Category: Poem

My mother’s ancient dreams sit heavy on my tongue
her guileless disposition
the way she moves about like a child
a credulous animated character
Her wistful smile at my burning passion for literature
Her childhood that ceases to exist
giving up on her ambition because he said so with an evil shrug
still desperately yearning for it decades later
and she staggers away
head bowed with woe
Caring for far too many men in her adolescence she seldom hears from in her dotage
In my dreams my mother is free
in my dreams my mother is unmarried
in my dreams I do not exist

The door isn’t wide enough

I moved into this house long ago
The neighbors change every year
Through my two windows I see them clear
Each paints and polishes homes pristine
Each a different color
Vibrant reds, deep blues
A dizzying array of hues
my house is Dull

Their skies are sunny and serene
mine is filled with smoke
my fire roars all day and night
I never learned to put it out
so I sit and bake

my foundation is crumbling
everyday it shakes
it used to knock me over
I’m accustomed to it now

my curtains are unsightly
but they are the only ones I own
better than to let my neighbors see me

my two windows are foggy
the sunlight dissipates through them

if I could I’d leave
I wonder if my neighbors would grieve
But no matter how much I squeeze

The door isn’t wide enough

Oh, to be a gremlin child again.
Unruly and bright,
and hot to the touch.
Covered in grass stains and scrapes.
Hair unbrushed
with daisies in the knots.
With no concept of my own physicality.
Halfway up the tree in the front yard
and eating an apple around a missing tooth.
Getting scolded for ruining my Sunday best
which I wear to pray to a God I don’t believe in
for the sake of my mother.
To be unabashedly ugly.
To be unashamedly hungry.
To be healthy
and hearty
and lean
and covered in bruises
and filled to the brim with love
and sun-ripe peaches.
To feel time stretch forever,
only flying when I’m reading books
or tripping over my own untied shoelaces.
To love summer once more.
To love life.
Syrupy sweet,
and soft to the touch.

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Like an ocean wave you
crash into my bobbing,
struggling—
barely above water—
Skull,
and send my already tepid existence
into complete tumultuous disarray.
I close my eyes and feel surrounded,
By You.
The weight of fifty atmospheres
force the air from my chest
as I fall deeper,
and deeper,
Below.
Swirling and disoriented,
I’ve now forgotten the storm above
which brought the force of you upon
My Being.
You envelop me and I surrender,
breathing you in,
tasting the salt that composes you
and accepting it as
~intrinsic~
Through my skin, such as a membrane,
energies diffuse and infuse;
osmosis ensues till we equalize,
balancing and becoming
One.
Ceasing to tumble against your currents
and now pulled gently adrift,
all that was cold and trepid
blossoms with the warmth of your
~Kiss~
In this newfound peace I re-emerge,
a serene face dotting the endless ocean
now bathed in warmth and sunlight.
I need not cast a breath that is not of
You,
But the air invades my lungs,
shocking me from our whole—
dividing the preexisting line
straight through the center of my
~Existence~
((creating a me without you))

The sand is warm on my back
and the seagulls dance across
the painted blue sky while you
lap at my body—
a lull,
consoling my perceived loss.

The Color of Helpless

My mother lies in a white hospital
eighteen hours and three gas stops away,
strange fingers manipulating her heart.
What is the color of helpless?

Construction orange maybe
Those fiery diamonds
Casting sparks at your toes,
dance cinder foot, dance.

Not December’s afternoon blue
Blue is the color of round edges,
cats in books, floating above,
going under.

My brother is the color of whiskey bottles,
warm Jim Beam brown.

I hit a deer tonight, in the black.
It jumped into my light,
hurled back into darkness,
jarred by the hip of my pick-up.

a note card propped against it, in ballpoint:
how many are inside?

hannah’s mom unscrews the top after we all take a guess,
scoops out a handful.

my heart, in her mother’s hands, looks terrible enough to ward off the other
girls – unless i’m something else, and my hair is in a ponytail because it’s
comfortable, and i like the air on my neck

my heart, in her mother’s hands, under the light of everything, the kitchen most of all,
twists into knots and back out again, sailor’s ropes,

thunking against the hull of a dinghy and heave-ho’d into brine

hannah’s mom turns to me, her hair, red to the point of rigid, i get
distracted by her hair,

she wears a tank top with a cartoon of a skeleton on it, and she’s heaving the ropes,
and my heart, and the worms, and the hunger,
right into my palms, and it’s

shifting, sectioned and banded and wet with whatever my heart has,
the mucus that keeps it from drying out on the pavement,
all the (other) girls are looking at the holding

and i close my eyes and i’m standing in this really beautiful dress, i mean
i mean really beautiful, almost to squeezing revulsion, and i’m

lifting the hem right up above the mud so i can run like i’m anywhere else

in another body, with stronger legs and tougher nails,
running like fields of clovers, and i can see
every critter shifting with love and cravings (and frankly,

how often do those things differ
in my body, at least?) under my bare feet,
making everything greener

hannah’s mom rolls the mass into her hands again, the whole thing
still buzzing with runner’s high

my heart goes in the jar,
and we all eat frosting off paper plates,
sugar gritting between our teeth

Where is my son?!
Her anguished cries ring aloud,
She wants to beat the man armed with the gun,
But that uncouth behavior is not allowed.

There is a raging storm brewing in her mind,
As any normal parent would expect,
But the feeling in her gut serves to remind,
Of what happens if her reactions go unchecked.

For one misstep, mistake, mispeak,
Will cost her everything, why she’s here to start,
As she does her best to seem docile, not weak,
As that is what they like, soft spoken, tender heart.

So God forbid she lashes out in fear,
Scared as Hell and missing her son,
Because this isn’t home, not a friendly face here,
Not when you’re talking to the man with the gun.

He laughs in her face
He makes racist remarks,
He smiles to abase,
Disregards her claims as farce.

So she sits.

She sits and she waits, helpless in these walls,
She looks around and wonders,
What happened to Jamal.

Then enters her husband,
The white man! Here to save the day,
Without him she is stranded,
Her skin has left no other way.

For no one will admit it’s true.
Not her spouse and not the police,
Racism? That’s ancient “boo,”
Just go ahead, disturb our peace.

So now she’s an aggressor,
Not a scared, confused, and angry mom,
The words in reports make her seem lesser,
Because she failed to sit quiet and calm.

The rest of the movie is pointless.
You know how it’s going to end.
You’ve seen how they treated the mother,
Who lost her own son, her little kid.

The marital problems and shouting,
The childhood stories of how they’re brought up,
Their parental method doubting,
And fighting over who’s more messed up.

But none if it matters.
None of it at all.
Because in the end, their son dies.
Their little boy Jamal.

That is the point, the meaning of this film.
Is that their son was killed.
But the way they were treated was so horribly different,
And not because of anything other than skin.

And this isn’t a systematic issue we can fix with some legislation,
Something we can wave a wand to and reprogram our nation.
It’s something that requires an individual person to reflect within,
And ask if it’s right to judge someone for merely their skin.

The answer might be obvious, but achieving it is harder,
It requires constant working and awareness,
It’s something you must strive for with ardor.

Remember this movie,
About the mother that you saw.
Because she’s real,
And she needs a little love from us all.

Help make this world one where she’s not scared to be scared,
When you can read a newspaper title and not be prepared,
For it to detail how an unarmed black man was shot before his life had begun.

Shot by the man, the man with the gun.

The Next Morning In Fruita

These slabs of feet betray me-
Did coyotes gnaw on them
as I slept?
I smell raw meat and folgers.

I sit, steaming cup in hands,
sore joints licking the heat
in this fracked up town
of dinosaur bones and bike spokes.

The canyons cackle
beyond my motel room,
judging the stranger in my bed.

It’s whorishly hot here-
I grab my ice bucket
arch my back and pour,
soaking my body like Irene
in Flashdance.

Below a dog is tethered to wrought
iron, pulls again and again
desperate for freedom.

He didn’t know what he did was wrong
Forgive him
Allow yourself to heal and move on

He left you in his past,
walked away and never looked back
You stayed and fell to the ground

He is no longer around here anymore
Crumbling into a million pieces
Only now have you learned how to rebuild

He was the one who wasn’t good enough
You have struggled
and always thought it was your fault

He does not deserve your forgiveness
Once in a while he will cross your mind
Walls so tall, your heart is impenetrable

He was the villain in this story
You are the hero
together it forms an epic tale of good and evil

He cannot hear when you cry out for him
Your voice no longer quivers and shakes
On your own two feet you stand tall

Now you must ask,
“Did you forgive yourself?”