You were freer than a free verse
And even sonnets could not keep you.

Tonight we got drunk on papayas,
Sitting on the sidewalk sipping
drinks, careless laughter
exploding from our mouths when
the moon split itself
Down our throats. In the messy
medley of the night I felt you on

my skin, remember:

How I lost myself in the fine lines
Of your lips where you claim
Your flaws fall into.

How I tried to swallow them like
apricots and how - in almost exact reciprocation
Of the same passion -
your eyelid moves which say:
I love you as much as I love God.

You are four light years away
And tonight I got drunk on papayas.

This is not a poem because
Sonnets could not keep you safe
And free verses compete but lose
Their flame, for

Like a landslide you let love slide,
I let love leave then.

Sprang forth with no branches or leaves. Small roots.
Bore mangoes, papayas,guava and bananas. Hybrid, mid limb grafting.
The trunk is a figment but it stands non less. You see
my family tree never was and always will be.
A roadside shade with low hanging fruit.

Was never planted.It was a deposit from the bowels of an exotic bird
of the jungles that sampled at leisure the offerings of the rain forests.
The Hardtack and marmalade came on ships with the kings business
Mixed with the Nigerian Fu-Fu  ,the Aztec maize the Mayan legumes.
and all points of the compass.

Old Joe Denegri, The Blancaneaux , The Cattouse, The Melado, The Pinks
The Flowers,The Orozco and more. And boundless from the ***** of opportunity.
Piecemeal and untethered. But it is the tree that I must cling to.
However rough the bark.

The sap runs heavy and slow in the humid Belizean heat.To meet the earth.
Cool breezes blow a haunting disharmony. A sweet unity in chaos.
The soil is rich,pungent and forgiving.  Soon, A bell tolls  in the distance.
The Sea mists my dreams.

A stairway of coconut fronds to azure skies.
Nighttime smells like creation.
The still slackened pace.
The small rat race.
Tempest in a teapot.
Urban-rural.

Coolie gal.
Creole boy.
New Chinese.
Old African.
Ubiquitous Espania.
Garinagu. Mosquito coast.
Children of Mennon.
Old Basque faces.
Things we call races left with small traces
of what?

My tree, her tree, histree.
I am you and you are me.
I see me in your face and you see me.
We are  and will continue to be.
Blended.
a hybrid. An orchid wild.

there, the air is thicker
it hangs full, like the ladies

all the sadness lived in the
capsules of trapped air in
woollen jumpers left behind

men with their toothless
smiles and shining skin
coax laughter from a steel drum

the market boasts a rainbow
of sarongs, papayas, star fruits
offered in jangling song

it was a medicine.
the coral blooms in the reef
are teeth in a dog's mouth,
guarding.

The Golden Path

From the song I cover the waterfront a perfect place for a young man to blow his trumpet it has the
Power to blast or the sound that travels like a lone walker along the Warf his sight is fast and jumpy
This like working the trumpet buttons up and down with the blow reaching the end of the gold
Lacquered Bell giving it that soft essential quality a longer stream for when he looks away from the
Immediate Items that hang and pertain to activities of the interchange with the sea yes the blow that
Continues as his eyes looks Seward his emotions entangle themselves in the waves the large heavy body
At a Distance then short and fast as they race forward on the sand then crash and then recedes his
Thoughts Caught by the undertow out into deep waters my soul bring it out the depths that you know
Span the Waters make the arch touch San Francisco bay at this end and the other end touch Monterey
Bay let the Trumpeter pays homage to John Denver who died out in the waters out from Pacific Grove
His plane Went in let the horn catch the torches flame that is set burning at this the water’s edge let it
Show the Burning his voice touched and burned those sweet lyrics into our conscious memory how
Fitting the surf Rolls in his words flow into our heart the trumpet notes set the tone of his life it
Configures and shows in the ocean spray the gifts he shared he gave rocky mountain memories do they
Not rise as we continue our vigil where his earthy journey ended but in the endless waves he will always
Be singing his voice Follows the sunset into shadows of sleep with pleasure we attest to the melody that
His soul was conceived in far west on the Hawaiian sandy beaches you can hear the trumpet peeling so
Appealing As the island girls sway in unison with the palms the soul of Polynesia whispers just under the
Glint of That sweet mellow horn they tell of life lived in a natural paradise the horn reaches back to
Those glory days before cement made its hardness felt truly a little grass shack held some times that are
Lost now when you walk city sidewalks that used to be barefoot paths that you slipped down to tell in a
Setting of pineapples papayas coconuts and sea shells of the love you feel as you steal away under the
Prominent shadow of Diamond Head I pledge to you my love and may we always play and live in this
These sweetest strings of pearl islands that is our home that ole horn picks upon the words about home
So it is seen gleaming in the morning light of San Francisco bay it picks up that international flavor it
Seems to play it says come and ride the cable car listen to the ring of its bell feel it sway know the
Feeling of the steel wheels on those shinning rails catch the a fresh breath as the silk from the shops in
China Town listlessly rise and fall you will feel the tie that stretches unbroken all the way to back to
Ancient Cathy the mystery and wonder that holds a culture in a tight pack where ever the peoples may
Live their roots are deep the wisdom of the parables that are themselves as silk colorful meaningful and
Ever so practical the trumpeter catches that feeling in the chilly morning air when the night follows day
He can be found on the dinner boat that plies the bay you can see Ghirardelli square its height its white
Burning name is a must see and feel and then to go by the Golden Gate the pylons the amber lights the
Black Waters a mix of eerie magnificence pervades your mind as he lays deep on his horn the night
Deepens essential qualities that are uniquely California emerges as the sounds of his horn drifts away on
The waves in the golden state of many golden dreams and paths

In the body of a forest
Lies the feet of a tree
Sunk deeply into the soil
Is the root with a heartbeat

Deep earthly eyes
With a presence that is calm
If you let him sink into you too quickly
He will water your every form

Like the spinning of the Earth
He is the drizzle of the stars
The sweetness of the air
And the breeze with every and no care

He is the tunnel system in the city
That connects us through and through
He is the electricity
That lit the room

In a world with different stories
He is the sun that claims no glory
He is the seed that plants the tree
Yet has the roots that found their way to me

Angel’s Visit

An angel talked with me in what is probably one of the earth’s most beautiful places we were in
Honolulu at the Hilton Hawaiian village I was in bed it was about three in the morning I love to explore

Many things and a great time is during the night watch which is hard when you love to sleep like I do
But the excitement of the Islands makes you a light sleeper I looked over by the window we were on the

Twelfth floor that’s best for the view all over Honolulu but it’s a long way from heaven but there she
Stood I can’t explain the gender we all assume angels are male not so she wasn’t the angels you hear so

Much about being seven feet tall and muscular no she was normal size and she did have dazzling golden
Curly hair and as I recall her gown was at least a shade of gold she didn’t have a message but a question

Do you have a bible for the Islands? This paradise of earth where Pineapples, Papayas some of the most
Grand exotic foods and sites to visit she wasn’t interested in that as another angel spoke to me in

Anaheim and for this reason I don’t fear for our country the last lines of Imposter says not my words
But what the angel spoke “Land of light continue Miss Liberty your lamp burning bright” Heaven’s

Messenger still credits the U.S. as a light for a dark world although that was fifteen years ago and we
Have slipped and need to right ourselves to fulfill our promised destiny the Hawaiian angel could have

Spoken of many things the turquoise waters the trade winds waterfalls all wonderful in them selves
But heaven’s interest is always people I wrote Dreamer for the physical Hawaii but her question

Concerned the word of God that will give you more than physical paradise it will give you a spiritual
One the mirror shows the physical truth whatever it is the bible does the same but with the exception

It gives a remedy all of us are plagued with ugly habits and ways come to it as harlots and murders have
And be changed to saints incorruptible every dark spot and all that makes us unattractive receives a

Divine Make over your life becomes the abounding borders of paradise no matter where you live or your
Circumstances who doesn’t resent things about ourselves and past mistakes within its cover is

Forgiveness grace and most importantly of all is the ability to truly change everything is changed
You are made brand new the gift and treasure that you are and that suffered disfigurement is restored

Your life is not pie in the sky it is real the increase of value can never be calculated remorse will beat you
Unmercifully the master has the perfect healing of body and soul it not foolishness but it will make you

Wise trouble is still the lot of the human family but you will have a heavenly father to take your hurts to
They had the old saying sticks and stones will hurt me but never words what falsehood outward scars

Heal where inward injuries never heal and can ******* your life rob you of love and peace that belongs to
You come as little lost sheep to the healing resplendent waters that are springs in a dry land the Bible

Has those springs and the balm of Gilgal that will treat your every hurt to many times our best friends
Are held at arm’s length we don’t and can't trust even them and at times they offer

Love but are otherwise empty without answers our country and freedoms are just a beautiful guide post
That more so than anywhere in the world shows how good life can be your just steps from all you will

Ever Need return to the faith of our fathers and pray and surrender and God will send his Holy
Messengers to heal your life and bring this country into perfection as its course was first chartered
When it began why live a defunct miserable life at the very gate of plenty

Last someday I told him you know soldier you gotta stop saying please. You gotta pull the punches like get off your knees and onto your head and roll away laughing in cartwheels. Get your shoes shined your collar pressed your dogs walked, your **** ****** by women who will tell you they think you’re a riot sort of. Gotta stop counting the ghosts in the hall and the pills every week and the calories burned and the blessings. Eventually you will learn to tie your own **** tie but you’re proud of rolling your own cigars, you’re proud of remembering to water the calla lily on the windowsill. You’ve forgotten most of what you’ve read. You can’t remember the news from yesterday or was it the day before did one of the neighborhood kids get shot or did we go to war again, maybe it doesn’t really matter. Haven’t had a fruit juicy enough in six years and you gotta find a tropical country where the papayas and the sunshine make you melt into puddles and you are the rainy season, you roll ominously overhead. You think you’ll stop staying at the Ritz-Carlton on business trips, you think you’ll check into the Super 8 at three forty-two a.m. and when you open the door the ashtray’s full and there’s *** caked on the wall. When you go to the bar you keep forgetting you want a shot of bourbon or maybe a double of Scotch and you order a g&t; instead. The clouds stay grey and the sky stays tearstained. You remember playing tennis and skinning your knee when you were seven, you remember grinning the widest when you had lost your front teeth. You don’t own a single photo album. In spring when the flowers start to bloom you think you ought to have a daughter so you can read her Maurice Sendak. You’ll get shampoo in her eyes and she’ll be cross, and she’ll only forgive you when you tell her that story your college friends are all tired of by now. You have those thoughts and then you remember to wash your hands. But I said yes gotta stop being a yes-man because that turns into I do and then where are you, on the altar with the sacrificial lamb and a woman and when you slip the ring onto her finger and say this isn’t funny she says you’re a riot sort of. You wanna make it here, then you better learn to eat the locusts and ride a camel and not get angry with the scorpion in your underpants. You don’t get angry, you gotta squish his head between thumb and forefinger before he manages to jab your pecker. You are fifty-two. You don’t feel fifty-two. You don’t feel anything other than maybe an intense dislike for carob bean. You were told to be on the lookout so I said to him I said.

We live in a house, simple and nice
With a garden lined with crotons in rows
Not so neatly trimmed or pruned as before
And a lawn not always well manicured
But abounding in plants with blooms of varied hue
From shady corners, orchids peep
They bring forth flowers in bunches and mass
Only on certain seasons, not the year round.
Then a visual treat to the eyes, indeed!

Trees big and small border our land
Mango trees and jack fruit trees
Coconut palms and guava trees
Twining creepers with globular passion fruits
Bushy plants of sweet and sour berries
Rose apples, papayas and Chinese limes
An epitome of country abundance!

In front of the house was once a stretch of fields
Lush and fresh with paddy plants in June
And in autumn, bent with arching sheaves of corn
Green parakeets used to come from far
To eat the grains ready to be reaped
Having their fill they would fly westward in flocks
Such scenes were a source of instant delight

But sad enough, those fields were gradually filled
In place of paddy and other seasonal crops
Industrial units, big and small have emerged
By degrees, the quiet and coolness of the place
That once soothed our frayed nerves are gone
Now an exodus of men have landed here
Laborers who have come from Northern states
To eke out a living in a better clime
Speaking languages, Bengali, Hindi and Tamil
Leaving the area noisy with incessant chatter

Along the road that runs parallel to our house
Now speeds past, motors in unbroken row
Honking horns and raising a screen of smoky dust
Spoiling the ambiance of our verdant setting
And badly impairing the neat surroundings
But with every change of scene and setting
We, like nomads cannot change our stay or dwelling

Well acclimatized to all noise and commotion
We now stick to our home, our humble haven
And strive to create within an inner landscape
Not polluted by the ravages of time or clime

Home is the sanctuary where we roost and rest
A sweet dwelling, more than all mansions blest
And it should be an abode of love where hearts embrace
Every turn of life, grim or merry with no fuss but with grace

How sweet it is to dwell beneath this roof
Our wedded life’s enduring love’s living proof!

Under the banyan few bamboo stalls
Baskets of garden’s produce
Whiff of fresh fish from fishing trawls
Buyers the sellers amuse.

Brinjals and pumpkins papayas and gourds
Small catch from neighborly streams
With buy and sell exchange few words
Alike a sketch seen in dreams.

Small things small price wish don’t soar high
A few coins to relieve bowel’s pain
Will do enough to let the hopes fly
No need for too hard bargain.

Will be left behind not all will be sold
The fragrance of freshness will stale
They won’t rue hearts of true gold
Having learned this hard fact too well.

Some hours spent when shadows grow dark
Sun decides to recline in west
Wind up they all under moon’s arc
Happy souls homebound for rest.

Sighs the banyan long standing witness
Pains it the quietude of stars
Holds it through dark watches endless
Coming and going of pedlars.

En un mundo de cristal que no puede ser roto,
Monstruos muestran amor y
el heroe consigue enfermo.
El mundo al reves y
comio un arco de iris,
El predicador pidió por una Dos Equis.
Fui buscando por algo que
no puedo recordar,
Pero yo se que es algo que
nunca yo he visto.
En mi camino un hombre viejo
me detuvo,
y dijo,
HIJO. Ven conmigo!
Asi, yo fui.
Todavia no puedo recordar,
Algo sobre los duraznos en las playas,
o tal vez eran papayas,
Pero nos encontramos un fuego
que nos mantuvo frio.
Durante el noche el sol
herido mis ojos,
y a la vez yo recordé todo
que yo sabe.

hurling sherpa into the Sun on a rainy day can open your mind
and your children will wander off from your womb... into the next room.
it's the little things that **** you. and the invisible that redeems.
peeling papayas in a prison is still fruit of the doomed.
if you wish to be free -
i suggest you leave
The Pit.

watch out for Mangoes.

I was lost in the Bermuda triangle
It was like Egypt in a sea of flesh
the great pyramid
******* in all surrounding life
A tilted triangle I thought
circumscribed around your hunger
but you knew my weakness
Told me it was a fig
fresh
succulent
sweet
so I bit into its sweetness
leaving my smile on your thighs
Told me it was a grapefruit
You were right
I bent down and tasted it
pink
juicy
kind of sweet
kind of ****
I ate every section
lingering
around the center
with my tongue
There were tremors in your skin
as I swallowed your body
as you swallowed my hardness
as your body
swallowed the milk of my trembling
I came to Egypt
I came in the great pyramid
between sky and sand
The Pharaohs were waiting for us
You were waiting for me
I visited the pyramids in Mexico
and was jungled in
like green-iguana-slowness
like Asian fever
sweet and sweaty
swollen like an anaconda
moving in and out
digesting the heat of a fresh ****
In Sudan, the Saharan winds
shatter the pyramids into pieces
I lick their dryness like a cat its fur
let the heat burn my bowels
Now there are tremors on my skin
I exhale breath of wet fire into your lips
and rain down upon your body
like night crashing into the surf
like sweat pouring into the sea
like sand screaming into the wind
I even became the wind
so as to enter every part of your smoothness
slipping past even your seditious skin
The wind has no mercy

We draw shapes in the morning light
with our naked bodies
while only the birds cover us
with their fluttering wings
made of the down
of your brown belly
I tasted that too
like Indian velvet
like a Bahian feast of papayas
maracaja and guarana
Da danca do mar
In Brazil the sensuous sun seeps
into the scorched sand where our form was
and cuts through the hot flesh of the earth

To the center
where all desire has fused
has seeped through the surface

To the center
where my mouth burns from wanting

To the center
where your wetness burns my tongue

To the center
Your center

I
Will
Return

tropical delight
seeds are very nutritious
low-fat papayas

Es pingüino, langitud y costa pacífica y pelo color rojo, terrones descriptivos y mujeres en círculos verdes obstáculos en la mente. Sandías hermosas grandes y chicas, sin pepas con pepas, koltrane, papayas descriptivas sin árboles, era raro quitarse el casco al meditar.

I watched
As you peeled your layers back
Enough for me to see
The ripening fruit underneath
Enough, for me to love
The seeds that spring forth
At the mention of growth.

I watch
As you grow
As you break shell of seed
And peak of dirt
To kiss the air
As gently as ever

chimpanzees
climb
the
tall skinny trees
to nibble
on
papayas
then
spit out
the seeds
that
descend
to
the ground
near
the
edge of the forest
without a sound

Bring on the cherries
Scrumptious nectarines
Blueberries, Strawberries and Berries period
Mangos, Papayas, Star fruit and Grapes
Melons and Fresh fish
The Farmers markets are so much fun with recipe ideas
So many to choose from
Almond flour always at the ready in the frig
Wonderful nuts and salads to make
Been cooking since I was a little girl
This is always a great time and the freezer will be stocked when glorious Summer takes her leave
Summer Fruit
Celebrate

C@rainbowchaser 2023