Embedded

Red sunlight streaks across the morning sky
Wild blood burns love down our veins.

Death dreams
a bare woman faces
as her shadow subsides
where the page drowns in
puddles of black ink.

Fruit blossomed into juicy prickly pears
and flowers bloomed purple-pink feather petals.

We are frayed characters
who shimmer and disappear
in the movement of the day
in the glimpse of a moment.

Quiet moment…
a beat before the words
are written when we are a
mere droplet on a cobweb…
when poets murmur, we
become embedded in the lines.

Middle Noise

A perplexing task
listening to what people are saying
Obstructed by the flotsam
that riddles the grey matter.
Matter seems to be at the heart
of what intrigues me today.
What matters?
Can you see the forest from the trees?
Not right smack in the middle of a lesson.
Not in the middle of a sentence.

Asleep on the couch
Body stretches
length-wise
Limbs spill over.

Randomness of melancholy
thoughts strum the skin
on a city sidewalk

White noise does not touch when
a thin-skin membrane wards
off the onslaught of battering life

Responding

Frida created scaffolds out of bones, metal pins,
fragments of her past to piece herself together.
Careful her soul is showing.
Rub her raw skin down.

Dots of paint make the seascape shimmer
eyes skim the surface, oscillating clarity
Tension created with static environment
across the canvas.

Arcing brushstrokes between the sacred and the profane.

A man placed a wheel at the end of his 6-foot wooden
cross and passed me as he rolled it down the street.

A ten-foot photo of
a subject with hypodermic
needles piercing the length
of his arm in a cross-hatch pattern.
speak only of cold blue
stones and smooth green masks
in our social composure.

Quick-captured glimpses
of color through slotted
views in the subway
tunnel between DeKalb
and the bridge

An artist cuts out holes on large
pieces of cardboard and glues
amoeba-shaped wood
pieces onto it and calls it art.

We have barely survived our history.
Our art is responding…

Wistful Pleasure

Words hang from your shirttail
Stand still while I copy them down
it will only take a moment.

You leashed an I love you note
to the collar of my white shirt
then left behind your scent
on my pillow.

Pull away other-
wise you will see
a drowning in disguise.

A wistful pleasure vision
swirling time in your mouth
in the dying embers of
whispers and laughter.
Water trails create deep
trenches along our skin.

Soft Edges

Sound waves
make the air tremble…
Tumble in a soliloquy
leather tongue rasps
over the course
emissions of soma cravings.

Ebb and flow of a natural state
chains turn to strands
neither bind nor constrict.

In the darkness
the world spirals
into a smoky realm.
Words are wrapped
in soft harmonies

Reaching the ocean
seashells ration out
watery secrets
Not identity, essence.

Northbound

Fast paced steel careening
through dark tunnels
we forget we are carved
from the earth.

He carries three table
legs on the subway car.
Is there a table at home
balanced on one leg waiting
for the rest to arrive?

A young woman wearing indigo
stockings leans against an iron
column flamingo-like.

An older woman is a crimson
rose whose bloom has started
to fade. Her edges are curling
outward into a black silent fury.

He wears his suit in a careless way
the creases have long been pressed
in as he skims his New Yorker magazine.

The train jostles us on our journey
forward…into the darkness, north-
bound. She slumbers
against the wall, her lids flutter
with purple eye shadow as
she rests her eyes in a delicious nap.

Paper Thin

A young man walks
the path in a slanted way
His broken body folds
into a near collapse.

A body trembles
in fragmented beats
when paper-thin
slices of emotions
wash over her

A horse’s mane must be reigned in
with tight braids that won’t unravel.

Mami tried to save me
from my creative life
only to find a reply,
written in verse, in
the palms of her hands.

It’s a Portishead kind of moment
a low throbbing bass line
with a high thin voice singing
contrast to shelve the freeze-dried mind.

Red Earth

Crescent moon, red earth, fading light…
Hands of the ancestors extend in supplication
reach for the offerings of wildflowers and forget-me-nots.

Dia de los muertos…
exhume the memories.
To honor the dead: burn tobacco
pour shots of tequila
burn incense
have their names on lips
and remember
and remember
and remember
then release them

How do you show your respect?

A simple impulse to cut into the earth.

Melancholy words
tender contacts with experiences.
not static…instead it churns up
the next moment with or without us.

Burning Dawn

The coming rains quench
a taste of ashes when
wild flames expire.

A wave of longing
as strong as dark matter.

A vast sigh echoes across the ocean.

Ephemeral being
barely casts a shadow.

Your thoughts wander past your clit
and create combustible words
that tumble out and set
the landscape on fire.

October Day

A warm wind blows across
October and skirts
the fringes of senses
reminds me of a falling
day tasting the edges.

A young Japanese girl holds her grandfather’s
hand as she walks backwards
examining the world with trickster eyes.

Earth Tide Rising

Pretend to be human,
to be someone forming
in purple ink against
the night sky that
wore a full moon
around her neck.

Fold into the signal, blink in Morse code
decipher the message, text it instead,
flip the meaning upside down

Disembodied writer and myself dissipating.
Wild woods open their branched
path when the internal suffers.

She bites a ripe mango
tastes like the melting sun
as juice runs down
the sides of her mouth.
Exquisite kiss.

Autumn

Autumn leaves create damp
brown etchings on white concrete.

Weeping willows without leaves
look naked and defenseless.

Leaves float onto the subway platform
brilliant hues rain down upon us.

Bare branches warrant
a climb high above
the ground to build tree-houses.

A hawk on a high branch
watches and waits.

Heavy skies blossom
sheets of rain that
obscure the woods
and pound the earth
leaving behind gaping holes.