The lights are on in your room so tell me
Who's your friend?
And the lights are burning in the little house on east end
And I remembered who I was
And what I came here for
The moon was caught high in the branches of the sycamore

And on my neck I felt the cold wind
And it licked around my ears and it asked me to ask you, yeah
Who's your friend?
And the lights came down over Pomona, blazed again before your front door
The moon was caught high in the branches of the sycamore

Pomona dances among the apple trees
Light-footed through the glowing amber light;
At dusk, kissed by the last rain-drops, the breeze
Begins to sigh, and falls, to sleep the night.

And then pale Cynthia, in silver crowned,
Rises to breathe upon each leaf and flower
Her sacred mists, softly and softly around,
And blesses dreams through many a silent hour.

Bold Helios will wake the sleeping east
And laugh away the magic of the dark;
He sets out daylight as a merry feast
And measures out his work with compass and arc

But later, them, for sweet Pomona’s play
Now celebrates the golden end of day.

Pomona at Play

Pomona dances among the apple trees
Light-footed through the glowing amber light;
At dusk, kissed by the last rain-drops, the breeze
Begins to sigh, and falls, to sleep the night.

And then pale Cynthia, the silver-crowned,
Rises to breathe upon each leaf and flower
Her sacred mists, softly and softly around,
And blesses dreams through many a silent hour.

Bold Helios will wake the sleeping east
And laugh away the magic of the dark;
He sets out daylight as a merry feast
And measures out his work with compass and arc

But later, them, for sweet Pomona’s play
Now celebrates the golden end of day.

crude little wooden idols and aviator shades
the trinkets and the treasures we brought back from the crusades
some guy in an impala shakes his head when he rides by
but i remember when we shared a vision you and i

worked hard to build this altar, we made it earn its keep
the cracks across its surface spiderweb while we're asleep
the sacrificial stains all spreading out and soaking through
but i remembered when we kept it pretty me and you

and high above the water, the eagle spots the fish
and every martyr in this jungle is gonna get his wish

stock shots, stupid stock shots from the pomona mall
set up like unloved icons gathering dust up on the wall
from films no one remembers, they call down silently
but i remember when their names were dear to you and me

pennies on the dollar, everything's gotta go
the things that we can't even give away, i don't wanna know
try to see if secrets burn when you hold them up into the light
i remember when we loved each other day and night

and high above the water, the eagle spots the fish
every martyr in this jungle is gonna get his wish

An Advent Valentine

For, of course, happy Valentine Marie

And now comes Valentine, an autumn gift;
Vertumnus and Pomona thus withdraw
In recognition of the seasonal shift,
Saluting, they, this Advent child in awe.

The pagan year recesses to its close;
The Christian year commences with a child
Born as the second candle softly glows
(Saint Nicholas is happily beguiled).

Her family journeys to Bethlehem,
A little family in a Star-lit night,
And Simeon, perhaps, joins in their hymn,
As they present their love to living Light:

Rare gifts for the Christ Child ‘midst sheep and kine,
And not among the least, His Valentine.

(pretend this is centered) Autumn Leaf

                 for a dear friend who died  in the night

O may her life close like a leaf that falls
And laughs in falling at its happy end
Air-dancing through a sky of Dresden blue
Sun-sliding sideways in a blithesome breeze

Soft-singing in a sweet sinopian sun
Who smiles grandfatherly on each blest leaf
Remembering its spring, and summer too
Pushed from the wood after the last fell frost

To grow from mother-tree and taste the air
In that Apollonian sun of youth
To work and play in Saturnian summer
And then to glow in ripe Pomona’s dusk

In celebration of all life, and then
At last to leap into eternity

I am 15 years old and when my home is too full of rage for me to fit, I squeeze out of the cracked walls so I can meet up with my Black boyfriend in a park across my neighborhood.

This one time in the spring rain he told me he loved me and it felt like magic was real.

I step into a well maintained 1997 conversation van

Watch the conqueror dance across my Brown father’s lips
He turns the key in the ignition and looks at me with the kind of fear I don’t understand
His voice drips inside of my skull like honey or venom

“The world is harder when you’re with them”

I sit in silence because I know that wasn’t a question
and we are late for my dentist appointment anyway

So, I cling to the arm of every Brown lover.

When I’m alone I escape
Google: what is racism
Google: how to not be racist
Google: can Mexicans be racist?

.

I am 8 years old sitting upright in my bed
I pray to a White looking God that he will fix me.

I bargain with him for blue eyes that sit flush against my face
Hair that looks like the girls on TV
Just cut this big, ugly nose off of me, I don’t even need one  

I will do anything
I just want to be normal.

At school, my friend Kaylee tells me that I can’t come to her birthday party because her mom says mutts
aren’t allowed in her house.

A week later there is a new girl in school who speaks Spanish

The teacher sits her next to me. I say hello and apologize with my smile for not knowing the right way to say her name

I understand we are not the same.

.

I am 22 years old and somewhat college educated.
I refuse to apply for any scholarship labeled “Latino” because they aren’t for me.

¡And on my life!
I’m not gong to be just another White girl who claims to be 1/16th Cherokee.

My social justice warrior friends and I all discuss our privileges and oppressions
We map them out in increasingly complex narratives
Lay them on the table like constellations

I learn about White guilt, White fragility

When my Brown father asks what I’m studying, he tries not to scoff.
He owns toilet paper with Barack Obama’s face on it.
He’s a Virgo.

In the summer, I transcend.
My skin never burns like my friends’
Instead, it glistens like predators’ eyes.

“Wow, you actually look Mexican! I hardly recognize this picture of you”

.

I am sitting at the kiosk in the mall where I work.

The wealthy White woman comes up to me and coos over my long dark hair
She grabs a handful for herself 
Marvels, asks where I am really from.

So long as I annunciate clearly, correctly
Answer politely when they ask me
“What are you?”

So long as I remove all of that unsightly black hair that White women never have sprouting from their *******.

No one will ever see the teeth shaped scars on my tongue
I tell myself I am “protector”

.

I am 27 years old and living in the Whitest city in the universe.



My coworkers invite me to join the POC affinity group
POC means Person of Color
My POC-ness fits me like an expensive gift two sizes too large



Suddenly, I am alone on an island built of the correct pronunciation of Chorizo
But I’m vegan now so I buy the expensive soy kind from Trader Joe’s

.

On a dating app,
A Black man from somewhere else breaks the ice
“FINALLY! It’s so lovely to meet you. Really, it is just such a lovely thing to know you. Wow. Hello. I can never find POC around here!”

I explain to him I am an imposter.

He is a very sweet man, touches my cheek
“We are people of the sun, and we are beautiful”

I only remember this moment when I am too high.
Is this feeling guilt, or fragility?

.

After an exhausting holiday season,
I sit in front of my expensive laptop reading an email,
But in my mind I am in the heart of downtown LA in 1989


He must have run from the top of the tower of LA fitness on his last day of
Working for The Man in an impressive office
Making good money
Having something to show for himself

A flurry of gray suits and flying papers
Anything for a chance to meet The Greatest

When Muhammad Ali met my Brown father
And saw the photograph freshly removed from it’s frame
Of a young Black man sitting upon a jewel encrusted throne
Eyes fixed to the future somewhere

When he tells the story, he says that Ali smiled
Exhaled a chuckle  
“Well, I’ll be dammed. Is that me?”

My Brown father keeps this treasure away somewhere safe
So he can look upon it
While he sits at home in his White neighborhood
With White carpet
That he will always walk on with his shoes.
.
I like to think he feels powerful, my Brown father,
When he sees a king that reminds him of himself.
Someone who learned how to channel all of his rage
And never lose his affinity for butterflies

The email reads:

Howdy,
I don’t remember if I have sent this to you. Regardless, you should save this interview. I know that Ali was the "Greatest", even though I didn't like everything he did or said.  Much like John Lennon. Told it like it is, both of them! These two are iconic. I am extremely happy to have had these two in my life. I hope you enjoy

Peace, Love,
Dad

Attached, he includes a video of a television interview recorded in the year 1971.

“Why is everything White?”

“Do we go to heaven, too?”

.
I’m walking through my grandmother’s neighborhood deep in East LA.
A concrete safari
Where safety looks like pointy steel bars across every window.

This is the street my Brown father was caught playing with cherry bombs
And then beaten.

The rose bushes in the back yard have lived here for decades.
If they could eat, they would have been fed handmade tortillas up until the day they started to sell the pre-made ones in the store.

Grandpa, why do we call her Grandma Melon?
Because when I ask to kiss her, she says ‘Oh, honey do!’
It’s quite the crowd pleaser, everyone laughs because we came here to get along

But I like her real name so in my mind I call her Magdalena.

In this neighborhood, Tia Rita, Tia Lola, and Grandma like to go to bingo together
And get their hair done
And watch old westerns where the White man always saves the girl in the end.

Later we will go to Omana’s in Pomona where my cousin Jason swears that one day he found a human knuckle in his carnitas.

Half of us believe him, but we order another round anyways because we know it’s the best taqueria this side of the 10.

Just up the road is a building where young Brown men go to enlist
So they might escape neighborhoods with so many cracked walls.

My Brown father was sent to Texas
Looked White men straight in their red, swollen faces
“You ain’t White, you ain’t right boy”
But that was a long time ago.

After lunch, he reminds me why he left this place
“The traffic is *******, the noise”
Besides, nothing quells violence inside of us quite like the trees and rivers back home.


But, Dad, I am White, right?

.

When I see my White mother my heart swells with love.

Who taught her to laugh like that?
With all of her teeth and joy

She wishes she knew how to give me a quinceanera
or what to do with my unruly hair.

Neither of us know, really, so every Christmas she buys me something to burn my hair into submission.

I stopped using them a few years ago, now
But they have a forever home in the back of my linen closet
Just in case

When my Brown father tells me he sees a goodness in her
I taste each homemade birthday cake
And agree

In my Brown father’s mind he is “protector”
After all, what more could he have given me than an easier life?

.

It’s Sunday morning in the year 2002.
Dad made us eggs and hot dogs and perfect toast

Our house is always filled with music

When no-one is around to see
He will sit in his chair
Listen to John Lennon

He will tell me that no man is perfect
But that all you need is love

It always makes me laugh

I see my father in everyone.

Leachaion I:                                    Venus' Mop
Venus' mop is the skull of the Leachaion church. The African church money to be put away for Corinthian vessels of all models here. "Venus is a little higher at the end and tells us that 1 ... Peirene Temple as a matter of Euripides bath is something that does not accord with the Acrocorinthus, 1 ... and 1 would have lost 1 holiday, there are some things that, however, was to the core of these, a corset gods move to the Corinthians, "which is synonymous with any more deleted many of the Saints. Akrocorinth to destroy the world. 1 would Akkkeriina seems especially built for the assembly to be Akrokorinth-Akrokorinth coins and weapons were placed Venus Pomona football is. there is no need for him. His Sisyphi marble and Asopus when they arrived at the house, was a gift. But since the system CE, just as St. Paul is spreading the faith on his own Friday in the upper part of the church and most of the fact that the consequence of which 1 wrote a letter to the church: 64: 1: 64; 64: 64: 64: 2 except that the religion of the Stefan does not produce the ruins of the church, which is the fifth in the history of Acrolentiginous to Corinth, there was a 40 angle GBH 240 when the Romans sacked Corinth, new products, one kilometer from the T 26 City 2 1.900 m 10 m 2 23 - 2377 - a (5) 3.10 33 37 (9) 2 hours, 10 minutes NC 10 minutes 51 270 7) after the war 20 Little Apollo 50, 50 minutes and 50 minutes, 64; 64, 70): 2240141400 love (13) 0.240 2 140 (8) 900 Hitloc Corporation, 12.2, 50.50, 7, 7 km / 2600-9 April 1, and prostitutes played for four and 50 minutes x 5 - (8) 50 cell daughters 507 (8), 507 (1790) 1900 1950 8:40 (80) 40, 200, 0, 10 minutes, 50 hours, 5 minutes, 1964 411 musicians, 20 mi N min, 10 min, 1:10:50 50, 50, 50? 50 minutes and 6: 1000 (2) 50, 50, 50, 50 and 50) 261 (27) - 800) 1000 2 00 64 lives since Apollo GL: 400mg / 26 pages 1600 - April 2, 1964 in California, United States Brazil, 3:50, 50, 50, 50, 70, 50 minutes, WS2) 3366 (64) 964 64 64 64 117 degrees to 240 bar, 50 minutes, 21 October 1964 1600 964 1240 1964 if there are some units which 2000 (26) 377 search 240 g, 2, 2, 2) 900 100 minutes together! ! ! ! Of April 1 to 50, 3:50 Brazil, 50, 50, 50 and 70 minutes (5), California, 50:50 to 50:50 (50) 2 hours, 64 minutes and 12,270 prostitutes supports soldier. Nature 377, 3, 8-33) 900-8) American women, and old white male at 1,964 miles per hour 3 years 50hg 896 391: 2600 9 (50) 250 m / 1g-7HG 8 hours, 12 musical instruments; and his mother and the other race of the day and night, green and black girls from Africa, the Progressive three black waters of Europe, Asia and Russia. Blood flow in the Italian colors of the Italian colors. George gave him his self-proclaimed favorite songs. But the Greek is cool blue and yellow. The pure silver. On July until the end of the eleventh year of my life; Kenya is in the northern sky. In the shadow of the house and the furniture of *** with a dead saint in the suburbs. Drinking red wine. It is an area of ​​SA and booked by phone. What is popular in gardens. In fact, the heat and fingers to the core and to him: "If you trust yourself not to B on Igor's list. Acrocorinth Temple was a temple dedicated to the Venetian old female sacrasti." The Corinthilis major services are provided by six prostitutes and their assistants.

Crude little wooden idols
And aviator shades
The trinkets and the treasures we
brought back from the Crusades
Some guy in an Impala shakes his
head when he rides by
But I remember when we shared
a vision, you and I

Worked hard to build this altar
We made it earn its keep
The cracks across its surface
spiderweb while we're asleep
The sacrificial stains all
spreading out and soaking through
But I remember when
we kept it pretty, me and you

And high above the water
The eagle spots the fish
Every martyr in this jungle
Is gonna get his wish

Stock shots stupid stock shots
From the Pomona mall
Set up like unloved icons
gathering dust up on the wall
From films no one remembers
They call down silently
But I remember when their names
were dear to you and me
Yeah

Pennies on the dollar
Everything's gotta go
The things that we
can't even give away
I don't wanna know
Try to see if secrets burn when
you hold them up into the light
I remember when we loved
each other day and night

And high above the water
The eagle spots the fish
Every martyr in this jungle
Is gonna get his wish