Poetry

We want fires that burn. Poems that hurt. Words that are so painstakingly blunt they break barriers. People that are so honest it brings others to their knees. Eventually, they will beg and they will plead. “Please end your statement with a period and not a dagger.”

The painted buntings used to pair among the fractured feelings neither bunting nor feeling, came to assist their harvest what was settled among the field, a Hairy bear (one that laughed) slinked in from the wilderness

Three boys, bare-backed, draped elbows over a life raft. It was a spring mid-day. A fourth propelled himself into the air drew up his knees to his chest and cracked the surface, causing his friends to shake their heads and dab at their eyes.

I wish you would take the time you need. Enter and enter again until clarity comes and you leave with all the answers. We talk of the weather to avoid talk of the things that matter,

What’s New, What’s Left I keep stray hairs, those golden lines pulled by comb and air before you question my disease, my battle and bait that I cannot shed.

If This is Love you love me like a getaway car/an extra foot of rope/the single phone call/a life jacket/what i mean
is/you love the way that i am/always ready to save you/that i will get my hands dirty               knees
bloodied         everything bruised/so you don’t have too/i don’t ask what you are willing to do for
me

3^rd Floor Up The days started
getting slower and faster simultaneously.
And I lost interest.
But at the same time,
they raced and I couldn’t see them pass.

Landscape You can’t trust what you see
in the mottled blue and violet
around a black eye.
Real monsters are the ones
we don’t recognize at first.

Brotherly Love We start out soft as Egyptian sheets – boys,
then we manufacture into men. Notice how the word
men, sounds harder, stiffened by our insides churning
to stone as we grow.

Failed her I failed
her. Was not
good enough because
no one can ever be
good enough to carry
the burdens of the
dying on their backs, to
be blessed with the
baggage of existential
emotion that makes life so
sweet as to make it unbearable

Yo-Yo Epic refereed over-the-moon contests were sponsored by Duncan Toys Inc outside the best local movie theater where we saw twenty-five cartoons for a quarter. Plus the raffle winner with the luckiest ticket got to bring a box of chocolates home to mother.

The Luminous Mysteries For the better part of an hour, I sit in an examination room, my nose dripping onto the butcher paper, having feigned interest in the fake breast handed to me by a doctor at this urgent care.

A Broken Hearted Orange The orange on the counter is no longer an orange, It can no longer be used for its nutritious value, For all I see is a sunset peeling atop the skyscrapers in the city. It can no longer smell like fresh citrus, For the sound of sweet jazz music fills the room. The orange can no longer be just an orange, Because of you—

Performer He stood adjusting on the small white pedestal Waiting for the lamb eyed crowd to bend their knees and soften Their breath. Looking out he weighed the gold that was still heavy in his heart, Felt its warmth in his palm as he prepared to cast it into the shining sea.

Sea Memories The red fish dangles Among a set of pictures Stuck to a wall with tape Which won’t stick for too long The photos depict sea nomads In a generation’s past When fish was abundant And boats were still scarce

Reflection Under Yellow Sky Sitting at a counter in the stoplight diner, I stared out the window, you staring back at me. The traffic had travelled down FM 202, Leaving the road dusty, chaff-filled After the thresher had fed. Only you kept me company.

Hearing I You sit in a dimly lit courtroom facing Maat. Her veiled face tilts downward at an oak board with etchings that you can’t make out. Shadows slither in the room, shuffling into position but you can’t see them; the spotlight is only on her and you.

Hidden Nature Heraclitus said, “Nature likes to hide itself.” At the heavy sound of human feet, Chipmunks scurry for leafy cover, While snails recoil and pretend not to be home, And moles find refuge beneath the sod.

Thoughts My Morning Coffee Stirs I believe in the strength of the first sip of coffee and the rickety leg on the chair at the table. I believe her tattooed shoulder, against my tattooed thigh never altered the planet’s arch, nor the speed cancer grows on a kidney, nor how many children will be cold tonight as they sleep.

All My Exes Hate Me it’s a big gross world and i don’t know what it wants from me close my eyes listen to lo-fi remixes of brazilian disco hits beats hit like waves and everything smells so salty i am so damn salty

Exhuming Luigi God, we were drunk the night we exhumed your ferret from the dirt in the grounds of your old school. We drank mudslides and white russians until the bartender dimmed the lights and put all the stools but ours on the bar, the chairs on the tables. Stumbling into the cold, on a chorus of “Life’s Been Good” and “Marian the Librarian,” thinking what a good idea it would be to dig some bones from the dirt.

I Am My Own Savior Somedays I take my pills gladly, with hope and juice to wash it down, and other days I glare at them until they get caught in my throat and I hate myself for feeling like they’ve failed me already. Somedays it’s 85 degrees in Phoenix but I’m caught under feet of suffocating snow with no one to pour salt on my flailing body, like drowning all over again, but so weighted and cold I’m dragged to the earth’s core.

Ode Et. Al. We still pray to the old gods changing of the guard: deity in that solemn face of the ancestors. Help me through [the moon light] We still pray in Quechua, Aymara, Lacandon, et. Al. Affinity –see the shoulder width of those keloids scars on the backs of African slaves [marks the above fight]

Golden Shiraz Everyone here lives in the past In a golden age of bliss Living in our own versions of the past Living in a version of what it all meant Ghosts of what once was Before the revolution Before the loss Before we packed our bags and left Before, before, before When we were all made of gold….