There were black shoes, black shadows
white cuffs, white clouds
black shirt, black boards
white belt, white butterflies

You tell me, your world is black and white,
but,
I ask you,
"Is that all I saw?"
What more, my dear pessimist, you jeer,

So, I say,
Well, of course,
there were blue skies, blue scorpions
white doves, white daffodils
red roses, red blooded hooligans

You tell me, typical American -
so patriotic,
you bleed the colors you fly,
and die draped in your pride,

but I see you
in your myopia,
your dull diatribe of patriotism

I understand you

you are blind to the mind of your soul
you only see
what I tell you
you only see
what you consume
you do not see
what is between
the slats
of your window

when they shut
you do not peek

when they open,
you imagine night has turned to day
when they close
you prepare your bed for the night
despite the noonday sun
you are a prisoner of shallow waters
drowning
while ankle deep
hollering
believing no one hears you
shrieking - how the world has changed!
unaware that the shores move
in ballroom dancer rhythms
sweeping back
and forth
along the bay
because the seas are alive
but you are standing still

not even the earth
beneath your feet
is still,
despite holding your entire reality
safely,
motherly,
in the insurmountable expanse
of its grasp

Yet, should the earth shake
and rock you
should the hurricane blow
and displace you
should the mountains tumble
and smother you
should the sky open its celestial gob
and expel you
should the mother open her subterranean maw,
and swallow you deep
deep
would you, deeply, care
that the possibility of it all
was an open invitation
a sealed letter
that was never
at your behest
to open
and display its contents

I, too,
have bequeathed upon you
a sealed invitation
to the worlds I paint
with these jigsaw vignettes we call words
and all
you had to do
was open the seams

not with a file

a file to cut the purse
the bounty
of the promised speech
no
I ask you
that you but pry open my soul
with curiosity
and peer within the tattered layers of my story
my lives
unlived & overwritten
letter by letter
slip in that noodle protracted by your pineal eye
and taste the essence of the realities
you have failed to purchase
that meander about the words you,
selectively,
chose to ignore
like the milk around alphabet cereal
or the broth around alphabet soup
or the fine-grained blank spaces
the parchment
the canvas of woe
around the words that comprise
a stack of divorce papers
or an exam
or the dread of a long-awaited raise...

Imagine,
for a moment
ignoring the obvious
the letters,
the sentences and paragraphs,
the divorce papers
the exam
the pay-bump,
and just look
at the parchment - the fine-grained,
thin sheet of sophistication

touch it
taste it, maybe,

run your hand along it
the surface of it
or the edge of it
***** your finger on the corner
slice your finger on the edge
the paper has a malice that invites
your masochism
curiosity is power
but also
despair
peer deeper

turn your head about
lower it, sideways
all
the
way
down, and
press your ear,
left or right
against the parchment
the paper
the papyrus
the product
hear its screams
the CHURN-CHUG-GGGHGGHHGRRRRR!!!
that chainsaw
like a thousand hatchets
splayed out
dancing on the circumference of
a taught merry-go-round of death
cutting into the mother
the father
the child
the tree
cutting it open
that it may be cut again
again
again
tormented
pulled apart
pulverized
tenderized
pulped
poured
pushed
pressed
preened
­glossed - maybe
matte - possibly
the choice is yours
harvest the living
for the living death of your divorce
your exam
your raise
massacre those families
not just the trees
the bears, the deer, and the little fox, too!

I'm green with envy,
thinking about all that potent pulp
coming your way
the smell of it
place yourself in its abundance
the smell of industry
its factories
academies of excellence
an office
a school
a registrar, magistrate, Corporate HQ,
the Pentagon, the Taj Mahal,
Big Ben,
the daily mail of any place where
the morning paper
is LAW
and
should this be the first time
you heard the screams
just imagine being a tree
coming to pay respects to your family
smell that death
as you creep in
watch
look about you
at the carcasses
strewn about
in neat, pedantic stacks labeled, A4, A3, letter,
fax or snail mail?

My world is plenty black & white
& white & red & blue,
but it's also got screams,
and the stench,
the carcasses of the forest's children
fit for your pleasure
to tear up,
chew up,
gum up with saliva
and shoot through a straw
into the neck of a fellow butcher
and laugh
laugh and snarl and howl and cackle

Laugh
because,
you never dared to kneel down
pay reverence to the
screams
in the parchment
you let the blinds close
you dared not peek through
you let yourself rot there
in the closet
of your mind
in the dark
and when I say, I'm sad,
you say,
"That *****."
You don't ask,
what's around the sadness,
what came before and what could after,
what's in the folds of sadness,
guilt, regret, and loneliness kneaded in

no,
you look at the sadness,
the dull blue,
and you say,
"Yeah,
that's blue alright,"
then you close your coffin
and go to sleep