I try to write true
When I write of you
But the color I write
Always turns out
blue

Did I say those words to you?
Words I found so hard to say
Although it glowed within my heart
My devoted worship of you
The kisses I swaddled on you
day and night
and night and day
were meant to take their place

Yet those words I found so hard to say
Words each day you often prayed
that I would have the courage to say
those words I wished I shouted at you
each and
every day

Did I ever say those words to you?

Did you know, I tried?

Word processer
Wordless and
Black

I can't find the keys
To punch
The letters
A Worthless
hack

wordless lies
On black-filled screen

writ for those
who fail to read

who
Take no pleasure
in splintered dreams

Of
White filled keys
On Blacken screens

My grandmother was all dressed up nice
In her Sunday going to church clothes
'The man is coming, the man is coming'
she said and made me take a bath,

'The man is coming, The man is coming.'
She dressed me, best she could,
made me wear my Sunday shoes

'Oh wow, ' I thought 'this man must be  god,  
Maybe the savior himself, coming to visit and
Bless.'

‘The man is coming, The man is coming'
a big long car pulled up our dirt lane.

‘The man is coming, The man is coming'
she hushed me at the door.

At the open door stood a man, alright
My eight-year-old mind did comprehend

A man
This man
This white man
Carrying a model G Electrolux Vacuum cleaner

This man
This white man
hawking his wears
was the MAN?

We've been through…

Mopped floors
Porches swept
Windows scrubbed
And cleaned

Grass cut
Gulf course greens
Your garbage emptied
And dumped

Doors opened
That once was closed
Sitting anywhere on
A bus

From
takeout windows
Kitchens in the back
Drug store countertops

To
Front door service
Indoor seating as long
As it was in the back

From
Service doors
To Hotel doors
To Highrise vacation
Resorts

From
Back door only
To front door
To every door in
the house

From
poor house
to urban house
to a seat in the
white house

Yet
There's still a door
Closed to us

A door that
not even you can budge
a door that will be
barred and shut
even when I'm
long since gone

A Door that can only
be opened
by the will of
ALL of us

Last night I dreamt I saw
a star smiling
Coaxing me to wake
And make love to it

Hoping this to be
My angel wife
I threw off my covers
and reached for her

Only to discover
the projected glow of my clock
and the harsh sound of its alarm

You bid me follow you
to a place of sunshine rainbows
and Pillsbury clouds
where with peacock wings
we could fly forever

'Just hold my hand, ' you said
'and it will be so.'
I in my arrogant stubbornness
I answered 'No'
and watched as your body
like ***-boiled snow
melted away from me

Now in my darkness
I lay drunken in sorrow
Bitter with sadness
Seeking
death as my mistress

No Pillsbury clouds
No peacock wings
No sprinkled sunshine
Where I go

No…,
there won't be any sunshine
or rainbows
where I go