“but if you have to move your best friend’s body…
…you’re on your own.”

Your best friend dies
Before your eyes
Somehow stays alive
Then what?

***** salt-licked hair
Brittle and frayed by medicine
World’s unfathomable weight
Trembling beneath the Wisdom Tree

Her whole being crumples (arrugar)
But her life-force remains intact
Body bone
Running on spirit reserves
Why is that?

She stands and cries
Staring into ether
I sit
Wringing my hands

Her tears strike the ground
In tree-gecko unison

'''

Pacific parasite super-strains
Blood coated throat
The full range of abuse’s color on all fronts
for decades
Attempted assaults, ****
Dengue
Giant Centipede venom to the skull

But worst of all
Rootlessness and fear

the monkey on her back
had a monkey on its back
   and was smoking a cigarette

'''

Have you ever seen someone
Completely broken?

Corpsic shell of a woman
Gaunt, wan in the tropics

“Don’t put your trust in walls…
…walls will only crush you when they fall”

Brick-bludgeoned body
The shrapnel lay like
Sun scorched
Novice-woven baskets
At her feet

But now she can see
And breath
Real breath

'''
Genocide’s a *****, yes.

Africans seem fatalistic to Americans
Baby boy body, Grandpa human- shield

“They’re your babies”
Short-lived, yes
But now they have peace

Witnesses still weave the jungle

What do you do with a friend who’s
Seen real atrocity? Evil?

'''

I’m learning.

Prayer is power
Will transcends the concrete (Bunkle, too.)

She serves realness only
Her seeking hands unweave the sacred
Time is of no luxury right now

Serve people through love
and Grace awaits discovery

'''
I’ve never carried a bleeding body.
I needn’t “fear the terror by night,
Nor the arrow by day”

But I saw someone perish
And resurrect

What a gift
What a gift

Gubaadagem, Tinmad.

akin to sewer grates
seeping toxic gas,
a friend to deadly smog,
and bad attitudes,
a product of waste,
between holes in the lime sandstone
occasionally silenced by
commuting feet, disparaging
their accidental charity,
retaliating with lethal fluid
those feet then fleet from,
all the while wondering why they
can't bear the stench

you know how fair this skin is
and still you concentrate your eyes
burning it like the sun, supposedly obliviously
staring at whats now a dark caste
made of leather, perplexed... but smitten
throw it over your shoulders like
your grandmother's hand knit scarves
and embark into the snow

your mother's chickens
that bawk; that shamelessly take her food
that she soothes; then fly away
full of her kindness, flightless and weighed down
out of the nest she built with her own jaws,
clumsily plunking to the ground.

your mother's children
that walk, that bawk; that she'll lose too
snapping their beaks, using their words as weapons
like hatchets they never sharpen
left inaudible but volatile,
and impatiently toss away
aimless, 'til their throats are sore
final squawks spent in defiance,
axes ricocheting like bullets
back in their mouths.

she can't help but smile at the
thought- there will be no
flying south,
not this winter-
not ever.

i considered it a sneeze
more of a natural expulsion
of that which contaminates the spaces
between our mustaches and our medulla

no
something ejected and the room paused
most placed aside their drink
snuffed their cigarette
to see if you would pass away
smooth

chuckled
thats what you did after
and we breathed a sigh of relief
some glad that you hadnt seized up
others glad they didnt have to leave yet

either way
thanks

i wont buy you a triple meat again

...And we are
forever
attached to the boat we
row
Through waves
and storms and
still nights
and stars
that we struggle to reach
until we miss the desert
that gave the thirst of a
blue moon's horizon
Thinking
wondering
until the why demands
for reasons and we
drown in despair trying to
defy the calm waters
that brought us
the reflection of the truth
No... we're not alone
but we chose
to be on our
own...

im not writing anymore
***** my cigarette on the hardwood
pouring out my drink in the bathtub
lay next to a speaker until
well
forget it
sleep and wake up
3am
i dont blame them
write what no one reads

rinse.repeat.

She always knows
She always knows what to do
I'm glad she's just a friend
and doesn't know the crew

I never tell her my story
She reads every page herself
She never touches the exhibits
the essences of me
elegantly
arranged upon the shelves

She always knows
She always knows what to do
I'm glad shes just a friend
and never knew the crew

She paces in silence
Slight smirk under her eyes
As she wanders around my gallery
galaxies
analogies of abnormal realities
Seen from within the guise

She always knows
She always knows what to do
I'm glad she's just a friend
And will never know the crew

Every so often she pauses
Her footsteps resound
The curator looks up interested
and solicited
a reaction uninhibited
From a mind profound

She always knows
She always knows what to do
I'm glad she's just a friend
And doesn't want to know the crew

Her analysis is always unique
And as if she was the artist
The curator thinks, in retrospect
she is correct.
As she walks out the exit
Her path is marked by a trail of stardust.

She always knows
She always knows what to do
I'm glad she's just a friend
And is unknown to the crew

leave it to me to awaken
with guilt and embarrassment
oh ****
what did i write
which words did i fumble
how often did i repeat myself
what did i direct towards my family
what did i withhold from my lover
who did i hurt
when did i stop
why are my pillows wet
can i be forgiven
even by me
maybejustahairofthedog

fixed.

Think
the over thinking
Like
wanting a drink that you're already drinking
Like
wanting to swim when you're already sinking
So easy to think the over thinking
a concoction of daydreams
you hate to be drinking
While
you're already busy believing your sinking
and your foots on solid ground.
So easy to think the over thinking
leaving
your future on the brink of brinking
And
you haven't done a thing cause
you're too busy thinking.
So easy to think the over thinking -
The only reason that your really sinking
in a world that may be okay.