POEMS

Every morning needs a rap song

Every night, a poem

I watched you plant

Row after row after row

And the water was taken

Below below below

I watched you waiting

Watched you wanting it to be here

I watched you unfolding

Holding your end of the prayer

I watched you slowly gather

What your muses came to bring

Watched you shape and mold

And tie and pin and prune

What your being came to be

I watched you kiss

Row after row after row

Then you stood and turned

Hello hello hello

It’s coming out from the void.

It’s coming out from the mother.

It’s coming out from the body.

It’s coming out from the ego.

There is just a distance we have decided is too far

The coming and the from

So we call each other dead.

Instead of still coming.

I carried you before your mother

I carried your mother

I was not concerned about being your equal

I was concerned about you being mine.

I was born female, always growing my insides

But lately, I’ve seen some things I want

I don’t yet know how to carry

And I need to ask you

And I need you to teach me

How to make room by letting go.

His father was gone

While he was growing up

Then he had a son of his own

And said to me, “You would have to shoot me

In the face

To keep me away from my boy.

I don’t know how

He was able to stay away.”

I see

A man content

Like a coin-filled meter

On a lamp-lit street

Walking home

Towards me.

I see

A bell

Awake with a smile

The sun might suggest

Used to be hers.

Before, I was looking

For an emotional twin flame

Two corner-icing flowers

Atop a wedding cake

But, now I see

We are different

Together.

He is disinterested.

His back to my face

And disinterested is a perfect set up

For a primal hunting game

For those who want to work a gun

On the tired and lame and soon-to-be dead.

I only come to gather

Ripe seeds

Flower beaks

My feet loud coming closer

Run crunching leaves

Noise making flesh laugh

His face to my face

Lifting what’s beneath

Undressing ego striptease

Blood bullets

She carries in the swoop of her dress

Like raspberries

There will be hunting.

For one

But it will be the kind

Where the moving will be with everything,

Not just her aim.

There will be a losing.

But it will be the way

Rain loses

Or parents sleep exhausted in hospital chairs

Limp from the giving

And apart from time.

There will be asking.

For two

But it will be the sweet

Longing of a palm or eyelid,

Meeting the distance out there

With an equally distant space from inside.

Not out for revenge

Or smitten by the smell

Of limbs carrying oil in the skin.

Those lovers will sit

On the side of their bed

And consider before moving under

What they will allow to take them

And what they walk back to the outside

Plant your bowl

Then be bored

And brave in what you choose to notice

You’re the union shared

Everything keeps you

Coming back to yourself

If you choose to remember

Everyone dies before their time

Make it no devastation if your wish

Falls asleep before you tonight

There will be times nothing is asked of you

Ask nothing how to be okay with this

There will be times you move

And if you were still enough then, you can move like a hurricane now

Hurling from the ocean floor through waves of pearls, shells and shark teeth

Forget all helpless fears about here and there

Concentrate on that one outward direction

Your heart stepping over every pink dragon

I think you are stronger than you once led yourself to believe

When you were drawing up maps from a young mind

Of what this world should be

Or how you should learn

All is not open to you now

But you have a name

And you can love from far away

Do not get lost in the waiting

You are with you now

Back to the ground

To the pores

To the shore

The mountain ridge fur

The flower pushed

Beneath the dirt up

And now light

Tattooed across your face

My ritual of returning

To the meat of the earth

Inside the western lung

Flying gold sun

Over this glacier of fear

Eddies everywhere

A light bulb sky

With these tiny little hearts

And old brass horns

And big ol’ whys

I see it as this:

We were created,

Or we are doing the creating.

Either way,

Gods are among us.

I am a traveler

I travel people

And I travel heavy

And you, dear ones

Opened your backpacks and mouths

Gave me a piece of your fruit

It was a magnificent time

Whether we traveled like inchworms or sailboats

A spectacular midnight panther

Right in front of me

Stroking it’s own hair with it’s own tongue

The dear ones

The my ones

That were not mine

And I most certainly loved.

I want to give him a good goodbye

But first I have to let go of a good ending

He was more than mean.

He was really sad, too.

I prefer a partner

To a muse

But, I consider myself resourceful

So that will do

I’ve learned how to be lonely

How to be a mother

I’ve learned how to be hungry

Without turning against the hunger

I’ve learned how to be with walls

How to be with yours

I came as a roof

You helped me become a door

I’ve learned when to load the cannon

And how to stay soft

I’ve learned where to dig for root water

And where not

It used to be Air Jordans and hang gliders

Then guitar players and singers

Cue the bicycles and backpacks

Bring me computer 101010100011s

I wanted him

Because he is a writer

And I wanted to write

But now,

I want me

Because that’s the only way to her

It’s ride or ride

There is no die

When I take care of myself

I’ve got deep pockets

In my heart

Full of ketchup packets

And yellow mittens for each of my toes

Everybody knows, everybody knows

Because I hide none of this

I stay aligned

And when you get angry

I watch how different we are.

How much more I was given in this regard

And I’m sad you weren’t.

I clean my side of the street

Baby, I own all the peace

And I ride with the sweetest gang

I’ve decided- again and again

The hurting stays over.

A collection of acorns

Like ordinary, tiny acts

Of odds and ends

In ecosystems

Her teary fins

The joyous masculine

There are such things as union.

So let it be

The Heart of Many Hearts

Cannot fail

At it’s own ending.

No matter how abrupt and cruel

The wind knocked out

Of us.

The door I loved to enter.

If there still is

An opening.

And there is. 

God is

Whatever is

Not afraid

Don’t burn down

All that cannot grow now

And carry ash on your heart

As prophetic, as slow

The wilt to death is

As sad, as lonely

The miscarriage

The truth stands

Without prop or fang or niceties

Or else, it is no truth at all

The lesson, my dear one

You are teaching

Is both the lesson

And the kindness of believing

That the truth can stand

All on its own

But if in your witnessing

The seed digs deeper down, not up,

Cutting into you

Remain safe to them

You can remember:

Yet to be are the groundlings,

Untouched by softer greens.

And how roots need their footing

Gnarled to anchor

Before trusting a dirtless sky.

Your patience will be called

On catastrophic repeat.

I watched you panic

As if you don’t know me.

Wanting others to go

When you needed to be the one to leave

Peaceful release

If you really believe

What you are teaching

As if you are not also being taught

How lonely

You make yourself

Tethered to rain

But worshipping the sun

You must go to other fields

With your eyes

Be still while stretching

Tightening towards the sky

See how humbling and hard change is

When it’s you being asked

To hold steady

When the rake comes down

To till and to turn

Do not tear it out

God is

Whatever is

Not afraid

And therefore sustains

All that cannot yet

I ask you what you ask them:

Become a God

With me

Help me put my pj’s on

Unbraid my heart

Lay me low

Like we are practicing for death

Read stories in animal voices

Tell me what you now know

Today to be true

And put some pretty music on

Pull all of the blankets

Over every bone

Tuck in the light and hold my back

All the way around to my chest

Tell me you love me

Tell me you love

Let’s both give up on wishing

For anyone to be anything they aren’t

Then wait for sleep

To come sleep with us

Warm but not too warm

Breathing each other’s quiet in