November

Stark raving mad red
Leaves at the end of their rope
Screaming "Give us free!"

To: The Mother Who Killed Herself

What drove you to the corn field

      To huddle yourself in a womb of carbon monoxide, forsaking oxygen's teat?  

How stealthy was the Grim Reaper

      As his scythe leveled shriveled ears of corn on a vacant new moon's night?

Did you see your children in the fog

      While Nausea and Hallucination bashed their phalanges on your windshield?

They were dancing like fireflies in the field
      Around the summer-warmth of your heart as if
            Your shining strength would never set before nine
                  As if their tears were as morning dew on your green arms
                        As if their laughter would echo along your loving hills forever

                                                                                                             



                                                                                                                      May it be,

                               

October

Nightly sherbet skies
Plus my skin frosting equals
Conundrum harvest

September

Rain river rain rain
Arranged wedding Irene/Lee
Spring conceived today

911

Hello?

And just about everyone answered
That day
That week
That month

We were married to Death and its far-reaching ashen arms
But the sultry honeymoon phase ended and we separated
And on our tenth anniversary we are practically divorced
Or at least that's what we tell ourselves to keep on moving
Forward
Forward
Forward

If that's a true motion inside this indifferent ring of existence
Of Life
Of Death
Of Earth growing older and more irritable daily daily shifting souls from one plane to the next

Under

The covers we used to
Share secrets and stories of the day
At night with a flashlight illuminating an otherwise dark room

Huddled

So close we used to
Take our little angels and our little devils
Off our shoulders and place them atop the bedposts ready

To fight

As if they were G.I. Joes
Keeping watch over monsters under the bed
And inside the closet until our flashlight battery died and we

Separated

And grabbed our rights
Standing next to our wrongs and began to run
Around the room as monsters under a spell of disillusionment

Irene

The waves grew like treesThe trees bent like waves

The crickets chirped like birdsThe birds hopped like crickets

On tree limbs that struggled to praise through relentless waves of rainAwaiting the inevitable auspicious aurora



Everything is connectedIam still alive

Split Infinitive

It was 4:57 on the morning of August 16th, 2011 when my mother called through my door that the glory of God was coming.  She said it in her sweet suggestive voice of my older years as opposed to her all-out admonishing voice of my younger years, so I knew not how to heed her - especially since it was still pitch-black outside.  And yet as I sauntered downstairs into the kitchen, from the easternmost window there came a soft, yet resounding Latin chorus accompanied by a soft sunrise with midday intensity.  

The chorus grew louder and louder and yet more peaceful until I awoke at 3:57 on the morning of August 16th, 2011, convicted to the core, bemused as a butt-ass black boy in the garden of a white man's Eden.  God-damned knowledge wrestled with mind, body, and soul for ten minutes as I remained immobilized and prostrate on my bed. To be or to not be? The immortal question. The eternal split.  My sinuses flared softly and I cried behind my eyes.  I cried behind my eyes.  I cried behind my eyes.  

August

I dreamt of cool air,
short sun, and multicolored
coats.  Damn you, Joseph.

Suicidal

Once you say it's over


A jingle; a jinx; an Iberian Lynx


Prancing, running towards extinction


Beyond correction, introspection, and predilection


Out of medication and over your head over the rainbow No


where? Somewhere skies are blue and your box of Lucky Charms is new.

July

Of independence   

Of breathing without a nose

Skyscrapers to shores

3 AM

Words with friends linger
Pitch black sky copper street lamp
List my love for you

Aurora

World is for the birds
Hover the beach and rooftop
Wind beneath our wings

June

All is in bloom now
Black-Eyed Susans attract bugs
I flick you - fuck you

Departure

The solemn, solitary yellow lamp shines on the aquamarine casket as the sun shines on the Atlantic Ocean 

Smiling and looking forty years younger, she floats peacefully amongst a bed of flowery corals

Men women and children come from far and wide, docking their ships and holding their heads at half mast  

She's given so much for the taking, making them pirates, whose time it is to give back, to let go

***

She's sinking now, fully submerged by the ocean, on her way towards the unknown, the dreamt-of :

Atlantis

Remembered forever and forgotten daily

May

I please live my life?

Loved or loathed - ambiguous

A dandelion

Closer

She looked like she was already gone with white sheets concealing her whole body except for her head which was a mask of Frederick Douglass' hair and Dizzy Gillespie's cheeks

And yet when she opened her one-toothed mouth to let out a shrill sequence of inaudible screams she resembled the cover of “In the Court of the Crimson King”

She wasn't herself

Still in her delirium she recognized my face amidst a patchwork infinity as if I was a black tree in a far-away forest as she fell further and further from Angel Falls as a decomposing mist closer and closer minute by minute approaching the River Permanence  

Playground

We grew up together, played with each other in the sand right next to the slide. That was dangerous, I suppose.

No. No more than when I watched Travis push you on the swing – higher and higher as if you were going somewhere, while in reality he was just pushing you away.

Nick wasn't any better with you on the monkey-bars, always running before you while you hung on for dear life, your hands aching and chaffing with a misplaced pious patience as your legs dangled above a mulch-covered tomb. Always running before you, always the cheater.

And after all that, you settled for Matt, whom I've never seen face to face. The two of you have shared so many ups and downs that I've never seen more than his profile. No walks around the park. No sitting on the bench, gazing into the setting autumn sun. Just see-sawing, jack-knifing, aberrant sexing.

Meanwhile, the sun is setting on your son. I hold him close to me in the twisted tufts of grass, to the right of the slide, across from the dead azaleas, all encircled by mulch. Though his eyes reflect his parent's imbalance, I spy the length of sixteen summers in the horizon. I pray it's enough to protect him from the longest winter.

April

Rain-filled days keep my

Malaise ablaze paradox

Winter's humid haze

Driving through the Dining Room

It seems like yesterday when my sister and I sat in Aunt Barb and Uncle Greg's kitchen, giggling while we peeked at Ms. Jackie and Mr. Greg Jr. on the loveseat in the living room as they lasciviously locked lips behind an outspread newspaper.  It wasn't long before they married and had two gigglers of their own.

It was just yesterday when I saw Greg Jr. in the far corner of Chick-Fil-A while I waited on my #1 with a peppermint shake.  His face was taut, slightly wrinkled, and listless like the obituary section of a rained-on newspaper.  

I looked at him knowingly, both of us stuck in an alternate reality.  No loveseat.  No carpet.  No home-cooked meal.  Hard booths.  Floor tiles.  Plastic trays.  Flower vases at every table - unnecessary garnishes - just like divorce papers. 

Vamos

You have a nice-looking family. Have a pleasant day.




As the ebony man with the lazuline LA Dodgers cap and dark sunglasses saunters up Saint Paul Street, I wonder if his mystique is that of one cool dude or a clairvoyant.

We've always been a nice-looking family, if not always a cohesive one.

    My silence

        Mother and sister's constant bickering and backlash due to their similarities

            Father's silence

        My silence and father's silence

                                                                                  Slammed doors

                 Raised voices

                                                                   The Paddle

                                                                                                          The Bible

    Mother said I stopped smiling when I was six

        Mother said sister and I would be heartbreakers one day

                                                  Father wasn't always quiet with the ivory women

    Mother's tears make me murderous

Sister and I will likely never marry and will kill the family line

But we've stayed together. We wait with others in the rain for the Bolt Bus. Mother stands under the shelter of sister's umbrella so the rain doesn't mingle with her tears. Father's sun-yellow hat keeps him dry. I'm wet and ready to go. But sister is the only one leaving – to Argentina. She wishes to visit as many Spanish-speaking countries as possible while I want to mold this melting pot mess of a country in my hands. We're married to the move. We go and we go and we go.

Hasta luego, little blackbird. Vaya con Dios.