Poem – Page 25 – Poétique

Against

I kissed my opportunity with her
Grabbed her by the waste
And embraced her
I did that right but I didn’t know how to
Follow up to know and trust
That she felt the same
I blushed
I should’ve been stronger
I wasn’t strong enough…

I wasn’t strong enough to hold her
I couldn’t even stand up to
Stop the emotions that
Wanted to kidnap
Our only moment
No star is strong enough
To wish upon

Sanity is worth everything
I’m more awakened
By the absence
Of ignorance

Knit the sweater
Hook the blanket
Weave the security
Into your own fibers
What does it mean
To do it for yourself

Face against the asphalt
No other way to turn
No more tequila
Just the whole self
Completing the sound

Exorcist

An angel with bad news
Draining from her the blood
Of yesterday she was full again
Transfused with healthy blue
Veins no longer poisoned
By possession the trees
Had skulls crying out to let go
At the end of each branch
Scarlet ruddy droplets floating
Of what remained

He sleeps and finds rest as
Her mother takes a break from
Exhausting herself

Exorcist retired

Upstairs he is with his friend
An African descent and aged
Many ancients ago old love
Perhaps of a grandfather
For innumerable years spooning
Held from behind; afraid

Also the occasional
Person would travel
Upstairs which felt like
No privacy to behold
Sleeping on the olive green carpet
By then someone would
Travel into another room
Down the hallway
Eventually he got up
To close the door

Not an apartment
A room in a house
But where?
In his mind
Not of this lifetime
Galatians

Whoever sows to please their flesh
He heard from the walls: flesh will reap
Some form of destruction,
However whoever sows
Seeds to please the Spirit
Cried the ceiling
Is passed from the Spirit and
Beyond will reap eternal life

Falling back to sleep

Bleuté

Shadow runner
Thoughts are half asleep
They are perfectly rested
In the slits of my eyes
No disguise
Inimitable

Why would a mother say
She couldn’t comfort you?

I painted your hair blue
Only on the edges
A little duller than cerulean
Ironed the hair pin straight
Like China dolls

When I came back there were
Bits of blue all over you
I was cleaning the stains
How did it get here?
Over there, everywhere

I was looking for red velvet
Strands of hair like the fabric to
Braid in and you found the orange
Only two bags left in the aisle

All this dressing and beautifying
To make a person feel special

Why would a mother say
She couldn’t comfort you?

Why then a boy
Seeking a woman
To comfort him in a way
His mother didn’t do it?

Going

Holding on too tightly
Insecurity memory loss
Who cares tomorrow
When the gift of no grudge
Comes freely

Let it go
Let it go
Let it go

None of it truly matters
The higher stature
Is the least of worries
He who cares less
Will pass the test

You are not controlled
By unwillfull beliefs
To stick to some other religion
For bearing witness to a thing

Rise above the pit
Think of it as liberation
Free bird

One less thing to mark
Your territory with
Unnecessary quips
And glib that interrupts
A psalm for life

Balmy and courageous
Brave and beautiful
Rise up from the grave
Of your own pertinence

Be exhumed from
The weighted peril
Of mental anguish
And the commentary of
A lower lipped vibration

Let it go
Let it go
Let it go

Song of freedom
Drop the pride
You have nothing to prove
We have nothing to hide

Mudsort

Just let me run off into the night
Where it’s quite and cold
Lost underneath the cover of
A million branches scratching
Against one another
Looking for the answers

My hands are untangled
In a deeper understanding
If all the words and possibilities
That rumble underneath the
Ground of my foolish heart
There is more to be told

Stories in the roots
Wrapped up into a green sofa
For transposing intimacy
An intoxicating puddle of skin
Mesmerized willfully
Nature’s beastly beauty

Footpath on stones
Headstands on gravel
Burning lips and
Apologies for loving the most
Enshrouded at the bellies
Of dark clouds

Pushing through
Undaunted by immeasurable touch

Refusing unrecognizable sound
Drawing outlines with our tongues
In the horizon masked by
Leafless shadows in the trees

Crimson silhouettes
Muddy and wet
Deserving

Maybe it’s a spell

Allô

I dreamed we were going to
A concert together last night
We picked out the perfect jackets
I remembered we were magical together
Joy was effortlessly present

Fulminate my melting heart
In a mirror sparkling deep down
Holding up a garden under the
Ferns of perfect green
Leitmotif of dancing
Perfectly I tremble

Reminiscing about my birth
In her womb perhaps a bird landed
Somewhere in the vicinity
I heard it! Someone knocking outside
Running in the fetus snow
Younger, smaller still
Growing I can feel

Myself getting bigger

It would be easier to forget
What I can’t remember
But I already found a way:
Auto hold on

Brilliant stars
Maybe morning

Lavender sensory
Through the tunneling chamber
I caught the light in my eye
Barely open
Big music little song

Record me crying

Take me to the bank
And wash me clean
I can hear

I have hearing!
Death is understanding

Yesterday I was alive

Marked

Parlay my heart into
A time when I forgot about
Being too much for someone

An hour when my mother didn’t
Call me a user
A morning when my father didn’t
Call me ungrateful

No losers

We all have our damage
But what is in our valise
How do we unpack it?

Don’t accept things as they are
Make them what you see
Kiss it goodbye

Tree reaching for the sky
I see you, I feel your branches
Like tentacles of hope

Earth you can be my mother
Spirit you can be my father
Sky you can be my lover

Am I causing isolation
To gain strength and closing
Myself off to oblivion

Water tank
Dunk me in the light
Target practice

Turning

We’re just taking turns
Going in circles
Ready to manifest out from
Our cocoons of healing
Unbroken start over again
Introductions

Recall the security blanket
If a routine and a method suffice
Hold tight to knowing
The unknowable is
Always there for you

In a foreign land
We feel further away
From our internal land
But closer to who we
Truly are

Look into the eyes
Of someone you hope to
Kiss one day

Look into the eyes
Of a stranger and wonder
Who they will become

Gushing to share
Eager to listen

Where do we get off
And when can we begin?

Mal Voix

I don’t deserve delicious
Self deprecating wishes
I don’t deserve the moon
The sun can turn its face too
I found my father’s touch
Of gloom in my veins
Residuals of pain remanufactured
In me the stress of eternity

Stretching to be better than
The very best of good
I cry to laugh instead of
Remembering the cruel
Cool, cool, cool

Do other humans
Scold themselves or
Overthink to the hilt of difficult
What if you are truly someone
And you still feel like no one

Make champion to the disdain
Exonerate my guilt
The given displeasure of
A childhood I didn’t request
Feel the love spilt over the ground
Of a father who also forgot
About his sons
Drowning in themselves
Or rivers that pull us under
His best whatever that is

I don’t deserve deliciousness
If I am his I am at best nothingness
Like hugs and affection and
Kisses and pardons and wishes
Granted by the sea I am the
User my mama said I am
Ungrateful my father said the
Sky is darker than it was the
Day before there is no lawyer
For self inflicted discontented
Polydactyl internalized sewer like
Sores of contradiction

To be truly honest
The vulnerability forces its way
To the top but at what cost
Broken glass against the skin
Or walk with wounds from
Deep within we carry on…

Hackneyed

She gave me stability
Whether it was right or wrong
Something to hold onto
A thing to fight out
I had no value for turmoil

If I had chosen differently
Would I not want this?
Is my singular existence
Less than what I pictured
For myself then or now?

As I walked forward
The pink sun kept going down
In flashes I could not keep up
I saw her face longer hair here
A spirit guide?
I’m not sure but I wanted to avoid her
Still she came towards me
Not the one that I was looking for

She noticed the fast diving
Pink sun into the sea as well

Then without refrain or warning
Threw her arm around my neck
And we were walking together
Not sure who she would become

Many footsteps first over
A security fence and then down
Down, down into a
Greyhound bus station
We watched a man push a table
Picnic style out into the courtyard
From inside but kept walking

Not our circus
We were still figuring ourselves out

Into the airport and her flight
Was conveniently the same as mine
So I invited her to my friends house
Where we fell asleep together
I awoke to a see her in
A much shorter afro
What a gorgeous shock

When had she time for a haircut!
No matter it looked nice

I found my music equipment and
Decided to play a song
Not long before a band had jumped in
To join me in the living room
But it was over too soon
I was nervous anyway
I play the piano not the guitar
Still I would try
But not before someone
Invited themselves
To take my amps

We started up a game of cards

Frustration settled in soon
When my surprise was my demise
She was leaving as expected
She made new friends
No new news there
And I would be holding back
To ponder and gestate
Feelings of despair

Somehow I knew this
All from the beginning
Standing in the overview
Of a drowning pink sun