as we collect our stories and reclaim our names
we become aware of the possibility
that, in fact, we always live with our ancestors
as we collect our stories and reclaim our names
we start to contrive
the raw material
to obtain our fibers
as we collect our stories and reclaim our names
we start to cultivate the insights of how those fibers can be woven into strands
that when interlocked with other fibers
create a collective blanket, untold histories

No, not a patchwork-quilt, not a melting ***, not a salad bowl
not a room full of flags with countries we cant place on a map
and full of people WE can’t help but fetishize
no, No, NO
this is an interwoven stitch
this is a tattered rag
that has been used to wipe **** off of colonizer’s *******
that has been used to wipe the dripping *** off of Thomas Jefferson’s ****
as he finishes up with his Saartjie Baartman,
that has been used to hide the faces of the KKK as they drag uppity black boys down the street
and LYNCH them in carnival and spectacle
that has been soaked in Black and Brown blood on the streets of
Ferguson, Baltimore, New York, North Carolina, Milwaukee, and every other city and district in the US of KKK

This is not a handholding session with me
I am the oppressor and I must fear my own wrath
my fiber is white, my strand is white
and too many strands are white
and too many Black, Brown, Red, and Yellow strands have been bleached
or told “wait your turn to be included in the blanket"
or "be thankful we even include you in the stitching
give us a TOKEN of gratitude”
I take YOUR strands and use them to cloth MY babies while yours lie naked

The time is now
to take the clorox and gulp it down as it eviscerates our throats and consumes our souls
We don’t need anymore whitewashed histories
we dont need anymore white sheets
we don’t need to go to BED, BATH, and BEYOND
I cannot come to you with a bail full of cotton and ask you to join me in a knitting session
#IMNOTRACISTBUT…

this is not a time for diversity and multiculturalism
or the co-option of “social justice”

this is a time for Solidarity

this is a time for Liberation

this is a time for Abolition

this is a time for Insurrection

this is a time for Rebellion

this is a time for Revolution

I cannot be the leader
but I can contribute
I cannot be the voice
but I can sure has hell listen

and this is how we will transform the blanket
not with hollow words and moderate reforms
but with direct action and liberatory collaboration
by yelling the phrase “white supremacy is as American as apple pie” at the top of our lungs

not with corporate funding and 5,000 dollar a plate galas
but by dismantling the looms that have woven the threads of
Hate, ****, Land theft, and Genocide
that have woven the strands of
reservations, redlining, white flight, and gentrification
and by co-creating ones that speak to our destroyed histories
that refuse to use the bleach
even when the blanket gets *****

The wind always ****** me off. Tossing my hair from side to side, and usually on the opposite side the ship is swaying. Always so nauseating. Leaned against the railing I watch my ship mates joke, rough house, and drink. I would describe them as quaint, but Neptune forbid they hear me and I have to explain what another word means. Illiterate ******* . I gave one of them a dictionary one time in hopes they would be inspired. They returned it to me two days later with all the words about *** and female organs underlined and circled. Why do I have to be stuck with these people? Brain cells keep committing suicide every time one of these chumps rabble something to me.

**** it all, here comes one. Just go away, ****. ****, what could he possibly want. Maybe if I lean back now I can just fall into the water and drown. The wind gives me another fist up my nostril by blowing his stench my way. "We be landin' soon! Ye comin' wit us dis time or are ye gunna stay behind and work on your fancy doctor voodoo or trace your ***** in one of your books to **** it to lata?" They all start laughing and whoopin. "Well I need some things, and I can't trust you idiots to bring me anything back besides rotted meat and disgusting women! So I guess I have to get off the boat this time." He made some typical fairy joke toward me and went back to drinking with the others.

The spotter cried his typical thing about seeing land, as if we didn't have eyes to see that massive hunk of blot that isn't water coming toward us. Maybe this time I can get "lost" and never board this ship again. I don't care where I go or do. After she left, it doesn't matter. If I could find some decently witted science wiser, I'd give them my journals and let my soul free from this cursed rock. Until then, my studies are far too important to be lost to these mongrels.

On a brighter note, the island looked to be a dense tropical stage type of island. Perfect! My greatest chance to find some herbs in quite some time. Maybe they will even have a wild large cat these guys can fight. With any luck, it would eat them all then die choking one of their pieces of jewelry or **** it from their various ****** diseases. That would just be heaven. Rid me of these animals and I could get some ingredients from the majestic beast's corpse. Their eyes and blood are good for various mixes. My thought is disrupted by the sweet smell of the isle on the breeze. Sweet sweet hibiscus, we came just at the right time of year. My leg ticks on the ground with excitement. Moments like these make me forget all my misery, the rush of progress. The high of walking back with sacks full of goodies. Rushing to my mortar and pestle. Thank you, Neptune for surfacing such a wonderful place.

The captain's door kicks open as we pull up to shore. "Alright me hearties! Time to do what we do best. Let's go find some meat to eat and some meat to poke!" A cheer from crew erupted. I caught the last boat going to shore. I brought every empty sack and a few various journals to record. Each stroke of the paddle fills me with a little more glee. We all land on shore, but there is a bit of wildness in the air. None of the crew seems to notice. No birds in the area flying by or perched. A pathway of large trees are knocked down. I point out to the captain what I have observed. He gets the wild look in his eye and points over to the path. "This way, boys! We got something big to ****!"

Walking behind the group as I scribble doodles and notes in my journal. A lot of the trees that are downed have large slashes in them. Every now and then we come across and splat of blood or some feathers. The feathers are quite large and colourful. Ahead we can see a clearing to what looks like a cliff range. The lush green ground is now leading into red clay. Large talon prints are starting to appear. The captain leads us in the direction of the prints. As we go further, decomposing carcasses and skeletons litter the path.

Never in a hundred life times would I be prepared for what we were about to see. At the edge of the cliff lies a giant nest, and in it was a pure terror. It's back had more colours then I even fathomed were in existence. It's tail feather alone was larger than our ship. The crew seemed genuinely disturbed. "What the ******* is that?!" yelled one of the crew members. The behemoth was instantly awoken. It stretched it wings and stood up in its nest. The bird turned around and faced us. Holy ******* ****, this thing was some sort of massive giant macaw. Being the size it is, I doubt it eats the kind of pleasant things its cousins consume.

To compensate for being woke up, it looked as if it was going to make a quick meal out of us. This is perfect! Maybe all these idiots will get butchered and I can just slide away. I looked over to the captain, and his eyes were over flowing with wildness. With a saber and flintlock ready, he ordered the charge. With mighty yells they all rush the bird. The giant ***** its wings and uses the gust to blow down the crew. It hops into the air and comes down crushing several members under its blood stained talons. Even with dried, caked clay I could feel the vibrations from his force. The captain takes aim with his flintlock and nails the bird in the left eye. The bird let out a large screech before pecking down and reducing more crew members to a pile of protein and bone.

At this point in the battle, there are only thirteen of us left. ****, that is an unlucky number. Are they going to fluke this and **** that thing? ******* it, I don't want to eat bird for the next few months. I continue to doodle the beast as the battle rages. A quick swipe from his talons eviscerates a few more members. The crew has done nothing more than leave a few cuts on the beast's legs and a few bullets lodged in his plumage. The bird surges into the air in a rage. He quickly snatches up 3 members in each talon and tosses them off the cliffs. Five of us remain including the captain. Swooping down and gobbling up two more members, the captain doesn't even begin to bat an eye. There are only two fighters left. The captain is climbing up the leg of the bird as the last crew member gets pulled apart by the bird. The bird not noticing the captain scaling his back hops toward me. It turns its head so its unwounded eye can see me. The head snaps back to forward face and hops toward me.

The captain is now on top of the beast's head, perfect. I reach my satchel and pull out two full glass bottles. A loud squawk comes from the bird as it prepares to eat to me. I quickly pitch one of the bottles at the head of the bird. The glass cracks on its head and liquid goes all over the bird and the captain. Smoke begins to roll off of them as their flesh drips off their bone. Realizing I won't need the second bottle, I put it away and sit down as the bird's nerves twitch out its last moments of life. What is left of the captain is dripping down the bird. The corpse of my saviour collapses to the side.

Finally, as I deserve to be, I am alone. Alone on a giant island of who knows what else, but for the first time since she left me; I'm smiling. I can work and research in peace, and with any luck someone of worth will discover my remains years later and find my journals. I am left with what I was born with. Nothing, but what lies between ears. I both thank and apologize to you mighty fowl. My all the souls scattered on this island be comforted by my joy.

Rotunda of doors
Select an arbitrary gateway
Rotate a frigid bronze **** and dislodge
Gaze into an opaque, stone encircled realm
Proceed through the division
Inhale damp, stale earth
Hesitate in a moment of hair-raising atmosphere
Ignore and tread slow
Ignore the echo of the sole warmth emanating in rapid succession from within
Ignore the nagging to turn back
Do so anyways
Realize pupils dilate when the entrance is not visible
Debate possibilities
Feel pointless muscle movement pulling white eyes for stimulus
Exhale tension melting air
Whine and tread against small stalagmites
Extend palm forward and to the side
Grasp for sight
Grab nothing
Constrict throat down
Acknowledge and accept the situation
Continue onward
Stumble against a solid
Release pain
Trace the direction of hopelessness
Follow with purposeful motions
Brush against another impediment
Successfully avoid
Allow air to flow against dry tongue
Taste lifelessness and potential
Release resolution and determination
Gain momentum
Allow ears to beg for rays of sun
Decide resiliency
Pant and expend time
Sense vision assimilating
Investigate the environment
Crouch and take in the floor
Gasp and whimper
Behold bones
Three sixty and engage all faculties
Cower as truth speaks: labyrinth.
Lift chin and only stone above.
And collapse, collapse onto knees in dramatic fashion
With back arched over, hands grasping and pulling at hair
Fight against reality.
Terror eviscerates.
Submit on to the parasitic solid inorganic void.
Become more bones.

There's a secret only one angel knew.

It goes like this:

       There is a place that once grew.
             A garden made for two.

A tree.
   A treason.
      Mankind evicted from Eden,
      ... for an obscure reason.

Curious,
An angel flew down
-biting into the apple-
Adam and Eve had eaten.

Because the Lord's plan must be broken?
The Angel pressed their luck...
But ...why plant a tree,simply,to test their trust?

Now in a rush to reveal what was learned
-before they could soar past those
pearly gates-
Lurid illumination eviscerates their pristine wings.
                        
                         The Lord sees All:
                            and He is Irate.

They create a crater as they collide with our world;
exiled forever from the Lord's estate.
They awake as a woman for their costly mistake.

Her place amongst the holy host is gone.
Cursed with forbidden knowledge.
Awareness of right and wrong.
Exchanging a halo for free-will:
Heaven is no longer a place she belongs.

The Angel outcast.

Cast out from her home.
Forced to roam this world all alone.
She sought out the Truth;
Then her faith became clouded.
There is few who listen to what she says now:
yet still she shouts it.

She tells me-the former angel yells,
"Devour fruit from the Tree of Knowledge
  ...if you dare.

but beware!!

God did not plant that tree...
    
It was already there."
  
-

Subtly and quietly, uncertainty has recaptured its place in my mind.
Just as soon as I thought I was happy,
When I thought the sun was shinning over the horizon,
The gloomy impenetrable clouds of uncertainty and indecision return into my view.

I know that somewhere beyond these clouds there is light.
But, why must the clouds stand in the way?
Why must they frequently return?

Please, let me be.
Let me enjoy.
Put my mind at ease, and allow me to feel fervently.
Allow my emotions to ravish me in pure ecstasy.
Let the light consume every single part of me.
Fill me light, until my cup is overwhelmed. Inundate every part of me!
I beg, and I plea! Light, please take me!
Allow me to soar past the darkness that constantly captures me, that enshrouds me, that eviscerates the entirety of me!

Please, ominous and petrifying clouds of indecision and uncertainty…
Please… let me be happy.

- *j.m

I know the fires of the sun
Every ray of light life giving
Destroys a little more
A spark for you would devastate my city

Why does passion burn intensely?
That my heart would turn to ash
Its not what I intend
That my heart becomes the coal

Fire
Fire brings warmth
Fire eviscerates
I guess its just my fate
To be only smoke and memory
As the better parts of me
Burn away

I know the fires of the sun
And the bottom of the ocean
Both are fools to gravities charms
The weight you give me

Why does passion reach so fully?
That there is no skin I know
That isn't marked
By your tattooed name

Fire
My soul and heart on fire
Fire is the name I love
I'll burn as willing tinder
To shed light upon your dreams
I only hope you love me
As a dream that will never be

Platitudinous, pusillanimous,
Pulchritudinous, posterior
Poseur, postulating pus bag
Posing as plenipotentatious
President POTUS, posturesome
Proudly putting paws on *******
Publicly preposterous woosie
Pretending propriety: a putz.

Eternal egregious eccentricity,
Endless empathy-less publicity,
Effectively inbalming ethnicity
Eviscerates any essential nobility
Excluding even existential energies
Of expectations of excellence
Instead enacting evolution-free
Economical inimical extortion.

Hourly horror holler hate,
Both houses holding hotheads
And hundreds of houris
Honoring honor-free hopes
Hesitation-free horrible haste
Hosing hope and helpmeets
Who have inherited helplessness
From heartless halfwit hoydens.

Boisterous ***** and boors
Beat beauty and belief badly
But beg and bawl for bounty
Bathing in bastardy and blood
But beyond bowing to betters
Banquets and bowers of berks
Badly bent beyond blessing,
They’re best boxed for burying.

In the kingdom of Saturday an angel holds nothing,
encompassed by picture frames.

A human trafficker bites a popped Tylenol,
Eviscerates the nightmares that circle his crown.

An optimist puts their hands up,
Envisions a tableau soothed with moisturizer.

A chieftain offers a beer to an orphaned
Child, lush with vermillion blotches.

A physician shrinks down in front of,
A simmered-out wife, head towards the door.

A gypsy considers being alone,
xenophobia resiliently grips her throat.

A mystified boy points to a girl,
Whispers inaudibly “I miss making her laugh.”

A priest begins an unimaginable service,  
“My prayer is simple, my dear one,

Live for tomorrow, not yesterday.
Open your hands.

Those that say writing is for those avoiding life,
have never seen the way my pen
dances across it's stage.
They've never seen the way words can
wrap themselves about you,
settle in your bones,
nap in your empty places, guarding your secrets.
They don't know how it feels
to squirm under the relevance of a poet's
transcending prophecies.
They don't know the subconscious way we bite our lips
when e.e. cummings whispers
oceantides.
Or how we sigh, starry-eyed
when T.S. Eliot feeds our fantasies with dreams
of places and things we can't find in our backyards.
They can't possibly understand
the relief of understanding,
when Sylvia Plath eviscerates herself into our thirsty
mouths, spilling her soul onto skinsoft pages.
Maybe, then
poets are not so alive after all,
human sacrifices to their own mortal experience.

You took advantage of me,
Used and abused me,
You misplaced me,
Erased me,
Till this day the thought still eviscerates me,
Hold and told me you would love me,
all you did was scold me.
You abandoned me,
Sickened me,
Until one day you lost me.

How many times
have I begged you
to break bread
instead of breaking heads
taking supper together
instead of shaking
in your oil burning bed?

How many times
have I begged you to smile
not sharpen your teeth
but sit separated
from your serrated
fingers and toes
let go of the bombs
that sizzle and blow
burning the skin
off of enemies
and dearest friends?

How many times
have I begged you
to take up the pen
not the guns
to write words
of hope and love
not rhetoric
that eviscerates
the very soul
of kind intent?

How many times
must I clutter these pages
with weak metaphors
and strange similes
till you finally see me
and all of my
disgusting humanity
all hugs and handshakes
all dusty skin flakes
but still reaching out to you
to remind you to
try to be kind to?

I , to whom thee attribute the massacre ,
I speak as your creator ,
Thee cameth to me o traveller ,
As a fickle narrator

For you **** me for your fate ,your condemnation
You attend to me as my foundation crumbles to dust
Your sentiment of zeal was mine own creation
You tainted it with your ambition , mutating it into lust

As the viscious cycle of your adultery reiterates
You indict me of being a silent beholder
As the heartiness and probity of my realm eviscerates
My heeds and warnings are met by your cold shoulder

Your embarkments of upsurge , and the subsequent collapse
Rendering my pattern blurred and unrecognizable to mine own eyes
now you stroll over a mine of your own traps
From my great design springs your eventual demise

Tis' not my trial you stand but shadows of your own that you face
As my realm scorches in your blaze, you drown in the multitude of my waves
For thee to elude eternal damnation
O traveller thee shall fade without a singular trace , dawn anew from disgrace
Hence shall come thy salvation

“Abrogation of love makes the heart grow indulgent,
Lack of such love makes the heart grow lethargic,
My heart has crystallized in loneliness without that love,
Now live in the past as our freedom gathered into the winds,  

For every chirp of a wind brings a memory of her,  
Methodology between us goes beyond mere dreams,
It is faster than the dims of light and morning sunbursts,
It’s an endless understanding and respects not the absence,

I could smell the lotus blossom in her ebony hair
As our sensuous fervor perilous to one’s flesh,
Now that you can see my eyes now you will read,
All the untold story of what  sustains me in my moments,

Read my heart you will see I could not sustain without you,
To sleep in a forest night sky that it will ingest my anguish,  
As I wait for the morn as leaves fall upon my body I awake
Shall I wait as earth and time afore changes all that is to be?    

In this abrogation of my life the stars shall fill my tired soul,
As vines descend on this a departing harvest around us,
No angst of this for the thought of love irradiates perpetually,
Deliquesce in my arms of my love all misfortunes of abrogation,  
Night skies eviscerates pain that has befallen upon our souls”  
By Andrew Guzaldo 05/08/2019 ©

“How it is noted that metals can tell time,
Seagulls sparkle as they soar up above,
God’s creatures soar and ride the crests of waves,
People have a wind that eviscerates their souls,

Seagulls have leaded many to their sea of destiny,
In fields of dried wheat and soaring clouds,
Many born with lack of visioning stars above,
Could those be the souls that are lost at sea?

Moonlight shining on her skin like lemon flowers,  
Inebriated with fragrance of sweet lemon plants,
Lives on in a lemon light of the moon cling to brine,
In their subtle matter a bouquet scent of age,

Love is a journey through waters and stars,
Love is such a war of thunder and wavy brines,
Two bodies annexed by a single sweet aged odor,
Entwine fruitage lovers lilliputian forged as one,
Topace riding the droplet shrines of aromatic guise”
     By Andrew Guzaldo © 09/07/2018

I walked away in floods of tears
After you got your claws in me
I buried the pain over the years
And it rest at the bottom of my hearts sea

But memory beat the deep, deep fathoms
Your smile resurfaced in my mind
Dreams and love are not made of atoms
But consist of an ether, mysterious, refined

Which ought be welcome when it exhibits itself
Light which strikes and sparks the soul
Eviscerates portents of ill health
Connect us to the one and all

You repented for my hurt, as I did yours
But we burdened by toxic legacy
Yet my inner tiger roar
And will for us a future free

Of petty hostility that leads to hate
Hate, hate, an irrational state
So I serve my heart up on a plate
And try this union to create

Beyond the stratosphere
A majestic cosmos fruitions
And radiates light
That burgeons in the human heart divine
Despite being infinite light-years away

Beneath source, the final destination, the one and all
Young mystics ascend, their quest
Anointed with the approval of saints
Fully formed spirits pure as the core of a star
That transcend the transience of mortal incarnation
In their rebellious existence

Above the world, itself an illusion
Cosmic, angelic entities
A multifaith pack traversing a heavenly trajectory
Zoom, twirl and pirouette
In stunning array
Like light is to day

The order of the cosmos
Adhering to laws of nature
Themselves yielded partially to human knowledge in abstractions,
Theory, which, whilst awesome to behold
Eviscerates the spirit of the cosmos by objectifying it
And isolating it's elements in fractions
The scientist's sin

Their schemes have jilted and jaded the sky
Once supreme
The crown of a dream

You say I don’t understand.
Pain.
Yours and mine, you can’t take.
(A thought that frankly, ****** me off for f•ck’s sake)
Not realizing when your bad thoughts wake,
My being,
Eviscerates.
You’re trying to keep me out, to keep me sound.
But I want to know. To you, my heart is bound.

With every second that passes
I become less and less of myself
The lashing bite of your acerbic tongue
Eviscerates my soul
leaving an empty shell, barren and bare
You blew off steam to make yourself feel better
You vented your spleen in a breathless tirade of self righteousness
You huffed and puffed and blew away my sense of self worth

I squeeze my ears shut but i can hear the sniggering of the shadows at the edges of my vision
My mates, my friends, my people
And when you have left, those scavengers shall continue in their ritual of ridicule
But we both ignore them
this moment is reserved for us

In that charged atmosphere of emotion, I feel a connection to you
Your face carved in that rictus of anger shows me how human you are
You're not some big bad wolf
You're a man, sometimes a creature of logic; you always have to be right
A being who strives for perfection in words and deeds
I am a human
A boy, sometimes a creature of emotion; frail, clumsy and clueless
Wont to making mistakes
I am only human and I am myself; not you and
Not whatever you want me to be or wish i could be
I am only human
The seeds of resentment burrow deeper and take root
With every word that passes your lips, I lose more and more of myself
With every beat of my heart, I grow weaker
The spectre of disappointment hangs heavily on my shoulders
I am a boy, I have a voice
But I cannot speak
I no longer want to
After all, who would listen to the words of a boy over a man

Two seats are waiting for me,
on a slow train to hell.
There's no getting out of it.

In the midst of an unsettled night,
I get whisked away down the tracks.
...ba-bump-ba-bump-ba-bump-ba-bump...
this is the sound that follows me to my grave.

The world I know fades away.
Replaced by something darker,
twisted, and impeccably unnerving.
For the moment, I am not afraid.
But I suspect that won't last long.
The lights grow dimmer.
I can hear the growling of monsters
around the curve up ahead.

My body tenses.
Bloodcurdling screams
pierce the foggy night.
Two sinister red eyes,
born out of the depths of hell
lock their gaze on me.

Something...is terribly wrong.

Insanity wraps around me like
a warm blanket on a winters night.

My faculties are lost.

A preacher cannot save me.
A doctor cannot heal me.
A loved one can not help me.

The creature lashes out
with a warrior fierceness.
It eviscerates my flesh with its claws.
The end draws ever closer.
And even though I am terrified,
a strange calm comes upon me.

The last of my life force drains
from my weak and frail human form.
The creature devours what's left of me.
As the train goes plummeting over the cliff
into the impenetrable darkness below.