A time to speak up
Think of it
Not
As punctuation,
But rather
Dialect, decorated
By accented diacritical marks.
If I speak in such
A manner that’s averse
To the way your words wander,
Perhaps you should listen
To how variations
Play across our story:
Resistance exists
Along the blade
Of consonant’s hiss and click.
As the oldest god
Has whispered before:
The word changes the world.
(December 20, 2017)
by
Unless a care be taken to repair,
happiness is a tenuous lacework,
fragile and personal; the past
and present knot, like fate,
into seemingly intricate patterns
where one thread, time-worn
or simply stressed, snaps,
and the whole unravels into dust.
It comes to a question of hugs
or hurts, as if the two could easily
divide along traceable fault lines,
rather than entwine like caduceus.
I am conflicted as to the intent:
to be wary, or to pretend content.
(August 2, 2018)
by
I am not a flower
about to bloom, nor
one whose petals have fallen.
I am not a flower,
nor is this poem
my prurient confession:
I am not a flower
worn like a corsage,
or draped on coffin tops.
I am not defined
like a bridal bouquet
for I am not a flower.
Flowers are more
than what they are;
I am only what I am.
(July 31, 2018)
by
after GBW
My veins are vines—
my arms, branches—
lips, soft moss:
Instead of sorrow,
I sing songs
of wind and rain.
(July 31, 2018)
by
1
the edges are all straight
in a puzzle, unlike a cliff
where the edges are pronounced
suddenly in a fading scream
falling away somewhere below
2
I am a puzzle piece. I try
to fit in, to be a part; yet
every thing’s so inconsequential
when scattered across a table
3
with a gasp, a slow hand grasps
at an edge, desperate like a juggler,
too late, after an errant ball
4
a puzzle piece slips from the table’s
edge, falling unnoticed to the floor
5
a pebble ticks the rock face as it falls
(July 30, 2018)
by
If I hold cliché in my hand
like an apple, will I fall
to its seduction? Dare I bite
the peach, perhaps an avocado,
or pursue the nubile temptress
dancing a bare finger’s tip
out of reach? It’s laughable
to think I might escape it.
The original roots still leach
the metaphor from the soil,
while I root about like a pig
snuffling for elusive truffles.
Each word I speak is mine alone;
each word I speak has been said before.
(July 28, 2018)
by
“I’ll be your mirror”
–Lou Reed
I try to write as I am. Of course,
I could be lying—but that’s the trick,
Isn’t it? To write through the skin
until the pen’s nib scratches dry bone,
until the face I present implodes
into the silence from which it rose.
Even when lies are unintended,
one only knows what one only knows:
the mirror lies as often as not.
(July 27, 2018)
by
to lost friends
The weight of silence
is not the same
as the weight
of absence;
anymore than the weight
of disappearance
can be the same as
the weight of being left.
The weight of forgetting
is much lighter
than the weight
of the forgotten—
for it does not carry the weight
of all that can be remembered.
(July 25, 2018)
by
as in rain
arms out
head back
laughing
only my voice
in the way
I open to silence
(July 23, 2018)
by
–high of 107 at 5pm
a dragonfly hovers
above a grass blade
the cat sleeps beneath
the wilting flowers
cicadas pulse
the periphery
(July 23, 2018)
by
I am talking to myself,
or projections of myself,
when I write these poems
to you. Either way,
the audience is oblivious—
focused on melodrama
with a simple plot
to turn attention
from my intent,
and your distractions.
(July 21, 2018)
by
I love to be loved,
as do you— as do
we all. No one wants
to be free: Trekking
off, boldly alone
through mountain forests,
the romantic cliché
tousling one’s hair.
I like knowing where I am,
to seem competent
in my children’s eyes,
to be myself inside,
a context provided,
a piece to a puzzle.
(July 21, 2018)
the carapaces begin
to fall away
in a clatter
of old consciousness;
I do not know
what will be left
beyond this moment
I walk through
secrets are
an inauspicious
start and must
divulge their hold
on the heart
to transform us all
(July 18, 2018)
by
–Chicago Art Institute, July 13
slow shapes turn about
each other as they turn
together through larger
fluidic constraints
the whole turns slower
partly to the left until
a pause then moves
in a manner to the right
others speaking Japanese
move through the space pause
take a picture and move on
changing the room’s rhythm
which changes the slow shapes’
turn about each other and me
after Lucille Clifton
I wish them disdain
I wish them questions
in a new town
that does not speak their language
I wish them to lose
their beloved stuffed bear
because the dogs can smell
the Rio Grande
Later let them learn humility
as the man’s arrogance
drips condescension
like venom
Let them think they don’t belong
Let them be turned away
(July 11, 2018)
