Permanence

While writing an article detailing 
tombstone thefts in my hometown, 
a poem memorializing a delusional heart 
refusing to accept its fate of 
of solitude found its way onto my screen. 


Death recognizes its own.


I struggle these days not to cave inwards 
while performing menial tasks like listening to 
female voices singing, watching couples staring 
at each other while eating in poorly chosen cafes 
where waitstaff keeps asking if I'll be dining alone 
and shutting my phone off before I attempt to sleep
so I can convince myself the reason it doesn't ring 
isn't because you aren't reaching out to me, 
but because I'm trying to conserve energy.  


Lies told to self save the spirit from dying.


Leaning against the wall in a dimly lit club, 
glass of ice water held by numb fingertips, 
a woman leaned in close enough that the scent 
of her hair spoke promises before she said to me
 "I've seen you before, but been waiting 
for the right moment to speak." 
I opened my mouth to respond, but my breathing
stopped until the choke of your smile released its grip, 
again parted my lips then and replied 
"I'm sorry you wasted your time" 
and took a sip of water. 


The cold was no match for what was within.


I heard that drinking alcohol makes you forget the 
ache of loss, the pain of imagining the one you love
making love to someone new, so I stopped drinking 
wine so I wouldn't be tempted to pretend this is only
temporary like all the times before.


Permanence comforts me these days as nothing else can.

MISUNDERSTOOD PRAYERS

My accent has never been indicative
of the location in which I was raised.

My tone inflections have lead others
to mistake my identity, at times
even my ethnicity, until such
time as they laid eyes upon me.

So perhaps when I prayed,
God didn't recognize my voice,
confused me with someone else
or the droning noise
of a demanding world
discomposed his comprehending,
as it seemed he confused my plea
for a "happy ending," to mean
each time I loved, I would
invariably thank God
it was "happILY
ending."

Certainly God could not have thought
that I prayed for this solitary
existence, that what I desired as
that happiness spanned such a short
amount of time. Or perhaps God
thought he knew my mind better
than me. Though I focus on
introspection, I've never really
got comfortable with myself
internally. So maybe God put
his plan into action rightfully,
without my consent nor my
approval.

Or perchance God didn’t want to
be responsible for my downfall
from grace or wrongfully thought
my heart was invincible, but his
faith in my strength was misplaced,
as I truly am not that strong.

They say you shouldn’t
question God’s plan,
but I confess, sometimes
I wonder if tales of his omnipotence,
failed to take into account that God,
like so many others,
simply didn’t understand
my accent.

ONE PIECE OR TWO

Looked up from the pan of fish
I'd been up frying until nearly 3am
to ask if she wanted one piece or two.
But before I could smile, she said
"I can't stand bitches like you,
thinking we need for you to save us."

I looked down at her two sons,
about the age of my own daughters
and back up to eyes filled with disgust,
trying to diffuse the situation
and asked if she'd prefer to get it herself.
Turned the tongs backwards & reached out,
and she slapped them out of my hand.

"See, that's exactly the shit I mean. You can't
explain yourself so you just pass it back off
to me." So often we are steeped in our
own histories and too consumed by animosity
to eat what's given to us by those
who can't see beyond what they're offering.

I thought to tell her I'd been on the receiving side
of a similar shelter food line, but there are times
when trying to identify serves only to further
divide the lines between yourself and those
who are in need

So rather than turn it back to
a story about me and what I'd been through,
I simply picked back up the tongs and said
"I'm just here to serve you, so ma'am
what will it be, one piece or two?"

She bitingly asked "why can't I have three or four?
Your fat ass planning on taking some of this home
with you?" And I thought to tell her how I'd saved up
money for weeks, went without life's pleasantries,
took food from my own freezer and
cabinets to ensure a shelter with no funds
had enough to feed everyone in the line.

But the point of servitude is not
in attempting to garner the gratitude
of the people in your line,
rather it's to give selfishly and many times
there will come no time for hugs and thanks
no photo opportunities, no warm feeling
from the community that you feel led to help.

So, again, I said "one piece or two,"
as I placed four pieces upon her plate,
whispered to her "now this is just
between me and you" and winked.


She smirked at me and took her time
to move down the line,
before she took her tray
and sat down in the corner
with her two young kings
following closely behind her.

I looked from pan up to
the next woman in line
and asked "one piece or two"
and the line moved on and on.

FOR HANNAH

Oh, Hannah,

Dearest Hannah,

blessed was your fire,

stoked though

feet of eight/

darkened block/

snuffed flame

sealed your

unconscionable fate.

I inhale the soot

which marked the spot

where once your

hands held paper.

Your splintered pencil

wrote of faith and country,

love and purpose.

I choke from the

breadth of their

enmity for you.

The sediment grows thick

with apparitions

for whom vindication

has not come, as

I struggle with breaths

acidic from decades of decay.

I am reduced to travailing,

as my lungs, my heart

digest the stench

of horrors you endured.

I want to mourn for you

with peace and reverence,

but am filled with anger

that young poet so gentle

was made martyr.

They caged you, though could not constrict your spirit,

They beat you, though each hit only served to remind you were still breathing,

They raped you, yet after grown men had torn into your youthful flesh

punishing your temple for simply being Jewish,

You mustered enough strength to stand to your feet…

let your dress gape open to shame them

as you walked the camp bruised and bleeding.

But you faltered only for fleeting moments

Before again taking in hand pencil

To write of blessings and hope,

And when they knew finally

they could not break you…

They stood you without benefit of mercy,

No counsel, no marches,

No chance for reprieve

No final countdown

No media,

As you kneeled

before uniformed soldiers/

shot you like thief,

like vagrant/

young girl at war,

unable to grasp

the impact of your existence.

In those last days of

dolor and muck,

wash and ascendance,

what name did you call

but Mother, Dearest Mother,

what God acknowledged you

Daughter, Faithful Daughter/

no calvary sky darkened/

connect undone/

words not heard,

while execution

fulfilled their plan?

Who came for you,

who came for you

while your Hebrew pen

grew lonesome

for your hand,

did no one think to aide

those decedents

who now grieve

for never having read

what more you had to say?

Who failed to rescue you,

who WAS it, Hannah?

What man lacked humanity

and let your worn shoes

be stripped from

weary ankles,

after you paced in circles,

gazing upwards towards

Adonai and Mother?

Did no one come

while ashen tears

fell upon the

blemished face of man?

Who comes for us all,

when we give life for

mission, exchange

sanctuary for mortuary?

Who will rescue OUR words,

who will hear OUR pleas

for love, for peace,

what name will

WE call, but Mother,

Dearest Mother/

when the soot

fills our lungs and our

pens write no more?

Will no one come, Hannah?

Will no one come

for us as

no one

did for you?

Hannah Senesh [Szenes], (July 17, 1921 – November 7, 1944)

May your soul rest in peace.

RETURNING HOME

On the black wingtips of a plane
flying eastbound in winter,
ice slowly clings to metal.

Storm clouds butting up
against the rudder,
stuttering warnings
of impending doom,
but the lift is not hindered
by the force of nature.

She is returning home.

Tombstone regrets and
posthumous amends,
her twisted thoughts
tangle like her grandmother's
necklaces which gather age
in a manila envelope
under the mattress
of her dying mother's bed.

She mumbles beginnings
of prayers she feels
obligated to speak,
but fails to complete
for lack of faith that God
recognizes her voice
or cares that she
has hours yet to fly
and only minutes to
get there in time.

Intent on delivering
goodbyes and apologies,
she travels homeward
toward the hills where
her bare feet once ran
upon the same clay earth
that soon will be hollowed out
in a pit large enough to
contain both casket
and contrition.

She closes eyes,
tears filling throat
and coating her face
like ice on wing.
She takes breath,
taps right foot slowly
to the rhythm of old song
her Mother often sang
while hanging sheets
and socks on rope clothesline
on August mornings:

"Fly the ocean
in a silver plane,
see the jungle
when it's wet with rain...
just remember
'til you're home again,
you belong to me."

Opens eyes/
overhead light reflecting in
tears which fall slowly like
the large snowflakes
dancing about the plane,
she stares into
the dark expanses
outside her window.

On the black wingtips of a plane
flying eastbound in winter,
ice slowly clings to metal.

Storm clouds butting up
against the rudder,
stuttering warnings
of impending doom,
but the lift is not hindered
by the force of nature.

She is returning home.

1984

It was was 1984.

Sitting Indian style
atop the
middle-of-the-road
hump
on Mainsteet
in small town
Illinois.

I was popping tar
like bubble wrap,
hundreds of
black circles spanning
out like grease spill blisters
under an August sun.

No shoes,
sweat leaving tracks
like spliced wires
upon my gas can red cheeks
and I was
"finding a 100 dollar bill"
happy
in a world
that was mine, alone,
to explore.

August, 1984 was
sheltered and difficult,
poor and filled with
smile inducing objects
like 25 cent bottles of
Orange Crush soda
and Vacation Bible School
and puppy love and
a sip from Bucky's
beer can and thinking
if I were nice, others
would reciprocate.

The ending of
1984 killed these
blissful moments,
slamming reality
into my core
like ribs into
bicycle handlebars,
knocking the wind
out of my lungs,
leaving me heaped
on the side of
that same road,
like the time
Chucky Bryant
picked me up
after wreck,
before he rode my bike
and a crying,
bloody-palmed
girl home.

August 1984
and he was
my temporary
hero
in a leap year
filled with pain.

I needed saved then
from that town,
that road,
that life,
myself.

My sister,
two years younger,
and I laid on the tracks
one afternoon
listening in unison
for the moaning of steel
on steel, of some distant
heaving locomotive.

We never heard that train,
but I can hear that horn
this evening/
two long, one short, one long/
approaching crossroads,
gates lowered,
lights flashing.

Move back girls,
away from tracks
just enough to feel
the breeze of passing
car upon sunburned skin
in August, 1984.

Captain Crunch,
Captain Caveman,
Oh, Captain, my Captain,
Prince and Purple Rain,
all moved me like
freight cars
on hot tracks
on afternoons
when the world
was still mine
for the exploration
in small town,
Illinois
August, 1984.

"Never again will you be capable of ordinary human feeling. Everything will be dead inside you. Never again will you be capable of love, or friendship, or joy of living, or laughter, or curiosity, or courage, or integrity. You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty and then we shall fill you with ourselves."

Orwellian forecast:

August, 1984.

SWALLOW

Has loving ever choked you deep
like swallows of hot cocoa,
burned you from lips to belly,
briefly sweet upon tongue,
then cooling quickly,
making you hate you took in
too much, too soon
yet left you compelled to sip
from yielding cup again
and again?

Each song we loved to
makes me hate walls,
and windows,
and you.

Alone in bed,
heart suffocated by your smile,
I hum in pitch with self-loathing,
and this love still burns me
from lips
to belly.

I hate most mornings
so I cuss the spiteful sun
until it disappears
behind buildings filled
with empty spaces.

I curse the first time I kissed you,
pressed hard against
wooden door.

Some nights I cuss often.

I am not perfect.
I hate these faults
I have adopted,
but they comfort me
when I am tortured.

But I did love you
like waking from nightmares,
like photos of the deceased
reminding us of what we've forgotten,
like laughter,
like touch,
like molten drink.

Swallowed you with abandon
held you gently,
like hot cup in hand
and I know you
remember too,
know you can not forget
the distance
from my mouth
to navel.

That was not love
nor hot drink,
but it did, at times,
quench your thirst.

You cried when the nights
ended too early,
you having pleased me
and I placed my lips
upon your tears.

It lacked the romance
I'd seen in the movies
I've forgotten the plots to.

Just felt empty,
like you drank too much of me,
left me dry.

You wet of lip
and full of my essence,
without thought to refill me.

I told you then of the time
I was 6.

Knelt my scraped,
chubby knees
upon pine needles/
hid from Mother's eyes,
whispered to the ground,

"I want the world to die,"

before I yanked cocoons
from the tree,
like the stanzas I pulled
from the inspiration
of your lips and thighs.

You failed to grasp
the connection of
moments.

COME THIS SEPTEMBER

Six years ago come this September
I gave birth to the youngest of my two daughters.
Angry and fully disgusted,
Depressed and filled with as much self-hatred
As my womb was with child,
I could not at first bring myself to look at her.

She came into the world not crying
Neither could I myself summon tears.
So instead, my sister held my newborn baby
Even as she held her opinions to herself.
I stared blankly out the window
Praying to God that I could soon die
While my sister stood there beside my bed
And cried for us all.

There are secrets women speak not of.
Some hurts we shovel away in holes
We dig with our silence
Until we have buried ourselves
In caskets we never hope to escape from.

Trapped in a darkness only penetrated
By the memories of penetrations
Which leave behind shrapnel in the form
Of new babies we are forced
To nurse like wounds which remind us
Of the battles we've endured and
The wars we could not win
Yet risked our lives and
Spread our limbs in hopes of doing so.

Some six years later,
I have slowly dug myself
Out of that grave
Escaped from the encampment
Of a past I can never change.
Have fought off the mentality
That male dominance is Biblical,
That I should be submissive
And only complain in written words
Upon paper in hidden journals.

But these days I am far from silent
And these days I fear not the truth.
I teach my daughters their options are endless,
So as to prevent the trials I've been through.

Six years ago come this September,
I gave life and birthed forth a change.
Six years ago come this September,
I stopped allowing men over me
To lay claim.

WOMAN

Braided buttered palms around fingered ribs
Internalized the potion I scorned
Faced war with projectile love
And spewed grace out in buckets.

Gripped calloused red lines
Stripped the clock of its hands
Waited without the pomposity
Of demand to an end.

Transcended teachings to absolve
Self.
Patient for the revelation
While kind to the process
Faithful to my essence
So to comfort the blow of truth.

Carried torture in mission
Swollen deep but distended
Hidden by hand shakes and grins.
Decades dark with tunneled transitions.
Gloved with smooth touches
That reaped rewards of failures.

Then testament birthed oneness
Eternity explained with kiss
Pain rid of value.

Admittance of recklessness for not
Having known
Forgiveness but from learning
To live after death of self
Has begun.

Being simply/
Being worn down/
Being open/
Being humbled/
Being taught/
Becoming teacher/
Being child matured
Into this being,
I've become
Woman.

REVELATION

Tossed myself into shards of a lullaby
I never knew the lyrics to.
Hummed the chorus
And cried for a lonesome
I could never verbalize
Yet aptly described
In expressions unseen.
Then rocked myself until
Morning came.

Found that it took drowning,
Body swept away in the undertow,
To swallow just enough
To quench my need for compassion.

Stumbled into a stack of wood
Laughed at the absurdly obvious realization
That perhaps it was just fire
I'd been lacking all along.

Wayside friends lacking names
By which to attach memories to,
But hers, I could never forget.
Neither could I my own.

Misery slept on the pillow next to my own
Interrupting tranquil dreams to remind me
Of the realities of life I ignored
Until I no longer was able to rest easy.

Prodded me until
I found the right person
While traveling the wrong path
Drank the half empty glass
And enjoyed the clarity of
The glass for its beauty
Rather than the utility
Of The Vessel.

If I weren't alive, alone
I would ask
If water always tasted this divine,
Though I know for me,
It just never did.

SINK

I wear a cloak,
of sorts,
woolen -
gray, aged hue
a bit irritating
to pink skin
but warm to me
on frigid morn,
knelt in prayer
for companionship.

I admit
I have
whispered my own name,
eyes closed to
invoke remembrances
of lovers
who spoke it
with lust on lips.

Bodies mauled by
touches,
sunken
and thrown.

Bottled message,
scratched with
broken pencil.
Sweet contents
long since sipped
to ease
the parch of tongue,
but no ocean
to toss
the vessel in.

Filled sink,
cold water,
bottle floats.
I revel at
training
it to swim.

I humor at this,
yet continue
before
I photograph
the foolish scene.
The curves and colors
pleasure me.

Valentine's Day Open Mic

PLEDGE TO OSIRIS

My palms hold within their lines
Maps with directions to find
Pieces of you which to all others are unseen
Preordained to locate 13 parts of the King.

I would use my hands to mend you
My knowledge I would willfully forlend too.
Offer my softness so to ease thoughts which trouble you
My strength sacrificed, yours then imbued.
Give freely of myself to nourish you
Then fall 1000 feet in hopes of being captured within your arms.

Would conquer every fear
Trade in society to be shipwrecked there with you
Like Sheba, I would stand in awe of you
Though never could I depart unto a land
wherein your footsteps did never tread.

And when my days were nearing end
I would pray our love would over death transcend
For the 14th part, to return to you then
Jeopardize my own eternity
Just for one final opportunity
To assuage your thirst
and be submerged
in your presence
once
again.

COLD FORNICATION

A type of madness I'm not keen to,

Crazy never spoke sensation to life.

Thought your smile a pier I could jump from,

Prayed to swim in the depths of you.

Bells splinter nights with incessant tolling,

Solemn mirrors, humbled retractions, tearing down.

Shadows tilt the scales of absolving,

Perplexed, my fingertips know not what to do.

Revelations are the ante denomination, 

Who was I to think to disapprove?

Prolonged exposure face deep in dark waters,

Cold fornication I lustfully dove into.

PALOMAS

Produce withering in the rays of a hot fruit stand, market littered with footsteps of shoppers without coin in hand. He reads the paper.


Hears Jorge García singing Sin Título. Grapples to translate the words, imagines himself into another life. Dreams of loves never had.


Weathered shoes and borrowed time. Rough hands and brown bag aspirations that never transpired. Marvels at the vision of a son with his eyes. Knows better.


No grandchildren to bequeath his stand to, nor dance with to the refrains he sings. Words don't aptly describe hell.


Touched, though never loved. There was one who shared his time, but left with heart and cash in hand. He never missed either.


Dusk settles upon the crates he taps spoon rhythms onto. Eyes water as silhouettes of puerile notions ease out of view.


Knees ache from wartime harms. Melons and mangoes are stored within walls he built with dreams. Plump orange tossed in air before put in pocket.


Theft means little when what is taken, you possess already. Dust upon perspired skin dirties a tattered neckline. Harm isn't done when the hole where heart once was is filled with song.


Lyrics are sung off key in tongues replaced by imagined scenes only.

Tomorrow will come again. And again once more.

CONVERSATION WITH MR. YESTERDAY

You say you miss me, you say you can't stand it,
Dreaming of my kisses, got you shiverin' under blankets
You claim you touch you when recallin' how I work it
But you worked yourself out of this blessing
And now you think just [cuz] you're on my cell midnight confessing
That I would retract my words? Naw baby, you're mistaken.


All that beggin' and pleading, just has me further seeing
You for who you truly are, and though you call me Hollywood
Baby, I ain't no star and I ain't fallin'
For that ish you call "just being real"
Because for real, I'm over it
and over you.

Even though you can't forget my thighs
Or the poetry I whispered to you in the night
I think you should know,
That you’re not the only man that blows up my phone,
Interrupting my artistic maneuvers at night
Begging for another chance,
Because I turned them out like lights.


Left in the dark with no explanation
Shaking their heads in anxious contemplation
So don't think you're special or that I might cave
Our short time together was just another day
On a calendar of my past
I don't remember the specifics
But I know it didn't last
So please, quit dialing those digits.
Here’s a parting gift for you, baby,
It’s a program, now get with it.

COLLOQUIAL TORMENTRY

Much as the argument between repetition and redundancy, If I were to make for myself a mental inventory 
Of the attributes that hold for me the most appeal 
Your characteristics would fail to meet vital criteria  

Yet, 
I feel entranced, 
as though 

you 

have put

a trance on me.  

You fill my senses with participles and pronouns 
Conjunctions of spirits, infinitive as to sound 
Verbal liquor I want to taste, willfully drink down 
Languishing on phrasal flirtations,  
A fusion of two minds, surprised to have found.  

Tone inflections ever linger, as I contemplate how it is 
I could be so enamored with simple adjectives.  
Whispering emotions between strings of font and rhetoric 
Though I try desperately to remain complacent  
I've resolved that it's an action of futility.  

As no matter how many sentences I formulate 
Instructing my heart to keep you at a distance emotionally,  
In the end,  
I still want you desperately. 

The torque of this magnetized poetry  
Has me in the grips of colloquial tormentry 

Yet I must admit,  
that your diction feels 

so

damn 

good to me.

FISHING IN WINTER

Muddy worm held between two fingers
and our giggles carried like the wind across
the pond waters before us.

"If I catch a fish, I'm letting it go,"
I said with mocked defiance to my sister,
two years younger
but older than her days of calendar.

"I can't kill the worm either,
you'll have to do it."

Taking the wriggling thing from me
and laying it out flat in her hand,
we both stared transfixed
as it balled up.

"He wants to be free, I think."
She looked with intent towards the water,
tears in eyes not spilling over.

Shivers from breezes not external shook us both,
as dusk held off
for our decision.

Minutes passed,
while God turned his indulgent gaze
away from us,
though briefly.

Our eyes watched the movement of a turtle
slowly climbing atop a felled sapling.

"We could drown ourselves here
and no one would look for us,"
her voice barely audible.

The worm shrunken atop the lines of her palm
rolled slightly.

"Ok, but let's let him go first, please.”
This said twice,
as I thought the lack of response
reflected her not hearing my whisper.

Nervously,
I looked then over rounded shoulder
towards the house I knew to
be deserted.

She kneeled down upon
sunken footsteps freshly made
and set the worm
gently into one of the tracks.

"It's too cold to drown today, Sis,
so we'll wait until it's warmer, ok?"
she rhetorically asked,
without need of answer.

Helping her up from the ground,
we walked together,
arms linked in solidarity.

Trudging through tall grasses,
we headed towards the corn field,
our favorite hiding spot.

We began singing quietly in sibling unison,
"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine,
you make me happy, when skies are gray."

Death postponed needs no explanation,
neither did our pain.

I turned to whistle for our two puppies to follow,
but they stayed there,
resting on the banks,
without ever looking towards us.

NATIVE AMERICAN ASSENTATION

Condensation of spirit
Compensation for the soul.
Reparations for genocidal warfare,
Attrition clearing protocol.

Remediation hindered by lack of contrition,
Ultimate sacrifices go without memorialization.
Generations birthed forth without possession,
Bequeathed little else than feted urban legends.

Homages to the martyrs lack substantiate pacification.
Revolutionized hearts harbor guttural aversions.
Embers igniting from ancestral communications.

Come one, come all,
to the Wonderland of
Equal Opportunity Extermination!

Stand behind fences,
throwing sympathetic glances in our direction.
Mass produced dream catchers,
the souvenirs of your amaurotic vacation.

Tranquilized dishonesty controls not the whispered rebellion.
This tour has now ended,
the last stop on the visitation of Native American assentation.

LONESOME FOR THE TRUTH

In the aftermath hurricanes of circumstance
a poet clings to her words.
Divulging skeletons publicly seems absurd,
preferring to abnegate the hurt,
surrendering truths serves only to disconcert
so you whisper
your thoughts
to paper.

The line between craft and life
your heart never distinguished.
Your inherent impulse can not be extinguished.
Rejection of the gift a pursuit in futility,
like a wild animal kept in captivity,
you may cage it, but you can’t tame it.

So inevitably
the truth pours from your lips.
Your mind is the womb, giving birth from your hips
Of experience.

Your lyrical conceptions are born,
narrator and mother,
under the shield of vocabulary
you seek cover.
You hide in the stanzas,
finding refuge in the arms of poetic answers.

Oxygenating your soul,
expressions you can not control
it’s as natural as breathing.
Prose keeps your pulse beating.
Inhaling the future, exhaling the past,
the present martyr of verses so vast,
You’re forced to make a truce.
Because misery may love company,
but you live lonesome
for
the
truth.