a little light

the light breaks me like sunshine through blinds shadow pictures sections of myself illume the marketplace everything is for sale but no one is buying this shit

one time people said look at you, you thing you now the shelves are empty like broken glass the pieces are everywhere

i wander back years ago it was yesterday you old fool the truth met the floor and time slipped away

on the beach now sunburnt and raw hearing the waves stretch and yawn four hundred & one summers today is like yesterday but time moves on

and now the bitter truth we are not whole but pieces like shattered glass cut by the blinds or the broken light

can the will be like glue fusing the past into a present truth but no mistakes should not be mended on the lonely strength of hope

where would we be then

beautiful and broken strewn across this floor a little light shines still

untitled

i am tired but these burdens are understood

despite fatigue my duty is to scream stomp & shout ravage my throat wear my body out

because my inheritance is: carrying weight the world can see but my black friends & neighbors are forever struggling

black & brown burdens are as yet unseen the minute they step outside they, their sons, their daughters could be choked or blown to smithereens

no one asked for this yet this test is for white folks the cost of living for us is a bill for sins our elders refused to pay

if you are white, reading this tired of all the "noise" take a breath and consider all the little boys girls, trans men & women who no longer can

black bodies are dying because of the color of their skin

this is not to say that white lives are free of burdens this is to say that white lives are burden free of race

we do not think about the color of our own face the texture of our hair or how both, in the wrong place could get us killed

i am tired my mind fatigued but i have friends & neighbors whose souls keep bleeding

so I shall stamp, rave & fret demand justice & healing until black lives matter until that no one can forget

sign of the times

there are limits to a thing a body a time

a tree  cannot grow indefinitely oceans cannot gobble land that is dry

there must be borders a defined space things must be who they are

anger at the container serves no one take up space but know your shape

the world is better this way now it bleeds because we pressed too much cut too deep

our limits undefined there is violence and fear between who we were and how we came to be here

we are the ocean that gobbles dry land the tree whose branches and roots viciously expand

we have no limits no body no time

things undefined unrepentant earth cancels

a sign of the times

some morning thoughts (march 19, 2020)

I would like to take just one moment the length of time it takes to write this to celebrate the writing of this

I am not brave nor a hero a pedestrian act but one done in the face of calamity

no one knows the future every ache and pain, cough and sneeze may signal my decline from COVID-19

the world has always belonged to the tiny and simple the meek shall inherit the earth

I did not choose to practice medicine nor devote my life to God such tasks are not for cowards

my gift is my art, such as it is letters into words into clumsy pictures a hasty celebration of the morning

ink on paper and cool coffee to my right in truly remarkable times an unremarkable moment

today seems precious like it is already history pardon my melancholy and tears

am I a fear monger or merely stating facts today I am here tomorrow I may not

bathroom bereavement

whip out my dick and I think of grandpa fuck you this isn’t sexual

piss smells of coffee and fatigue time is heavy like a crown we all go elsewhere alone

at the end was he scared he did see it coming reflection of a freight train

these thoughts dribble spill from my mushroom tip walk toward the sink

in the mirror hello there dick tucked safely in its place it is what it is

the chase always ends hands lathered wash soap away simple as that we are here and then not

the accident

what is achievement but the memory of luck

in these moments living the feeling spirit moved by adulation and pluck of truth

other people see us best but this tide as all tides must ebbs

too soon are we left afloat in an endless ocean

for what are we but drops of water partnered with other drops streaming and desperate to distinguish ourselves from the flood

why is that

we return to the ocean sooner or later

must we all come and go and upon our return desperate to share

the truth is dry cracked we were here only by accident and by accident we shall be sent back

untitled

she is in me small, round, tight old friend heavy on my tongue that fire of chemicals fat bitch of not caring we are older now but she is just as charming

like grains of sand on a beach we two lay here separate with company sheets soaked in sweat sleep and idle chatter thoughts dribble out my ears

we are in it now fat bitch and me the alarm sounds why did i leave her desperation brought her back

fold myself into her thick flesh warm, careless, and suffocating maybe this is how i die on a pillow piled with hopes

warm round pebbles cut my flesh i remember caring

the clock sings an endless song i prefer the short to long

the final cut is breath

lie still

if I lie still like this amongst the tall grass and milkweed that blooms with new life scent and anticipation I might be set free his worn boots and steel toes that scream at me their sharp cuts made today and yesterday red ruinous scabs make my future disappear will his breath like whiskey powerful and addictive ever become a memory if I lie like this half truths and omissions those thick raindrops soak my skin let me lie still for lying still is the only way to forget

Marcus Anders

Marcus Anders posted an advertisement it was not long ran about three lines “middle aged male wish to become a father seeks surrogate” the response was explosive people found a man using a woman’s body repulsive and disgusting threats arrived via post and emails demanding his apology Hadrigan’s Grocery unused to such attention released him immediately the employer could not justify the loss of business many refusing to shop where a rapist worked at his trial the prosecuting attorney entered into evidence a slip of paper written upon it was this: I fear I will be left alone that age and selfishness will of necessity find me huddled one day amidst a small room and bed in a rundown spot where old folks die I will budget by month, and to the penny, my idiosyncratic routines complete with rituals to cleanse and keep this mind supple and luminous as twilight collects round my eyes will I wonder how I let so much slip away in the end Marcus Anders was tried, convicted, and hanged for failure to live up to expectations and flagrant neglect of rules he lies in an unmarked grave a lesson for us all

to my sons and daughters

you are yet dreams sketched in the dark invisible ink on blind canvas

these are my hopes future sons and daughters that I see you strong and wise that I see you follow the courage of your convictions that I see you love deeply and unconditionally that I see you loved deeply and unconditionally that your sleep is sound and untroubled that I see you eschew petty comparison and your future that I see your future filled with joy and air enough to breathe I hope I teach you kindness that this choice is stronger than hate I hope I teach you to overcome the crippling of fear and doubt

but most of all I hope I see you in the flesh more than a dream sketched in the dark

I do not have all the answers no one has all the answers parents are just children grown desperate to figure this shit out

I have made thirty nine trips around the sun this world is a strange one such a distance round a circle should I not have seen it all before yet have I no visions of you

I spoke of fear and doubt these I confess potpourri my air like so much pollen which is to say one cannot breathe but to choke on it of excuses there are plenty but for men there is little sympathy

I hope my breath sustains me to round the sun in circles enough that the running dust might conjure you as God created us a tiny space in your shape

thus far to honor who I think I am you have been absent I fear you may never be my choices choked the future strangled to the width of a hair thin and brittle

it is to this I cling in these quiet spaces of mourning a future full of children’s songs laughter and learning this is why my hopes are strong I want there to be a better me improve the world by a small degree would my hopes not grow to regret amounting to no more than this a quiet space where I have wept

Foxxy Gonad

baby I am no good for this I do better in the dark hunched over a desk furiously pouring out my hidden parts

yes, just like that

please no more powder no more rouge forget it there will be no interview

no one wants to see if they ever did this old crone

anyway

they stopped looking a long time ago this thing that did ... something once

leave me under my rock old things are better left forgot once remembered they become ... something else

trust me darling let your heroes stay lost

yesterday’s news

huddled there in the rain sometimes the lines they flash so quickly across the screen

I forget you were ever there but I remember you or I remember your face I have a thing for faces

lily white charm ease and sunshine and middle country places I have never been

you thought this would be easy the truth is always hard now here you are huddled in a puddle

untitled

these are but the colors of dread heat implausible but present feel its wet upon the skin none of these spirits yet exist the mind a powerful shaman we are dancing to her music yesterday will be for all its cruelty a mistress there to fuck us and hurt us with all that she is not

a mourner’s prayer

the release of sadness creates a space for so long that I had known I do not know this shape the edges announce themselves do not pry the creeping eye never rests let it rest

are we forgotten in this or have we just been found a bad penny thrust into emptiness the sheet balanced who is the accountant

I am not writing anymore this is dreaming til I wake would you prefer your answers solid a thing to hold sorry I released the only true thing I know

the accident

this body of mine there is real madness here a dull throb music on vein and tendon in the knuckle flesh cadences angry violent growing plump and hideous splash purple red notes sirens of the fall recent past glissando the handle bar dirge incessant nervy babble afire akin to lightning violent seas incarnadine pedal foot notes tossing bother onto shores these thoughts drowning humility like bits of a ship pieces of it wash ashore thirty years ago who would have thought now this screech ten inch wheels and hard concrete real bravery is pressing knuckle back into flesh bent at impossible angles a movement of accident the notes could be worse says the angel on my neck dull aches on spine sharps and flats play out toes torn blue and black on this body of mine

men and other unwanted gifts

the boxcar rumbled imperfect tunes from tracks  kept her head from seeing

out of breath her eyes focused on the straw and a still corner figure

the boxcar screamed the old man said you stay I give you something

I don’t want nothing she replied, to which he said all girls get things

and that was the truth

it was not the first time as she lay face down her round face tickled by straw

she knew then this would not be the last something she got

men were giving creatures but they never took back not the way she wanted

the old man’s seed warm and vicious  ran down her leg

with laughter he shambled to his own corner

the boxcar gave no comfort this was the gift men left her with