18 is a hard age
to be black
and dead

tear-gas in our eyes
burns, baby, burns.

r ~ 8/14/14

This was a fishing village
when people were speaking
the king's English, dead
like the fishing industry
Now the tourists have accents

Truth be told
this was a fishing village
long before that
But we don't speak about
what those folks spoke
Something Algonquian
or another dead language

When the tide is out
I walk the shore and look for remnants
Pottery and stone tools, and such
I find a lot of plastic
and bottles, plenty of those
We've been a drinking people
for a long **** time

Once, I found a child's shoe,
sodden and filled with sand
It had a blue lace,
still tied, and a smiley face
as the tide was going out
Kind of sad, really.

r  ~ 8/28/14

I awoke
at the crack
of dawn

to a blood red sun
-a bullet hole
in a faded work shirt

with a creak in my bones
a quick kiss and a groan

I thanked her
and slipped out
the back door

before her old man
came home.

r ~ 8/30/14

I should leave here
but there's a hole needs burying

- a mountain of memories
and a thousand miles of pain -
it still smells like you
even after it rains

At the table by the window
where you used to read -
there's a whiskey bottle
that I'm trying to put away

There - is a hole that needs burying
one of these days.

r ~ 9/1/14

it's half-past our time
and i'm still listening-
a song about getting lost
in the canyons

-and the divide
seems much greater
than before-

if i don't look at you
maybe you won't see me

and i won't have to lie
here still
unmoved by you
and your kindness

i don't get lost there
anymore.

r ~ 9/8/14

Sundays
come in two flavors-
hallelujah
and goody powder

goody powders
go down easier
with flavored water

not the **** variety
but strawberry
or cherry

wall clock
goes ****
****
where's my ****

hallelujah-
FIRE

r ~ 9/7/14

I could sculpt the same 26 letters
Into a thousand different formations
And it still wouldn't be enough for you.

Unknowing of my, little but still existing, greatness;
You rip apart my limbs,
Dismember my colourful insides
(As I'm trying to paint you picturesque landscapes)
And replace them with fear...

And your control over me still isn't enough for you.

report this poem
it's deviant
it may teeter into f-word terrain
and it's not what one might
think a poem ought to be

malign this poem
it's mutant
it does not have form,
history or conventions
it doesn't refer to a point in the world
it's self-referential
(no comment on poverty or humanity
no evaluation of terrorism or social ills -
it's not even about love
or about the poet's first-world woes)

and so pointing back at itself
it's like ******* -
which is always a crime, always has been;
de-construct this poem
for it drifts into no meaning -
it does not help humanity transcend

useless, uninspired, with no legitimacy
it must not be -
report this poem to have it removed

in my refusal
i am blantantly womanlike  
i want what i say i do not
i don't want you to convince me
i want you to spontaneously take me
somewhere you think i would like

i am ashamed of my scheme
especially that you are oblivous of it