometimes dreams come waking
by the American shore.
Over and over,
escorting wandering souls, more and more.
Over deep ocean, golden rays;
blinding eyes, singing praise.
America the beautiful and America the free.
How free is possibility,
In a nation of changing, pride, urgency?
How much can you bear internally
watching your brothers and sisters wither in desperation.
Oh, beautiful and free and desperate nation.
Nation of red, white, and blue
red blood,
white knuckle,
blue bruised back.
We struggle together, yet unity we lack.
Everyone seems to be rushing up and pushing down
when we are all surely hell-bound
destined far beyond the ground.

We fear failure, we fear love
we fear whoever is watching above.
Because, regardless of who created and thought,
“my artistry will change the world”
was surely not
trying to leave it in ruins.
Simply; we, America, move too fast
we justify the present, suppress the past.
Ignore all the wrongs we've rendered within our own borders,
to our own neighbors.
What can you do wrong, when you have dominion?
And when you are below, what importance is there in your opinion?
There is no morality in a man who has his eyes on the rise,
a man who has never taken labor
in his stride.
America was built on sweat and vigor
though, now, whose finger is on the trigger?
The new America, polished and improved
has the gun cocked in every angle
advertising the glorified dream, the success that you can strangle.
The time that can be abused; yearning for wealth, working to the grave.
Servant to the passing days, when,
wasn't it liberation we once craved?

We're building an empire, disguised as democracy,
where we ****** the spirit of those we promised were equal.
It reeks of hypocrisy.
We're building an empire,
but even once-great Rome fell down in shambles,
and we aim far, far higher.
Higher buildings, higher expectations, higher need to achieve
to beat and beat down on those that only breathe.
We're building up walls to elude the sun, dead,
when you live in darkness, what, honestly, becomes right in your head?
What light shines upon a nation, still unashamed
of prerogative and seldom rights to be obtained
by virtue and strive for those who believed in the American scheme?

Sometimes dreams come crashing
at the American shore
littered its sands
all the years from America forever and America before.