"folding" poems
He felt
great pleasure
watching her
his desires bloom
staring at her two lips
the rarest of all flowers
pedals spread
breathing life into his desires
stiffening a hard stamen
as their bodies take root
folding together like a hem
pumping seed into her cavity
baring the juices of a fruit
into a fountain
that will never end
Apr 29, 2017
Apr 29, 2017 at 8:15 PM UTC
let it not be confused
let no one else's name
ring throughout these sentences
let this be a hatchet
let me put this to rest
this is not a test
i don't want to think
about shipwrecks anymore
i am tired of folding apologies
into origami birds
and placing them
at the headstones to your tantrums
this is not is not geology class
these are promises
written on razorblades
*& if you are getting choked up
then maybe you should be*
maybe we should be buried
with our telescopes face down
my mouth is full of sorry
all for being honest
we are falling out of orbit
we are burning bystanders
so cast away your callous condolences
because no one is clapping
in this waist deep water
this is not a baptism
so do not tell strangers
that this was a chance to drown
any differently
i am not a catalogue
of constellations you cannot name
this is not mythology
so stop believing your horoscope
i am not a wishing well
i am just a wall for you
to paint post nuclear fallout & antonyms for catharsis on
we destroy the things
that are not ours-
the wanton ways
we embody wrecking *****
and then cry over the rubble
this is not a heap or a mosaic
this is leaping
off a thousand story building
with no one to catch you
at the bottom & maybe
that's why some quiet moments
are so fragile, maybe that's why butterflies have mimicry
your words are black powder
and poetry is your musketry
i guess that makes me your blindfold
Apr 29, 2014
Apr 29, 2014 at 11:21 PM UTC
Anger, is the steaming red on her face
refusal creates in an instance;
jealousy is foaming green
profusion of colors in motion
takes this dance for them to upward
and downward turns,
or a sudden dissolution---
an intense ****** in unison.
Even in darkness he can see the
spasmodic ebbing waves
sleep is the banana plantation
where night wears translucent green
"nobody would see us here"
she whispers in his ears,
as if they are thieving sex,eyeing
the yellow banana she likes, to play with
Purple is the psychedelic color
smeared on horizon when
dreams repeatedly fly down
like night bats and happen
the way mind designs
we don't want to leave the scene
of the dream even when we know well
that the show for us is now over
we just want to hang around
like the dog, in the place
it got a juicy bone.
Yellow is the banana song
that's heard as wave after wave,
by the blind bat squadron
that roams with raw aggression,
for raids above the plantations
Unripe bananas show green fingers
to say "NO! we aren't ripe"
like coy underage virgins.
Then, they ripen, go yellow
some even bright red, inviting
who is blue here is the sky
and those bats who got
the bananas still raw green
Night decents on the banana land
as the white umbrella of sun
is snatched by the dark maiden.
Black is the bat's wing extending
and folding like lust, umbrella and the like.
He finds her shivering fingers like a serpent,
on the banana trunk slithering down,
as he dreams bats, banana, blue sky
and she slithering over him.
Jan 3, 2015
Jan 3, 2015 at 5:50 AM UTC
There are cemeteries that are lonely,
graves full of bones that do not make a sound,
the heart moving through a tunnel,
in it darkness, darkness, darkness,
like a shipwreck we die going into ourselves,
as though we were drowning inside our hearts,
as though we lived falling out of the skin into the soul.
And there are corpses,
feet made of cold and sticky clay,
death is inside the bones,
like a barking where there are no dogs,
coming out from bells somewhere, from graves somewhere,
growing in the damp air like tears of rain.
Sometimes I see alone
coffins under sail,
embarking with the pale dead, with women that have dead hair,
with bakers who are as white as angels,
and pensive young girls married to notary publics,
caskets sailing up the vertical river of the dead,
the river of dark purple,
moving upstream with sails filled out by the sound of death,
filled by the sound of death which is silence.
Death arrives among all that sound
like a shoe with no foot in it, like a suit with no man in it,
comes and knocks, using a ring with no stone in it, with no
finger in it,
comes and shouts with no mouth, with no tongue, with no
throat.
Nevertheless its steps can be heard
and its clothing makes a hushed sound, like a tree.
I'm not sure, I understand only a little, I can hardly see,
but it seems to me that its singing has the color of damp violets,
of violets that are at home in the earth,
because the face of death is green,
and the look death gives is green,
with the penetrating dampness of a violet leaf
and the somber color of embittered winter.
But death also goes through the world dressed as a broom,
lapping the floor, looking for dead bodies,
death is inside the broom,
the broom is the tongue of death looking for corpses,
it is the needle of death looking for thread.
Death is inside the folding cots:
it spends its life sleeping on the slow mattresses,
in the black blankets, and suddenly breathes out:
it blows out a mournful sound that swells the sheets,
and the beds go sailing toward a port
where death is waiting, dressed like an admiral.
18.5k
the angel amongst us
~for Alexander, master splasher~
*flexibility is important when poetry writing in a warm tub and a long day ahead is scheduled; so willingly accept the autocorrect
for I am both an experienced poet and bath soaker and
believer in wondrous mystery and unexpected fumbles
that lead to to miracle touchdowns
~•~
the two mathematicians examine the angle, measure the degree of difference at intersection and bless it with an identity,
calling it by its name,
perhaps obtuse, perhaps right, perhaps both
two sets of eyes examine the angle,
study its ****** expression
the old man says:
see the angle on the clock formed by the big handle on the twelve and the little hand on the eight?
this is angle of eight o’clock:
time to stop the splashing and start the get-readying
for we have miles to go before the ocean can say hello!
little angel says angle no go
and slashes the water with both
hands to establish the firmness of his views
and change Einstein’s time from present to future
the angle depends on the perspective of the viewer
the old poet comprehends leaving a warm tub is a regretful thing
but he measures the degree of difference at this
intersection
of time and bath and blesses it with an identity
“time to go”
the angle of my angel is now 2 pointed arms, pointed straight up,
at the twelve o'clock,
as he stands up in fevered protest,
my arms sweep his little legs to
a point at eight o’clock,
angel, commenting on his swift flight
disputes the grandfathers physics
"no go now,
now go later^"
though the angle is unchanged
the perspective of time and space
(and traffic),
yet differs
one sees an angle,
the angel sees time
eternally folding in on itself*
that is the angle amongst us
Aug 29, 2018
Aug 29, 2018 at 8:58 AM UTC
somewhere between the fourth and fifth
load of laundry,
sometime after breakfast~lunch,
now served in the USA at home,
as an all day meal, per the edict of Mcdonalds,
start fixing dinner, take a break, walk to the mailbox,
retrieve the post and quick retreat back inside,
ah that Texas sun, bilingual chili hot,
toss the unopened on the prior weeks pile,
cause everyone loves company
the home-cold-brewed ice coffee needs a filling
for the fridge has decided not to help
by automatically refilling the pitcher
even if it could
I, busy folding,
needing two hands
and all my teeth
for folding my master’s rocket ship
sheets
my master observes with one of his alternating demeanors,
this one, super silent watching, announcing that I need a nap:
*“don't you always say, baby,
take a nap when you can, baby,
for when you need one, baby,
you probably won’t be able, my baby”*
with selected-hand-led fingers,
he lays me down to sleep,
bids me to slow slide to dreamland, dinner will keep,
curling inside my frame, hands a-cupping my *******
telling me a drowsy tale, inherited from his mother’s womb
and his granddaddy’s tongue, mindful of his family’s history
there, is where, they find us,
dinner fixings burnt,
me and my five year old baby boy,
still sleeping fast, around 5pm, bodies enwrapped,
tied by blood and entwined in old nursery rhymes,
Texas tall tales of Pecos Bill,
me and my very own
nap-ster master
<•>
p.s. and they call me by my other name to wake me, momma
Sep 17, 2018
Sep 17, 2018 at 1:14 PM UTC
seductive decay
on summer days we
rode down the river in our ripe age,
careless if the rapids swept us
into their deadly dustpans,
the black hole of water,
the possibility aroused us,
perhaps because it seemed so far away.
and next to the river,
the appalachian townsfolk wandered the deep grass, they
gathered here to see the circling folding-tables,
buy the spread of goods,
the goods are masks.
the masks are of old folks’ faces,
cartoon-like, goofy comic characters in the funny pages.
masks of rubbered wrinkles, permanent,
bulging eyes, whiskered ears that never stop growing, with
an elastic band, you can become an elder.
old age attracts the crowds,
i have a fascination with it myself,
picturing all the stories that have
taken elders to the present,
it’s hard to fake being wise
when you’re forced to think for years.
Feb 26, 2014
Feb 26, 2014 at 11:36 PM UTC
I began to notice the
Fade.
Blotched ink, frayed seams
yet those who can't see
can't care
It was most familiar to a weary box
Which spent weekdays and nights
Traveling
To warm faces and comfort Sundays
I struggled when the
torch of permanent portions was passed to
me. Each word felt unworthy and full of
stain
I always strived for
realism
I used to clutch the cloth
carefully folding and unfolding
fearing the sendoff, knowing the return
would become rare
If at all.
it was a pricked finger and
remembrance
It was right to hideaway
At the time
I crumbled under the stage lights
The audience was expecting
More
All I could provide was
Myself
And like a spoiled child
I still pout
Demanding fame under my demanded
Street Lamps
Faded
Donated
What is, is
But. I do remember. Even if you figure the pants don't fit
Jul 30, 2012
Jul 30, 2012 at 8:44 PM UTC
Those who lash out when the heart speaks
avoid the many mirrors reflecting themselves
For in this rippled dream,
where perfect does exist
and mistakes are long gone like a Milli Vanilli song,
they fail to see that we are all human…
errors come with the package (batteries not included)
Sidewalk footprints, back and forth
pacing past the entrance to that world
where words have no meaning,
regardless of how they are spoken (or written)
Self-absorbed deeply in the waves
of that ocean tide of fantasy
crashing in white foam feelings, disappearing by sunset
What is it that makes us who we are…
our smile, our fingers, our brand of cigarettes
shipped in plain brown envelopes,
our thoughts, our dreams, the poetry we write
when we need to get it out…good or bad
When lack of judgment drips from the skylight
illuminating courage to do what we shouldn’t (even in darkness)
Wrong, I was wrong…regret, more than I could have known
I have looked in this mirror, then I looked away quickly,
Ashamed of that face, fell three stories below my heart
slipped on the disgust splattered at my feet (by me)
sunk up to my knees…bent, folding, scraped and bruised
but I require no sympathy, for I am not that devil Jagger sings of…
at least I hope not…please allow me to introduce myself…I am sorry
May 27, 2014
May 27, 2014 at 6:12 PM UTC
There is something magical
in the whirring
of a midday laundromat.
A cessation of pride,
maybe.
People all dressed in sweatpants
the air full of detergent smell
and the sound of coins clicking
against great tumblers
as they go round
and round
and round
and round...
The people smile back,
no use pretending superiority here.
Whistlers twitter on, folding towels and socks into neat, organized piles.
The children are well behaved,
their hands full of potato chips
given by their parents as a pittance for their patience.
The patient patrons
ponder on,
their empty hands crumpling receipts.
This, with the crunching of chips
and the distant whistle
over the percussion of clicking
coins clattering
in a dryer
compose an unintentional opera,
an ode to humility.
Humility's honorable honesty heals humanity's hubris.
Noisy trucks pass outside the floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows,
Where the hot air wreaks its violence
and men make their ways
in spite.
Oct 6, 2014
Oct 6, 2014 at 5:00 PM UTC
~Christi Michaels~12/2014~
☆⊙☆⊙☆⊙☆
you with an onion
in the palm of your hand
pulling back layers
seeing just who I am
removing the papery
outer shell
the flesh beneath
holding slight color tan
folding back the next
begining to understand
sweet juicy onion
cradled
in the palm of your hand
brave to peel
the next layer
spicey as onions can be
a tear begins to form
a tear just for me
now you are intoxicated
as only an onion can do
you pull back again
translucent flesh
coming through
sweeter and sweeter
I become
as you genlty find my core
you've settled in
found your way
what a delectable
delicious score
☆⊙☆⊙☆⊙☆
Copyright © 2014 Christi Michaels.
All Rights Reserved.
Nov 17, 2014
Nov 17, 2014 at 4:37 PM UTC
Stars in the sky exploding
Space and time folding
Bombs going off as the galaxy rips
Flashing lights fight to eclipse
Visions full of fluorescence
At the sacrifice of a solar systems essence
Shooting stars cry across the skies
Puncturing planets as they pulverize
Swirls of liberation
Celestial bodies melting in devastation
Swarms collect and deform
Exploding into storms as they transform
The aura of the aurora bleeding like mascara
As if the planet is crying at the end of an era
Watching as black holes fight over vibrant sights
Pulling it apart as it ignites
What a wonderful curse
To befall the universe
It's so beautiful its cryptic
God bless a life so apocalyptic
Dec 30, 2016
Dec 30, 2016 at 1:57 AM UTC
When you say insomnia,
people think you’ve had too much caffeine.
That it’s something you’ve eaten that day.
That maybe you’re just a little stressed.
Those people do not have insomnia.
Insomnia rolls off the tongue.
It is a noun.
It is four vowels and five consonance.
It is staring at your ceiling at
four o’clock in the morning praying
to God that maybe you’ll sleep tonight.
Insomnia is knowing ahead of time
that you aren’t going to sleep tonight.
It is drinking four cups of coffee at 1:30
in the morning because your eyelids
are so heavy they feel like anvils
are holding them down.
It is seeing shapes and figures in the dark
that aren’t there.
Insomnia is dying a little inside
every time you see the sunrise.
It is watching the moon reach it’s pinnacle
and sink beneath the earth.
Insomnia is your mind working at the speed of light
and taking sixty years.
Insomnia is running a triathlon without training.
It is wondering how long your body
can take the stress before folding in on itself.
It is wondering what the hell is wrong with you
that you can’t function like a normal person.
Insomnia is taking pills that almost make
your waking nightmares look like children’s play
compared to your sleeping nightmares.
Insomnia is having waking nightmares.
It isn’t the inability to focus.
It isn’t easily fixed.
It isn’t something you deal with.
It isn’t caffeine or something you ate.
Insomnia isn’t just a noun.
It’s a disease.
Jul 12, 2013
Jul 12, 2013 at 2:35 AM UTC
Another silent mid-Fall afternoon
Icy raindrops slash into my neck
The forecast calls for falling thumbtacks soon
One thin umbrella folding
Just 18 feet to the front step
With champagne acquainted
But forgot how to sip it
I slurp it down, eager,
'til I sit soaked and dripping
In time, fevered minds
will lower ears made for hearing
under waves of migraines
as mighty storm fronts are nearing
So I close down the bars and stumble home under awnings
Just to search for your name among newspaper cuttings
I've read the whole issue
and I've frowned over headlines
put it down
Now, soaked or dry, I've got only time
I've wasted so much of it losing my mind
I'm blind in the rain that now sticks in my hide
and they were right--
The forecast called for this squall to last all night
Another lonely mid-Fall morning walk
I follow gangs of specters in their steps
And, in the crunching gravel, ghosts will talk
November winds come howling
The second I leave my front step
The flavor's familiar
It comes back every morning,
when sunlight and sparrows
ignore tornado warnings
So the gales pick up strength
and a small bird's bones are hollow
The clouds lay oceans down
setting many sips to swallow
"So goodnight." I depart, but circle back in my wanderings
I'll always wind up here--shaky, ash-faced and yawning
I've read this before
it's printed on poor paper
in red ink
I can't say why I'm still walking by
Those other front doorsteps that I never try
The thick thumbtack rain stopped but I can't stay dry
the ghosts were right--
But if I find your name I might stop by.
Oct 26, 2012
Oct 26, 2012 at 7:09 PM UTC
If there are infinite worlds,
there must be one where umbrellas never close-
hinges locked open like stubborn jaws,
gape-mouthed against walls in patient herds.
No one in their twenties owns one,
their hamster-cage apartments
too small for such luxuries.
They ask for rain jackets on birthdays.
Mary Poppins still drifts down Cherry Tree Lane,
her umbrella never folding,
only floating.
Children carry slips home
for violating umbrella laws,
forging signatures in loopy ink.
The Morton Salt girl wears a slicker,
yellow as a warning flare before the flood.
My mother walking me to kindergarten in rain,
transparent vinyl dome above our heads-
I, the opposite of a fish in its tank.
Her hair plastered to her forehead
by the time we reached the door.
Everyone looks most beautiful
with rainwater running down their face.
In the open-umbrella reality,
time can walk backward-
you can unwater a plant,
unpeel a clementine,
un-kiss someone.
Endings lift again,
fabric billowing, as if the story
had been left open in the wind.
Heather and Mike find the road out.
Rosemary tips the bassinet.
There, perhaps, neither of us was born.
What lay between us
stays open too long,
collecting rain until it sags,
slow and certain, like sugar
in the first storm.
Aug 12, 2025
Aug 12, 2025 at 8:06 PM UTC
I made you of breath
of shadows and sunbeams
of boundlessness
of folding out and in like wings
of fallings and risings
from the gravity of things
I am your leaves without
limbs or leaving
I am the circles and spirals
your body carves from air
your leaps toward heaven
when you most love the earth
I was before you and will be
after you, I am the center
and the circumference
I am within and without you
And I am your comforter
when the cold winds come in
I am the point on the line
I am brief and desirable
I eat oranges and watch
the Northward flight of geese
my being roars like oceans
I rock myself in the cradle
of self doubt and other emotions
I sometimes let take control
I rock the world like a baby
I kiss the air like my lover
here and here and there
I embrace you, World
I am your second Moon
that rose from the South
I am your eyes, your mouth
your star, your tree
and something else
I am sand, river, feather,
grass, moth, l am forever
yet lost and not found
and I am something else
and I always will be
something to someone else.
Mar 9, 2018
Mar 9, 2018 at 4:59 PM UTC
“i haven’t seen her in years,”
said the hospital bed,
“though i’ve seen many others,
who sobbed violently like her,
who sunk into me like a young, rusting anchor.
who could not get comfortable in one position or
one mindset or
one truth.
i have felt them dig in their heels
and try to ache and and fight and
scream, just quietly enough not to wake their roommate.”
“i remember their shapes,”
said the hospital bed,
“how their voices rose slowly like a far-off ambulance siren,
how their faces fell when they remembered the emergency
was right here.
i have been kicked, punched,
clung to, held on to,
as if gravity switched suddenly and they feared
yet another aspect of the universe was against them.
i’ve seen ***** sheets and i’ve seen clean ones. i’ve
seen boys with tattoos on their faces and
razor marks on their arms. i’ve seen pain.
i’ve seen girls who wouldn’t turn off the lights,
girls who couldn’t turn off the lights,
girls who had turned a light off once and never wanted
to do anything else. i’ve seen pain.
i’ve felt love before
more often than the lovers thought they loved,
more strongly than the fighters thought
they could fight.
in shaky hands folding down blankets
more carefully than they have all week
in heads that flop ungracefully onto
pillows, securely,
fulfilled.
in the slow turn of a hospital bracelet
around a pale wrist,
in large, golden brown hands,
inspected through tear-blurred eyes,
through scratched glasses,
picked up off the floor after discovering
force won’t carry a ring of thin plastic
as far as you thought.
i hear change in whispers,
good night, good luck,
in hushed acceptance, in ‘yes,
i really am here’. in
screams that send nurses in panic only to find
you were laughing. in numbers,
in ‘five hundred milligrams,’
in ‘three gained pounds’, in
‘one more day’.
i hear shock, i hear fear,
in echoes of parents’ voices,
‘why here? why now?’
i have heard and seen and felt all of them.
but she,”
continued the hospital bed,
“hasn’t been in here in a while.
i haven’t heard her whisper
to her roommate about what she did
‘that night’, i haven’t seen her
sneak away from her pile of pajamas
as if she didn’t just hide something there,
i haven’t heard her empathize
with a pencil sharpener.
it’s been so long,
it’s hard to imagine,”
said the hospital bed,
‘i hardly remember her'.
if only the hospital bed knew
that she could hardly remember
herself from then either,
if only it knew she hadn't stopped
fighting once she left
if only it knew
how she felt when they said
she only needed to go to therapy
every other week.
it felt like progress,
and it felt like hope,
and no one better than
a hospital bed
could understand that.
Oct 21, 2014
Oct 21, 2014 at 11:43 PM UTC
The mourning doves sing their songs
about 3 miles away.
Chirping of despair, beauty, angst
and then of better days.
Mourning dove, thou is free!
The world is your cage,
and thy wings may take you beyond.
So why do you speak of sorrowful pleas?
Why sing at dusk, o mourning dove?
When the day is folding in,
and the sky drips pastels on its canvas;
perhaps falling from above.
I do not know why you sing, sad sad mourning doves.
Yet I still sing along, and rather leave questions unsaid.
Apr 1, 2015
Apr 1, 2015 at 6:09 PM UTC
I'm running...
Run away, run away, run away, run away
I'm holding on desperately
Run away, run away, run away, run away
I'm holding on
When it's all said and done everybody dies
In this life ain't no happy endings
Only pure beginnings followed by years of sinning and fake repentance
The preacher says we were made in image of Lord
To which I replied:
"Are you sure?
Even the murderer? Even the *****
Even the ***** running through ******* on tour?"
With a good girl at home folding clothes and ****
She's losing faith In him and he know this
Jan 11, 2014
Jan 11, 2014 at 3:10 PM UTC
Like a meme of activism
This women's coalition
Mothers
Sister
Friends
Pioneers and heroines
There's courage in their convictions
A guild of collectivism
They hold luncheons in their kitchens
Talk of abolition
Mysticism
Feminism
Of heroes and magnetism
Seduction
Love
Eroticism
They scream like banshees at a crucifixion
About injustice
Dereliction
Terrorism
A tradition underwritten
With symbolism
Drums
Violins
Musicians
They may be sitting
They may be knitting
Baking muffins
Folding linen
Running errands
Stuffing chickens
A juxtaposition to their ambition
Of inspiring the unwilling
Turning derision to optimism
Their fire and brimstone
Will have history rewritten
Freedom of reproduction
Liberalism
Animism
They have wisdom
Intuition
Rhythm
They are fearsome
This women's coalition
Jan 2, 2014
Jan 2, 2014 at 4:07 PM UTC
You woke me in the thin dawn.
Like a riot of rain in a bleached dry summer.
small green shreds of shrub sprang from my heart
as tumbling birdsong might litter the long pale sky.
your voice came drifting through the shallow line
And I let the sound seep like a soft assault on my senses.
I hear the words and picture your lips
Folding around the consonants like a dance.
I hear your breath carry the words and taste the phrases
That linger on your tongue as if to speak them in a kiss
These words that spin this cloth of gold in whispered utterings
This silken tease with a wild sprinkle of kisses and anatomy.
And would my words soften your eye and entice your body
With fevered adventures seeking to be sated with a touch?
Could you taste the blessings erupting from my tongue?
Would you ache inside far beneath the longings of the flesh?
It seems that every cell is sighing a simpering listless want
to be captured by the haunting breath of a lover’s call.
Jul 2, 2014
Jul 2, 2014 at 5:34 AM UTC
The engine is killing the track, the track is silver,
It stretches into the distance. It will be eaten nevertheless.
Its running is useless.
At nightfall there is the beauty of drowned fields,
Dawn gilds the farmers like pigs,
Swaying slightly in their thick suits,
White towers of Smithfield ahead,
Fat haunches and blood on their minds.
There is no mercy in the glitter of cleavers,
The butcher's guillotine that whispers: 'How's this, how's this?'
In the bowl the hare is aborted,
Its baby head out of the way, embalmed in spice,
Flayed of fur and humanity.
Let us eat it like Plato's afterbirth,
Let us eat it like Christ.
These are the people that were important ----
Their round eyes, their teeth, their grimaces
On a stick that rattles and clicks, a counterfeit snake.
Shall the hood of the cobra appall me ----
The loneliness of its eye, the eye of the mountains
Through which the sky eternally threads itself?
The world is blood-hot and personal
Dawn says, with its blood-flush.
There is no terminus, only suitcases
Out of which the same self unfolds like a suit
Bald and shiny, with pockets of wishes,
Notions and tickets, short circuits and folding mirrors.
I am mad, calls the spider, waving its many arms.
And in truth it is terrible,
Multiplied in the eyes of the flies.
They buzz like blue children
In nets of the infinite,
Roped in at the end by the one
Death with its many sticks.
6.2k
The tightrope expires
And the skyscraper hollows out.
This hate is vicious and repeated,
Repeated; repeated on the news reel,
And in a Hollywood romance.
We’re skipping generations
Through faded vinyl sound
Of dust mite and crack;
I’m folding digits over chords,
Extinguishing lovers
By turning them to songs.
Oh, reality convenes, convenes
On the mind, and on the consciousness
Of fact. Don’t steal my job,
Don’t **** my land,
And never fall asleep
Under the sun.
There is poetry to mathematics,
Scaling the harmonics of the sound,
Some universal language;
Some bottled message to our brothers
Who are looking back at us
From the distance of the stars.
And, terror is called from every side,
Until we’re terrified to eat or breathe,
In the tremor of a terror
That can never come to be.
The tightrope fell down with the buildings,
But its idea, it still lives on.
We could be on the precipice of better times,
Or under the shadow of a nuclear bomb.
May 23, 2014
May 23, 2014 at 8:24 PM UTC
I tromped across North America a few years back
Following the Mayan Elders
Listening to the powerful Lakota Brothers sing songs of mourning and joy
Building community
I was following a White Cherokee
We created clan
I was motivated by the teachings of the Anishinaabe
And represented Thunderbird Clan
We stopped in sacred spaces such as Serpent's Mound
And Cahokia Mounds
We peered briefly through the veil; Samhain
I followed the red path and eventually found I had always been on it
I met Hopi and Navajo elder's
And my friend Sea, a pipe carrier brewed a special tea
I was gifted tobacco that had been grown from seeds
Recovered from an iceman's medicine bag
She transmuted the ancient tobacco into a tea
By folding it into a sweetgrass and cedar brew
Sea gave it to me in a basic stainless steel carafe
Every time we drained the carafe
I refilled it and the essence was just as powerful as the previous brew
When I finally caught up with the Lakota brother's in Sedona
Their voices were raw
We all were
I shared the tea with them
So much magic on that journey
The joy on those brothers faces as the tea reached their throats
I gave them the carafe and told them
It was the gift that keeps on giving
Their thankfulness has been the gift that keeps on giving
Oct 5, 2014
Oct 5, 2014 at 11:48 PM UTC