There's some kid named Liam who wore a shirt,
and it said there are only two genders
and it's this serious issue
and I'm asked to #standwithLiam.
Language is real.
You can't teach someone that the sky is blue--
and then talk about how actually, when it's night, it's black
and expect them not to be confused.
The manic stamp of my poetry will not go unnoticed.
It started with the ego and then it turned into empathy.
I saw the photo of the children crying, their eyes wild with confusion.
I repeat: their eyes wild with confusion.
Holding, each other and bloody small arms.
What was my problem again?
Do you really think I care if your art organization gets funding?
Do you think I care about your branding racket on NPR?
No, I do not.
I care about the moon, spinning in space.
Half dreaming and stupid as it hangs in the air.
I had a thought like a basketball, suspended in time.
The panthers that Delacroix drew still haunt my mind.
The river of the Old West is spinning too
through the canyon of my heart
in a late night text LOL was I really to be the angry bride
bent like a fender on an old Ford
crying and moaning with curlers in my hair
and a frying pan to boot
with leather pants and a sword
trying to take back your heart?
OH, hardly.
Again, the moon in me shifts.
Was the well-timed turd that Amber Heard laid
did she know that that moment would be her undoing.
Could she have possibly known.
I have a friend who sends me pictures
of Marvel Comics, people larger than life
but I am small
I am a mouse in the wall.
I want to be big, but I am small.
A tiny in utero child
Cloaked in sour milk and winging it
on stage
kissing the lion
and coming up to draw breath.
Her earrings fly through the space from the moon to the landing on Jupiter
when I turned and missed the call I found a fallen angel shattered in the mirror
Did I ache to ask her a question? Echoing the shadows against the muddy walls of the well
I had a cave inside my heart and a small temporary tattoo of a bicycle in my hand.
I had tea with my grandmother, two bags worth, and wondered what my Dad would think
if he saw me smoking with hoodlums. I longed to taste the cool night air on the back of a Camel
and walk through the pinhole of Africa into the Blues-soaked rags of the Sahara
wake up in Egypt with eyelashes longer than power lines, full of soot and chalk and nail polish
in the realm of a frozen tundra, where Russia meets the West.
The old man with the wide nose covered in hard red warts oversized and awkward
blind with thick rimmed glasses yet talking quietly shuffling while pushing an empty wheelchair
there's suddenly water all over the floor at Jewel
right by the flower section
I stand in line at the bank teller, artfully placing a cup of delicate, delicious, expensive
espresso in my hoodie pocket
daring myself to place it, with the lid, in my pocket, upright
while I do my transaction
As I wait in line
the man brushes me
The man with the wide nose covered in hard red warts oversized and awkward
blind with thick rimmed glasses yet talking quietly shuffling while pushing an empty wheelchair
and I look and see he has oranges under his chair
a bag of oranges surely
and I step aside so he can get by
I catch myself acting like he is a leper
but I steady myself as I hold no ill will
I just didn't want to be touched by a passerby
and of course I then see
that the oranges are not oranges
they are orange roses, and a black plastic container full of three bouquets of orange roses
is being dragged under his wheelchair as he pushes it along
rather pitifully at this point, slowly
I look back at the floral section and it all makes sense
He didn't see that he had tipped over the black plastic vase of bouquets
and that is why there is water all over the floor
and why he's moving slowly
as he pushes his wheelchair along
with the orange booty underneath
Against my better judgement I stop to help
He had moved aside and I say sir, you have something caught under your chair
and I bend down to help
the saint that I am, and awkwardly pull out the flower tub
and in the process I spilled my delicate, delicious, expensive espresso
in the cute cup with the plastic top
and I go back to the floral section, with the orange roses and place them there
Look at the checks I was going to desposit
Important money, rent money
and I see the coffee stain spreading on the biggest check.
I sigh and deposit the checks.
The teller takes them despite the coffee.
God bless him.
I go outside and I see some poor sap, a woman, not unlike me,
has taken it upon herself to escort the man to Clark Street
but they are at the gates of the store
standing in the hot sun
on the wide black asphalt parking lot
kind of like the middle of nowhere
the middle of time
and he's wasting her time
she's trying to be patient and kind
asking if he needs to get to Clark Street
but he doesn't really need to be anywhere
and she probably does
and I feel sorry for her
because in her I see myself.
The ping pong pachyderm the pseudo suicide with the butter knife
the ripe kite reeling kneeling on grapes to make wine
The sing song sassafras wrapped up in the trapped gas mask
the green beret he wore to war grimy and deranged
he returned with PTSD up to his knees a blank stare and a wad of cash.
The newspapers said it was all a sham blasted in group texts
pressurized in fountains of bloodhounds
sitting at the bar when no one was around
talking to the mirrors on the blank walls
talking to his war bride
about his role in the genocide.
No song is bad song.
No song is a good song.
A great song knows itself.
Your closest friends don't know you.
The quietest place on earth is the place to play.
You're not telling a story, the story is telling something to you.
Silence the long lost friend
the quiet breath of the earth
as she sighs
giving me all and leaving nothing behind
cream colored wall paper
falling off in chunks
to show the wood underneath
with all its wormholes
What is stopping me from writing bad poetry?
Absolutely nothing.
War machine
stop like an overloaded washing machine
can't turn
can't burn cities
can't turn babies into bombs
Your Barbie fueled demon sunshine slaughterhouse
Rafah dumpster fire sickening sirens screaming in dead of night
fun house mirrors you see righteousness
capsized in the sea of war
all drunken sailors
high on pillaging
sucked deep into the
dead of night
in the silence
when the bombs stop
and people pray
their headache overloads
the mind
the neurons fire
kiss the earth
kiss the earth
kiss the earth
There is definitely a madness to the earth I can smell it
like the dirt of spring rich with earth worms and decaying leaves
Primavera rises like small green shoots
rudely piercing the dirt to reach the sky.
In Palestine there is rubble
the Spring is augmented by the hurtful rockets
of bombs and debris
why, the girl cries out, is Spring not for me?
We've all heard the story of Hind
Heartbreaking it makes us want to scream and cry for her
so we block traffic
trying to unblock minds.
Praise the truth hold it up like Simba but keep in mind it might be deep in your heart unable to be touched by human hands