Song of Mary
Welcome to Mary’s room where
love’s never been so
black & white
She’s got everything in her books
If you find a blank page then you’ll
have found a lovely light
They go on & on about nothing
Leaf after leaf, like
secrets shed
by rainfed trees
ዋርኮ ዋርኮ
Bearing the earth
ዋርኮ ዋርኮ
Loosens our turf
Cut your teeth on
cinnamon sticks
Turmeric stains,
better run, quick!
Mary’s mind is a gate,
swinging iron, oxidizing
Disheveled roots climb to her
window; persephone’s ivies
Dare you peak over the canopy?
ዋርኮ ዋርኮ
Rhythm; your thread
ዋርኮ ዋርኮ
Shoulders ahead…
Perfect Storm
Please don’t
empty clouds into me.
Rivers run; positive & minus veins
fleeing the sky god.
Eroding the sod & soil to escape Eden.
Containment is not love.
Thunder is not victory.
Stop
tormenting the rain for falling.
Organizing water droplets, as if
rearranging earth for harvest equates sin with
mud.
Beast
Zebra; black with white stripes or
white with black. The question stares
me down on every government leaflet.
Even maple begs me to choose. It forces
a fuzzy metamorphosis
of melanin,
for political reason. I know black is
absolute lack & white is queerness hiding
in daylight. But, nobody needs
« White Pride » to prove the red
queen right. The mind trick, the heart
lifted by decks of cards; stacks of
potential origami.
Lipping ink, the paper pegasus dips
her hooves into dark skies; staining
her intention with Cain sugar.
Thunderstruck,
she sheds ashen foliage. Lightning smiles,
as her cotton children dance, landing atop
the heads of travelers. Dandelion spirits
sprout in the scalp, and the traveler is infected
with his ancestor.
They will carry the seeds of stripes,
join the tribe & recognize
roaring hooves; their herd. The traveler will lay
their knapsack of knowing down,
& set up home in the trampled dirt.
« I know you » nestles into my ears.
I love these lines with the care
of a singe-wingéd beast, too shy to leap
from pages.
Too proud to be defined by
words.
Fair Trade
Folds or tree ring
fingers
Skirting along rigid vertebrae
Chasing palm leaf Wind up doll
leaking ba-ba
in Bali
Brown cherry Roasted
by digestion
Shall we let the sea
swallow our seed
Spillage Shrinkage
in sunlit Jakarta
Finding tourists in
your shit
they sure do love it here
Hey whatever it takes
for that brown skinned
100% Arabica
JJ
“I’m sleeping in a snowbank.”
Medicine for a Pretentious Asshole
You know that prickly feeling?
Your hands and feet weren’t
talking to the rest of your body;
You generate lightning from fingers by
touching someone else;
That shock is
in my chest.
It’s heaviness
from the day.
From the way you, « try
your best. »
And the way I know
I didn’t.
I wish this electric soup
in my stomach
on no one.
We gain no nourishment
from this electric soup
alone.
And, what a silly life to lead;
artist, poet, songwriter; planting
fire, hoping it’ll stop
the human-condition from
catching a cold.
Weaving stories in the night
sky, won’t buy your bread.
Painting what?
Tulips? Chimneys?
You can pick up
as many leaves off
the ground
as you want;
they don’t die when they
come to land.
Palms are a safe place
for you, Fèy.
So, sip the electric soup.
Let the spark wash
your insides; friction is
temporary, but Oh, how it ignites
and reminds of the why.
Why you fall
but don’t die when
you land. Why
your midnight brown
eyes call without a sound.
Why you fit so
purely in a hand.
Why do you get that prickly feeling
in your chest? That ink pen pricking
soft lump of clay?
It’s the spirit flowing back
into your heart. So, sip the soup;
it’s resuscitation; a restart.
You’ll be ok.
_e ther_ -eal – {reframed
i said i can swim well
(
cut to – me; panting and drowning
tasting brine, bitterness, tears
adrenaline deposits in shells
)
i told you i’m adventurous
(
cut to – me on the couch
cringing in my comfort-zone
seas of sheets; unfinished books at my feet
)
i declared my intelligence
(
cut to – me; misspelling “salary”
salarie? Sal- Proto-Indo-European root meaning “salt”
but that’s only hypothetical
)
i said i would _e ther_
(
cut to – me; leaving bread-crumbs
promises for the seagulls
vows are for the birds, after all
)
