A rainy dreary Halloween from 2006.
Candlelit late night
bedroom phone calls.
Your dream about a train ride and mushroom farmers.
My dream about hidden cities.

"I want to feed you ****** and a muscle relaxer and **** the **** out of you"

How long has it been Now?
Too long maybe, some lines are stretched too thin, through waiting and longing, love and lust and the once closest of friendships,
Stretched like Taffy till nearly gossamer strands wound meandering miles of complex life events and other unshared memories.
A too familiar voice.
Echoes of "I want you to have the perfect *******"
Spaces in conversations that would have been empty  if not for the most contagious laugh I've ever heard.
One not matched before or since.

Can you live in the past and long for the future? Is it greedy to desire more of something that was already so sweet? I don't tell anyone about my dreams now. Candles sit on.the shelf primarily unlit.

There are no more secret cities.
No mushroom farmers or train rides
But there are still threads
Stretched like Taffy but woven like a tapestry.
Across time and distance.
Made of memories.
All you'd have to do Is tug on a thread.

I.
My face resembles your face
less and less each day. When I was young
no one mistook whose child I was.
Features build coloring
alone among my creamy fine-***** sisters
marked me Byron's daughter.

No sun set when you died, but a door
opened onto my mother. After you left
she grieved her crumpled world aloft
an iron fist sweated with business symbols
a printed blotter dwell in the house of Lord's
your hollow voice changing down a hospital corridor
     yea, though I walk through the valley
     of the shadow of death
     I will fear no evil.

II.
I rummage through the deaths you lived
swaying on a bridge of question.
At seven     in Barbados
dropped into your unknown father's life
your courage vault from his tailor's table
back to the sea.
Did the Grenada treeferns sing
your 15th summer as you jumped ship
to seek your mother
finding her     too late
surrounded with new sons?

Who did you bury to become the enforcer of the law
the handsome legend
before whose raised arm even trees wept
a man of deep and wordless passion
who wanted sons and got five girls?
You left the first two scratching in a treefern's shade
the youngest is a renegade poet
searching for your answer in my blood.

My mother's Grenville tales
spin through early summer evenings.
But you refused to speak of home
of stepping proud Black and penniless
into this land where only white men
ruled by money. How you labored
in the docks of the Hotel Astor
your bright wife a chambermaid upstairs
welded love and survival to ambition
as the land of promise withered
crashed the hotel closed
and you peddle dawn-bought apples
from a push-cart on Broadway.

Does an image of return
wealthy and triumphant
warm your chilblained fingers
as you count coins in the Manhattan snow
or is it only Linda
who dreams of home?

When my mother's first-born cries for milk
in the brutal city winter
do the faces of your other daughters dim
like the image of the treeferned yard
where a dark girl first cooked for you
and her ash heap still smells of curry?

III.
Did the secret of my sisters steal your tongue
like I stole money from your midnight pockets
stubborn and quaking
as you threaten to shoot me if I am the one?
The naked lightbulbs in our kitchen ceiling
glint off your service revolver
as you load     whispering.

Did two little dark girls in Grenada
dart like flying fish
between your averted eyes
and my pajamaless body
our last adolescent summer?
Eavesdropped orations
to your shaving mirror
our most intense conversations
were you practicing how to tell me
of my twin sisters     abandoned
as you had been abandoned
by another Black woman seeking
her fortune     Grenada     Barbados
Panama     Grenada.
New York City.

IV.
You bought old books at auctions
for my unlanguaged world
gave me your idols Marcus Garvey Citizen Kane
and morsels from your dinner plate
when I was seven.
I owe you my Dahomeyan jaw
the free high school for gifted girls
no one else thought I should attend
and the darkness that we share.
Our deepest bonds remain
the mirror and the gun.

V.
An elderly Black judge
known for his way with women
visits this island where I live
shakes my hand, smiling.
"I knew your father," he says
"quite a man!" Smiles again.
I flinch at his raised eyebrow.
A long-gone woman's voice
lashes out at me in parting
"You will never be satisfied
until you have the whole world
in your bed!"

Now I am older than you were when you died
overwork and silence exploding your brain.
You are gradually receding from my face.
Who were you outside the 23rd Psalm?
Knowing so little
how did I become so much
like you?

Your hunger for rectitude
blossoms into rage
the hot tears of mourning
never shed for you before
your twisted measurements
the agony of denial
the power of unshared secrets.

Vulnerable is what I am
When I let the real me outside
It's not safe, sometimes, to be so carefree
Should I risk hurt, or play safe and hide?

But people who love me keep asking me
To open my heart up to them
I don't know why that's so uncomfortable
I guess vulnerable is not what I am

The few times I've worn my heart on my sleeve
My words never came out right
So I've practiced being less vulnerable
And kept my real thoughts out of sight

People keep saying to use more words
But I fear I'll be misunderstood
Maybe I won't express myself right
Or I'll say way more than I should

Words, I've found, are containers for thoughts
I don't know why I sit here and hoard them
When I store them unspoken, my thoughts sit unused
Unshared—a container unopened

It's a little like having a pantry of food
And keeping it all to myself
Food's meant to be shared, and if it is not
It helps no one—just rots on the shelf

And that's how it is with my words kept inside
If love doesn't share them some way
My thoughts stored inside these containers called words
Can spoil and turn bitter someday

I used to complain that people didn't understand me
And for that I would silently resent them
But the silence, I now see, is of my own making—
If they don't know me, it's because I haven't let them

I thought ...



But now I know
And it's crystal clear,
Thoughts are all they'll ever be.

Never the popcorn
for a story untold,
little victories alone
that never unfold.

Never any applause
for a story unheard,
all the joys of day
and yet not a word.

Never saccharine sweet
the story unshared,
so chatter aloud
and let no one be spared.

Here I am, drunk again.
So long friend.
I can't recall how many times I tried to reach you. Or how many time my student became the teacher, but I'm drunk again.
Remember all those bottles left unshared.
Got my brain in a snare.
Remember how I tried to care? But I'm drunk again.
Tip the top til it topples over, this stables staggering, are we sure it's sober?
No, no, November was waiting but we're still just debating. Am I drunk again?
Killed you with water, drownd you with tomorrow's sorrow.
But we're you listening?
This fires raging but still contained. I promised I'd stay sain, if only to show you.
If only to hold you.
If only I was sober.
If only you would stop smoking those sick clovers.
But I'm drunk again.
So long friend.

NAY! swear no more, thou woman whom I called
Star, Empress, Wife! Were Dian's self to lean
From her white altar and with goddess lip
Swear thee as pure as her pale breast divine,
I could not deem thee purer than I know
Thou art indeed.

Once, when my triumphs rolled
Along old Rome and blood of roses washed
The battle-stains from off my chariot-wheels,
And triumph's thunders round my legions roared,
And kings in kingly ******* golden bound
Shook at my charger's foot, past the hot din
Of Victory-whose heart of golden pride in wound
Most subtly through with fire of subtlest pain-
My soul on prouder pinion rose above
The Roman shouting, to an air more clear
Than that Jove darks with hurtling thunderbolts,
Or stains with Jovian revels-that separate sphere,
Unshared of gods or man, where thy white feet
Caught their sole staining from my ruddy heart,
Blazing beneath them; where, when Rome looked up,
'Twas with the eyes close shaded with the hand,
As at some glory terrible and pure,-
For no man being pure, a terror dwells
Holy and awful in a sinless thing-
And Caesar's wife, the Empress-Matron, sat
Above a doubt-as high above a stain.

Nay! how know I what hell first belched abroad
Tall flames and slanderous vomitings of smoke,
Blown by infernal breathings, till they scaled
Thy throne of whiteness, and the very slaves
Who crouched in Roman kennels wagged the tongue
Against the wife of Caesar: 'Ha! we need not now
And opal-shaded stone wherewith to view
A stainless glory.' In that day my neck
Was bound and yoked with my twin-Caesar's yoke-
Man's master, Sorrow.

I know thee pure-
But Caesar's wife must throne herself so high
Upon the hills that touch their snowy crests
So close on Heaven that no slanderous Hell
Can dash its lava up their swelling sides.
I love thee, woman, know thee pure, but thou
No more art wife of Caesar. Get thee hence!
My heart is hardened as a lonely crag,
Grey granite lifted to a greyer sky,
And where against its solitary crown
Eternal thunders bellow.

Let’s start from the beginning…
Serenaded by celestial scarecrows.
I’m drawing crosses on
bathroom shower curtains.
Steaming with potential, semi-permanent.
A blue Bible lies next to me.
Then again I’m surrounded on all sides
by dozens of Coke cans, laced with
stale beer.
Caution: Instant *** machine just add alcohol.
Please fill this prescription, signed with
The Cross.

I’m dancing with visions of myself.
Proverbs guiding my life.

Walking

Walking through the same patterns of their life.
Trying to find outlets of expression.
How expressive can I be in a basement?
On the hand I have a great life,
on the hand I want more.
Adam Smith curse guide me!

Not with child, thank you.

Thank you.

Dancing with the universe, a dance of time.
Don’t cry wondering gypsy.
I choose neither the mountains nor the beach.
I like them both.
Which wilderness is wild?
I will live amongst the stars, or so I hope…

This white room is making me regret
the wine.
If you could only see what I’ve done.
Weaving written words.

Lies.

All lies.

They’re all lies.
Every single one of them soldier.

Don’t you understand?
Viva!
Live!

This x-ray of my life.
Let keep it to ourselves.
Hiding these skeletons in a deck of cards.
There word were supposed to be art.
Maybe a portrait written on the walls.
Praying every night (Maybe I’m asking for too much).
Side street catholic, hidden.
Never cut in front of the buffet line.
Ears ringing, my decent.
Maybe madness is the Jester’s path to
madness.
Or maybe it’s the other way around.

I’m getting older and older.

But am I getting wiser and wiser?

Hello good sir! How are you?
Yes, it is a fine day outside today.
Looking into a mirror.
Maybe I’m hiding between words.
Hiding too much.
Why not?
Maybe it’s for the best…
Lets go!
Chase the white picket, two story.
What’s my story you ask?
It’s being written, erased, re-wrote.
Just look up the summaries.
You’ll get bored easily, figure out the ending.
I did.
I’m on top!
Paper bridges crumbling into

whiskey rivers.
Which reminds me of a story…

I’ve never been a good storyteller
Please help me.
Hear me.
Screaming through ink.
I could write about that, but…
I already did, you’ll have to find it.
Between these lines.
Maybe I’m drowsy, should have
enlisted your help.
This helps. Thank you Lord.

Cameras flashing, every day is
A new day.
Every time I see you’re eyes I dream
in romantics.
Maybe this is my new day.

Maybe.

I tend to learn lessons, the hard way.
In life we must take changes and
repay them.
I’m feeling…

The keys to our hearts
lie in the secrets unshared.
I’m a walking contradiction…
I have a lot of keys, and lies.

Let the water wash over you.
This is my hope!
Flying on the back of television signals,
blinded by daytime programming.
We’re ruining our visions.
Creativity is dying.
This is my manifesto to…
Will you read it?
Front to back (I wouldn’t).
High speed chase crashing into pen and paper.
Don’t be sorry.

What would you do?

What would you think?

Why should I care?

Anxious.

Anxious.

Anxious.

Oh…if they only knew.

Am I putting too much stock in to
Materialistic consequences?
Please put your phones on vibrate!
This is a lecture!
Change your ways while you’re this age.
What am I learning you ask?
How to…what are you learning?
I don’t have a lesson plan.

Laughable poetry.
I used to be articulate.
With a sailor mouth.
Oh yes! My vocabulary is crude.
Then again so is this poetry.
So is my life.
Classroom experience is my real world.
Put that on a resume.
Don’t write poetry. No one will read it.
That’s what you’re told.

Queens the questionmaster. (I ask a lot of questions)
Lucky you!
Let’s go back to moments.
Put our trust in technology. Ignorant.
Pouring out my feelings into empty chalices.
This is something I will not do.
Wait.
Forget what you’ve been told and read.
Please.
Thank you.
It’s all I know. I guess.

Church lights bearing down on snakeskin lies.
Collection plates.
Am I jumping around too much?
This isn’t poetry?
I’m sorry I don’t think I asked for your opinion.
I did?
Oh…Well thank you for your input.
Let’s begin
At the end.
Oh how cliché can you be.
You’re so unoriginal.
Not using punctuation correctly.
Rebellious youth.
Next you be talking about peace, love, harmony, serenity, happiness…

Hear me! (no)

Look at me, answering myself at
1am, drunken hours.
Critique this!
Peace, love, harmony, serenity, happiness.
Not in this poem.

Wait.

O.K maybe a little.

Pouring over the top of my beer stein.
Snake skin wrapped around my fingers.
I hope.
Let the right foot touch first, then
You’ll have good luck
Trust me. I’m an expert.
I’m hopeful.
Kneeling by my bedside.

Speak.

Speak now of forever or forever hold your peace.

It’s your choice.

You are responsible for your actions.

This is making me feel better.
I hope this crosses over.
I hope you’re understanding this.
Or maybe I hope you aren’t, then I can keep it to myself
You are?
Good, because its getting past my bedtime.
Growing weary of questioning.

Mankind,
Womankind,
Humankind.

Help me on this journey of life.
My solemn prayer.
I think I’m losing myself.
Maybe I am already gone.
Replaced.
I am this mirror image.

Hello.
How are you doing today?

I’m fine thank you.

Eyes popping
in distant stares
I wonder if a soul inhabits the pair
red hair, bombs,guns
and drugged?
The second killer nowhere to be found
but was seen yet disreguarded and most unaware
of the eye witness reporting
Why cover the details?
Something fishy lingers in the air
Something remains unshared
Motives so unclear
but I heard holmes had an obsession
with mind control
The neuroscience student
that spread so much pain and fear
conspiracy surrounds like a think cloud
like Sirhan Sirhan
The scenes shrouded in mystery
yet similiar
Ever heard of the illegal CIA human research program
Rockfeller Commission?
Did you know he had a Neuroscience University?
Fishy indeed

At the moment when I woke up in the morning, the dim light was on to my room and I saw the beautiful things in yours, at that moment I found my soulmate.
They are still there even when I let them go.
The more I think about how beautiful in somethings are,
the more they are always beside me.
The space in my mind always gives them a chance to stay, and yes, they will stay.
The hardest part of letting them go when you couldn't notice them.
They are too far for you to reach because your heart always guides you in the way that will be able for you to pass.
Sometimes you know about it, but you try to ignore it.
I realized that the beautiful things in yours should be followed,
but you are always in silence,
so the voices in my head carry me to things that hard to understand and it makes construction in my human being to love you with great expectations.
"Is this what happened?", I asked myself.
But the loneliness in me answered that something unhappy should be not unshared.
It reshaped them all into my anxiety.
But suddenly, the voices in my head asked me,
"How's your day?"
"Did we see the same most unexpected ways?"
"I wish you loved me as you love the journey of your life,
please stay calm, I was listening to you."
That was a beautiful goodbye.

Pained words
Heard at night,
Words rewind
Replay
Repeat, overlay
Become twisted
In the middle of the night.

Pained words
Twisted in the morning
Heard, back turned,
Nothing but empty tears

Pained words
Unshared
Interested and
Harmless.

"LOOK!" So quietly you choose to speak...
I hear the sweet vibrations of your voice
my eyes lift to search a dark night sky
and you say, "There! Did you see?"
miles distant, shadowy light flashes
flickering over the mountain shades
lightning slicing through that atmosphere
and I answer you, "Yes.
"I wish that the thunderstorm was here."
you respond with your enigmatic silence
yet still I strain my ears
hoping to somehow maybe hear something from inside of you
even just a faded echo of your unshared thoughts
because you are my deepest desire
it's you alone that I most desperately crave
I'd sacrifice everything I have in this life for you
for only just a fleeting moment, I would
a moment in which you were solely mine,
worth more than I could ever have to give
my very soul cries out, agonizing, for you
my heart begs for your love to fuel it's own love
my flesh, my bones and blood burn to feel the warmth of your embrace
my lips quiver at only a thought of brushing against yours
my entire being tingles and aches to find solace in your affections
I'd rip my very soul from my deepest depths and place it in your hands
my heart I'd also eagerly tear right out of my chest
my promise, my solemn vow I'd gift with my bleeding wounds
never would I- could I, forsake you
if I could keep you, keep you, I would, indeed
a treasure I'd never relinquish willingly
passion, grace, unconditional love, yours forever and free
A picture of these, my most fervent of prayers and dreams...
split- second bursts of color and light
electricity, a bringer, a conveyor of destruction,
birthing fires in the brush and trees, and, mocking, denying me my love...
in that far away storm, a creeping portrayal; image, stretching wide:
I see a vision of your cherished face
I feel unbearable, disabling pains commencing
there's unfathomable sorrow, misery within me
I realize my heart is about to crack, break, shatter to dust and ash
no mind to how great and vast my love for you
no heed to my willingness to give up everything; anything
I glimpse it all in that fraction of a second
those stars; twinkling eyes, tell me an entire story, at the speed of light...:
so unfortunate, that you won't be mine now,
never else either, shall you ever belong to me
my gaze is drawn away, and departs from the place where the mysterious and celestial dwell
relinquish their view of power unleashed, blinking far off, in the sky above
I turn my head; swivel towards you,
for dire, is my need to take in every aspect of your beloved face...
maybe I'd misunderstood; maybe I'd been mistaken,
maybe a bit tired, rather easily confused,
or perhaps, it was a lie that the lightning storm's vision, sly and sneaking, portrayed...
but I can see the tangible, physical you, before me right now,
and, the truth - - -
(which I cannot positively know, for certain,
perplexed and having some doubts...)
- - - an obvious, unpleasant, ugly reality...
my tears have already begun brimming, as I watch, through a blurred void,
and prepare, because that mouth of yours is, once again, opening to speak
a bullet, slivers, pierce through to my soul when I hear you softly utter my name
"Alex, what's wrong? What is your problem now?"
how can you be so oblivious, as I feel so transparent? I ask,
but only to myself; not in such a way for you to actually hear me,
giving you, instead, yet another of my head shakes; slow, speechless reply...
I'm broken, and it's painful when you look at me,
what if you were to notive the sadness and hungry longing buried within my eyes?
please, please don't you look at me!
all of your questions, I'm incapable of answering,
never could I openly share with you how I so intensely feel
my fear of rejection has given me an answer in your stead
and, thus, this love shall go on only inside of me, in silence, secretly
despair, loneliness, burdens so heavy; wicked,
thick enough to rot me inside-out...
torn down, destroyed by love; my very own love - - -
(mine, a love undescribable... immense, immeasreable love;
love which was borne of my seeking indifference, but finding you...)
- - - until my savior of death comes,
will be working diligently to ******, slowly and bitterly, my life force
and impatiently, I'll live out the remainder of my days waiting and suffering;
looking forward to the moment when my black-robed executor shall, at long last, come,
and set me free of these suffocating bindings scarring, straining my heart...
for without you to hold, I am empty and lack purpose
I've no other hope on which to let the weight of my hurt bear
still hoping, inanely, for some unforseeable chance;
a growth of buds sprouting forth from the blooms of God's grace...
"Alex...?" oh, the way you say my name...!
"Say it if you have something to say!"
but still, once again, I say nothing at all,
just give another of my small, weak, neck-twist type of shakes;
a minuscule gesture that gets neither of us closer to anything, or anywhere...
I wipe away, quickly, a single tear that's escaped to leak down my face; slide down my cheek
you are the happiness of my world; my everything,
and yet, here I am, excruciatingly frightened, and left alone with that fear
paralyzing terror, stalking, menacing me into remaining silent;
horrors feeding my tentative heart cruel and brusing, nasty notions,
convincing me it's my destiny to uncover a crushing ruin of defeat, unavoidable,
if ever I was to make an effort to reach out
pitiable... I'm a motionless, frozen captive to its stagnating, discouraging taunts,
a demon, so intent upon pushing me to my hope's final demise...
until then, I'm just some pathetic subject to ludacrous torment; prisoner to torture
shuttering, I hear gleeful whispers in my ear - a surreal voice saying that all my fears could,
maybe, just possibly, maybe, be a confining falsehood; a tower of cruel lies...
...but then again, how could I ever find out and know for sure...?
condemned I am, by my own terrors; haunting fears of loneliness and rejection,
and so, I suppose, I'll never discover what you truly think and feel...
as I sit here, the passenger in your car, I'm so desperately wishing,
~ wishing that my lips and tongue could remember how they used to work;
~ wishing, so fervently, that my mouth, sewed, cemented, and stapled shut,
would somehow break itself open, and then, free, suddenly speak,
something! anything! any words at all!
a simple sentence could potentially be sufficient; could be enough to break these chains, to set my thoughts free...
perhaps, all it would take, language - me, bringing myself to fearlessly say,
"John, do you think you could ever love me?"
but no, I stay void of speech or sound
for now that's it, and there's no more to do - that I can do...
maybe the strength to ask will arrive on another, different day,
only, I hope, that if that could be true, it won't be too far off from now,
because, by then, it may have gotten to be too late...
SILENTLY, secretly, my very pulse screaming of my emotions;
declaring, to no one other than myself, my feelings, my love for you...
and without my vocalization, you just may never know,
but still, sweet man, my beautiful John, I so very greatly love, love, love,
everything about you...