As the light fades from my window and the house grows still,
I grab my favorite blanket and sit at the window sill.

I've got one last conversation,
one last prayer to breathe,
I'm just waiting on the moon-
to tell her what I need.

If she shows me stars tonight then I will wait for you,
and if the sky is just pitch black?
There's nothing more I can do.

I'm sure you find it silly-
my obsession with signs
yet you still look for meaning in my non-sensical rhymes.

So if the sky is bare tonight with nothing for me to see,
I won't bother you anymore-
I'll just let you be.

My heart strings are so tired,
my mind is in an indecisive hell,
I want to be patient but
I need a sign it's going well.

I could take the Harlem night
and wrap around you,
Take the neon lights and make a crown,
Take the Lenox Avenue busses,
Taxis, subways,
And for your love song tone their rumble down.
Take Harlem's heartbeat,
Make a drumbeat,
Put it on a record, let it whirl,
And while we listen to it play,
Dance with you till day--
Dance with you, my sweet brown Harlem girl.

I been scarred and battered.
My hopes the wind done scattered.
   Snow has friz me,
   Sun has baked me,

Looks like between 'em they done
   Tried to make me

Stop laughin', stop lovin', stop livin'--
   But I don't care!
   I'm still here!

they said the clown was sorrow-shaped.
so I looped up in greasepaint—
swallowed a sunbeam,
coughed out a smirk,
and called the ache comedy.

somebody whispered
i fear the bruise.
nah,
i catalogue it.
line breaks for scars,
syntax for shame,
run the hurt through a voice modulator
’til even god can’t tell if i’m praying or riffing.

i’m not dodging the wreckage.
i just built a couch in it.
named the crater: “home?”
drank laughter from a cracked thermos
and kept warm in the glow of a rerun i never starred in.

i’ll play the ghost
if the script pays in quiet.
but don’t staple my name to your healing
and call it holy.

the truth?
clowns rot too.

some nights
i wanna peel off the latex,
lose the joke,
shave the wig,
and just exist—
not perform pain
in a dialect
you can quote later.

it is a new little ribbon,

for you. i will tie here,

yet not too tight.



it has been a long time now.



yes, said the bear.

a long, long time.

‘isn’t the sun warm?’  said the bear, ‘and look i speak in italics’



yes, it makes me feel better.



‘which the warmth or the format?’

you know how you can hear me,

when i am thinking. ‘yes that is because

i came from the forest, it is quiet there,

we can hear everything’

yes.

‘where have you been all day?’

here and there and felt the air

on my cheeks.

‘ so i hope the blanket of sadness

is lifting?’

yes. thank you bear.

i was gone all day, and my feet hurt.

i folded tee shirts, was confused with socks,

tried to be good, got it all wrong.



what did you do, bear.



‘i stayed here all day, i don’t want the money’

so the sky is pink, the window is open.



listen to the crow call, or is it a rook?



we have the memo.



‘it is cosy here this morning’, crooned the bear.