"incan" poems
You found me staring, hair full of sand:
I had tried to embrace the water as my blood
and was reprimanded by a wave for my daring.
Around us the thick grass like palm-sunday fronds
and the path of boards lifted from a painting
dissolved into steel wool. The rest of the scene
has been redacted, smeared from my mind
with an inky thumb.
You found me between sleep. I am still
waiting to be returned to , or
wherever the quarter-light carved your back
into soft photograin beneath my childs hands.
You said, "
", words warming me
with the bloom of a chrysanthemum beneath my chest.
Does the crown of petals still ***** like the cigarettes
off that balcony, overlooking ?
I burned my body into your imagined contours.
The space between ours folded over and
again, an origami figure slowly taking on mass and attitude.
It sat on my shoulder, Incan headdress grown solid one day,
stock right foot the next. It cleaved and cleaved.
We joined at or maybe , in the rain.
Or was it? My face was wet, and hands or moths
fluttered against an aquarium window.
If dreaming, I awoke when : the train
flattened its memory like a penny.
Here it is, squashed between my fingers. The face pushed
like putty, smoothed like the faces of and
and of course , who remains
only as a scratchy, juvenile voice.
May 12, 2010
May 12, 2010 at 7:28 PM UTC
Alstroemeria, Southern-rooted watcher of the skies,
Angel tongues of Peru, with your virgin-blushed annunciation
Or Incan-hued sacrificial fire.
So much like the moon tongues of all rivers in first frost or first harvest.
Like first love, first death is the truest form,
And blooms in scorn of all its many-mirrored rivers to come.
Jun 11, 2019
Jun 11, 2019 at 12:47 PM UTC
It was a five finger discount
Just a benign theft
It wasn't hurting anyone
Besides, it was going to look good in my breakfast nook
I put on my "cross your heart" seat belt and jetted home
It was a beautiful coffee mug crafted by Incas
It wasn't like I looted the store
I now refer to it as my stolen-Incan made-oversized coffee mug
But I guess I should have seen the warning label
"ATTENTION THIEF, THIS MUG IS CURSED BY ANCIENT SPIRITS! AND IF YOU DARE KEEP THIS MUG ALL THINGS DRANK OUT OF IT WILL CAUSE YOU HORRIBLE PAIN AND SUFFERING"
Now every time I have my morning coffee it either tips over on to my lap or gives me a sudden case of the runs
Jun 26, 2014
Jun 26, 2014 at 8:25 PM UTC
My Brittle Star arms detach in the acidic water of you.
I stir, and try to escape the gaping tremor or your teeth
uncovered face
free of meat.
Roaches crawl inside your skull,
the bone powdered with the years,
all that remains:
Toskavat.
You are an Incan Mummy, the sack pulled off,
as rosy-cheeked, young boys stare through misty bus windows
still spackled with flecks of mud from your wet road.
They smile -
their microbes shared unintentionally,
a condomless foam party.
Apr 27, 2011
Apr 27, 2011 at 6:14 PM UTC
I walked alone with Incan spirits,
lost in my own thoughts
trailing downward
over maize-covered fields.
I breathed chilly air
with the condors
wearing neck gaiters,
thinking
how lucky I was
to commune
with jet stream angels,
safe and in one piece.
Nov 11, 2013
Nov 11, 2013 at 3:44 PM UTC
Plead guilty
For my innocence
When I am mute
I have a bad habit
Of forgetting where I am
Map of skin
Freckle islands sinking
In a pool of sweat
Salty oceans
I have no way to cross
Bridges of arms
Crumbling in uncharted waters
Mast of spine
Scoliosis of will
Tethered ligaments of indifference
Rails made of keratin
Clinging together with
Iceberg cold hands
Tearing apart
A home built
In this cave
A hollow cavern of chest
All that is left
Climbing Incan temple steps
With leviathan limbs
Up the ribcage of my back
A tower with two windows
One doorway in
I have never found a way out
Pulling vines down
Over my ears
I don't want to hear
Music anymore
A trap door tongue
Under the floorboards of my teeth
Lips nailed in submission
Captive, it won't let me out
I have no leverage
Against myself
No femur to pry
Into an iron heart
Veins and arteries wrapping themselves
Around my humourous
Metacarpal judges
Presiding over a court of ligaments
There is no connection
Cartilage sentences, unspecified
How harsh, how long
I tell you
I am innocent
Guilt tears me apart
The gavel falls
Greeting the back of my hand
Bones break
Calcium powder
Mixing with marrow
I am innocent
I am broken
I will heal
Aug 10, 2019
Aug 10, 2019 at 9:53 PM UTC
The birthmark rides her set jaw.
It is a deep, bruised, purple
that starts just below her left eye
and runs like a brushstroke,
to the right and comes clear
across the lower mandible,
stopping after her right ear is
swallowed by the color of fresh
plums.
The iPod or smartphone
rides in the pocket of her
pink sweatshirt.
It matters little what songs
reside therein;
those jams are pure armor.
The sun is in her warrior’s eyes,
she squints and the muscles in her jaw
flex.
She’s spotted me,
ambling in her direction.
We share a brief glance.
Immediately, I can see that I’m both a kindred
and an interloper.
(I start. I stop myself. I say nothing.)
She continues with the thousand yards, the long knives,
the silver-bullet eyes.
I’d lay real money that her DNA is angry.
She’s an Incan or an Aztec warrior,
and she wears her unwelcome birthright,
her birthmark,
her war paint,
her war pain
because she has to.
***
- JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications; 2017
Jan 25, 2017
Jan 25, 2017 at 4:56 PM UTC
White foam and none.
The ocean air is thick and sweet as the sea kneads it's waves that corrode the entirety of my rib cage.
It botches stale breaths to chant hallelujah, screaming mercy, yelling bliss.
The seaside is the perfect place for a cup of black coffee.
Incan bean roast on a petrified mountain.
My stomach is a dark brown lake.
The tides rise and fall with my consumption of a dark brown drink.
The moon follows my dark brown sky.
It's a dark brown dye I preside.
I can say I've kissed a bean,
but only after I used it's blood to think.
And I take my coffee naked.
Sometimes things are just better that way.
Naked.
I indulge in book ink.
I could swim in book ink.
I could use book ink as an excuse to miss a date.
When I use book ink, I drink coffee.
I drink coffee and I use book ink.
I read you can do that once, I read you could do that in a book.
I read that just being tired isn't enough these days, but coffee helps.
At least that's what I wanna believe.
I think I just like the taste,
And what comes along with it.
It's an alcohol.
Mar 2, 2014
Mar 2, 2014 at 10:38 PM UTC
There's a place I have been
But it's a puzzle you see,
Nothing ornery and nothing certainly so.
The trouble ensues amidst the crackling air, It Inherits an anxiety that was born from youth.
Characters place a charge to pass between each Dimension unveiled in the quandaries exposed By each curious want. In wanness its decided, That each should mercifully idle, and pause Before it yields the gain. And an ampule of light Is pronounced by the right to take up pizza in The order of minds
Jan 4, 2017
Jan 4, 2017 at 6:56 AM UTC
Although the Andes melt away
Beneath Pichincha clouds of gray
And Cotopaxi shakes the ground
With aftershocks of Spanish crown
Pizarro's cut my Incan rose
My Amazon unconquered flows
From my Quichua eulogy
To Rumiñahui effigy
A martyr for a higher cause
Than dying for her fatal flaws
May 19, 2017
May 19, 2017 at 12:34 PM UTC