there is a cool fire in the heart of you
under the sands of grace
where the cacti dance with elephants
to songs of threes and two’s

I am candlesticks and moons
you are more than boys and cattle
I watched your smile paint stars
with envy
the greenest of any jungle I’ve seen

hues of you paint vivid the walls of my forest
tree by bony tree you tint me
ever to be called by the color of your name

For each word that never made it past my teeth
-harsh critics-
I am sorry
I told you I loved you last night in bed
and all you heard was my breathing
-waves on your shore-
I am sorry

For each step I should have taken that was frozen in my legs
-stone pillars-
I am sorry
I ran to the edge of the earth for you
where I heard the lilies were blooming
-empty vase-
I am sorry

For each song that suffocated in my hollows
-white noise-
I am sorry
I scored you a serenade for clarinet and bassoon
and your shutters heard nothing
-white noise-
I am sorry

For each quiver of my hands that has held me
chained to the anvils of fear
For the confidence I lack and the love I have not given
-myself-
I am sorry
For times I held truth by the throat underwater
and prayed you wouldn't notice the splashing
For those days I went sleep walking
-through prayers-
I am sorry
For the stability I cradle while sitting on dreams
singing songs we all know the words to
the song we've each written verses to
12 bars on each wall of this blue cage that we sing through
For the times we don't fight
For the times that we mean to
For the injustices that steal the peace from our silent nights
For the riotless streets
For thriving inequalities
For microphones and stages still wet with my ego
For the silence I keep
-when the world is listening-
I am sorry

Shake me
from these paralytic dreams
from the cloud of ideas and fantasy
-what is art but a landing?-

Shake me
make me rise up and face the music
climb out of myself and breathe
-what is prayer but respiration?-

Shake me
until my apologies are gone
and your house is full of flowers
and your ears are full of songs
and your heart is filled with this love of mine
your quivering hands shook free

Shake me
until I see beauty in truth
and truth in what we are made to be

I haven't found words
que encajen a tu ser
I write poems
llenados de palabras de tu alrededor
where your flowers bloom constant
sin pensamiento de lluvia

You are becoming my stride;
my thought between footprints
left burning in the sand.
I have learned to hold you
much closer than my breath
when floodwater insecurities
grab hold and pull me down
                                         down.
You are more than I was seeking.
Your heart won't seem to sit inside you.
You are painting;
always;
rising in me like the morning sun.

Don't call it silver
It is so utterly grey
Your banner waving
To humdrum anthems
Of countries upset
By the way you say
Patriotism
Loyalty
Words that are never
To be written in grey
Whose fibers cannot
Be found in your atrophy
You will die quietly
Not as a martyr dies
Never as red as the
Blood-stained uniforms
That blanket so many hills
There are none that you would die on
It is a shame you share
The color of stone
One might mistakenly
Paint you trustworthy

We the people,
floodwaters rising over Kansas City banks
and marketplace levies,
are channeled into rooms
the size and shape of shadows
to be given direction,
to give direction;
waiting our turn to be
churned through turbines.
Our mass is growing stagnant
by this massive
****; This feels like surrogate thinking.
Our water is wasted on greco-roman men
chopping up districts into blues and reds
dividing and conquering the ocean.