we are not
who we are
at our best
anymore
than we are
the sum
of our worst
aspects.
we are
what we pretend to be:
misanthropes
possessed of empathy.
walking paradoxes.
amalgamations.
spectrums
in multicolor.

Heavy breath, light
spirits
        as if my mind has at last
recognized the implications of not
   moving
           and decided to love and
                        love again.

At his little hippie college
he shows me a *** that looks like a wall
in a Rwandan museum, all skulls, he

learned clay in the Rift Valley
boarding school, on a kick wheel,
still his favorite

My brother is a potter
multicolor plaid shorts
little goatee

Banjo
Japan dreams
girl from Mozambique.

When we were little in Loiyangalani
we made tiny huts out of obsidian
while our Rhodesian Ridgebacks

sniffed the ground for cobras
sand vipers
scorpions

while twenty camels
walked by in a row
followed by tiny replicas

My brother is a potter, says to me
'When I am doing this I am
doing what I was created to do'

He makes a green and blue
candleholder for me which he calls
'The Islands,' light escapes through many holes

which look like sea turtles
pockets of air and
an atomic bomb just gone off

we turn off the lights
in my room in the hood,
snorkel in candlelight

My brother gives me
Rumi, incense, peace flags
We walk the silent night

smoke a clove
look at stars
like we used to do in the African riverbeds

Sinto a tua falta

Perplexo com a cumplicidade, com a intimidade que nos liga,
Misto do amor, de uma saudade vivida.
Anestesiado pela sensação multicolor,
Paciente na cama do amor.

Pertinência dum amor sentido,
Porto sem teu abrigo,
Cadeia com grade prateada,
Musa multifacetada…

Pastoril é o quadro do meu pensamento,
Lençóis soltos ao vento,
Teus olhos com a maré alta,
Sinto a tua falta.

Victor Marques

some 4.5 billion years ago
the atoms that would coalesce
to ***** your evanescent features
detoured to a lonely chunk of
rock aimlessly adrift in the
Milky Way Galaxy

you stayed alive by pure instinct
fight or flight
you could not thrive
yet you survived nature's
attempts to crush you in
her fearsome jaws

bits of you walked with dinosaurs
bone fragments ground to dust and
reformed over eons of evolution until
you stood upright and found a
tongue to describe planet Earth

remnants of those dead languages
live on to this very day
they inhabit the ink stains i
leave upon this yellowed page
while folk tunes croon over
my shoulder and Dallas Green
breathes a city in multicolor

a map of the universe is etched
across your face and i cannot escape
the smirk that spread with mirth
nor erase the memory of eyes
like interstellar space staring
back at me
unblinking
for 4 minutes that felt
simultaneously like a lifetime
and the space between
2 fractions of a millisecond

you came from the Big Bang
when the cells that would form
our bodies were forged in the
cores of supernovas exploding
across the cosmos and we've
been on a collision course ever since
an unstoppable force and
an immovable object
for matter
can neither be created
nor destroyed

oh how the coward counts his cards
blackjack entrapment habits
at least there's free drinks!
what a time saver:
enabling 2 addictions at once,
maybe i'll save some money this way...
hit hit hit stay, embrace
hug my hands around the chips
my multicolor relatives
i'm betting on embellishments,
time to double up or split
my hand's as steady as my faith in god
so i'm shaking like an epileptic
seizing with the scenery
blinking with the burning lights
knee-deep in unending debt
i'll go all in on my hesitance
& sleep on this abandoned bench

Life, the present tense
Pleasant and promising
Singular & plural
Fair blend of gender
Active noise, passive voice
The grammar of life

Life is intense,
Glowing and glorious;
Blue blown umbrella
For wide void exposure
Feather touch weather
For cool n’ calm respite
Illuminated one half
To eke out living  
Glittering dark on other half
To rest and recuperate    

Aroma of smiling flowers
Multicolor corona  
Green rich panorama
Overseeing mountains
Rousing roaring oceans
Patrolling Hydro Power Puffs
Add bonus to the bevy
What a glamorous globe in space!

witches adorn the front covers
of ecofeminist zines
in an anarchist bookstore
nestled on the Left Bank
of Seattle's waterfront

rare rays of sunlight
filter through sheer curtains
photons glimmering
through fading droplets
clinging to cracked panes
refracting multicolor

i sit in the window-seat
listening to a homeless
balladeer's somber renditions
of Jonny Cash and Woodie Guthrie
serenading the locals bustling
down Pike Street Market
while the Olympic Mountains
keep their vigil
across a lonely bay

Emma Goldman whispers
for Alexander Berkman
and i balance on mismatched cushions
considering Proudhon's insistent
inquiries while Bakunin smirks  
nursing secret heresies of insurrection

colorful posters are paper-machéd
across the walls with slogans of struggle
scrawled in sisterhood and solidarity
stickers plaster the narrow halls
encouraging visitors to Smash Capitalism!
or Read A ******* Book
as jam-packed patrons chance
sly peaks at the black flag
suspended in the back room

a faint breeze flutters intermittently
drifting across the open threshold
lifting spirits as if sifting
through grains of sand
not unlike a child
digging for answers
armed with one
monosyllabic question

why?

the banner
cheerfully pirouettes  
for a revolution
without dancing
is not one worth having