Poetry

                                 Tiny one bedroom flat
                                 space heater-warmed 
                                 with a phone booth closet 
                                 that could store meat - 
                                 a kitchen with southern 
                                 view of tattooed 
                                 John and Rose’s porch
                                 from where he’d flick
                                 his Camel butts
                                 into the seven clumps
                                 of withered grass
                                 trying to be a yard
                                 sans noticeable success.

                                 Residents from the
                                 local sheltered home
                                 with a labored walk
                                 shuffling to work
                                 carrying a Thorazine high -
                                 off to bag incense
                                 eight hours a day 
                                 without complaint -
                                 but needing to stop
                                 at the corner store  
                                 for their morning 
                                 sugar fix of candy and coke
                                 just to feel alive.

                                 Seven years of fun and games 
                                 with a revolving door 
                                 of friends and lovers –
                                 teaching reluctant
                                 urban teens by day
                                 who taught me
                                 all about the blues 
                                 I sought out each night
                                 up and down
                                 Lincoln Avenue bars
                                 where legends
                                 like Dixon, Wolf, and Waters 
                                 laid down the timeless licks 
                                 that everyone listening knew –
                                 then drank too much
                                 as the nights wore on -
                                 just like the rest of us.

I lie in bed no sleep in sight
More awake with the moon than I was with the sun
The next day closer than the last
Shows that hold no mysteries to me whispering in the background
Craving things that my mind wants
But that my body will regret
Cheddar Chex Mix
Reese’s Cups
A man
The candle’s flame dances in the distance
Releasing a painfully nostalgic aroma
I was once just a woman
I took 45-minute showers
Survived off saltines and ramen
Had nightly meetings with Mary Jane
No side-stepping Lego landmines
Or llamas in pajamas
So now the moon and I
We enjoy the stillness of the night
My time becomes my own
My name is nonexistent
My space is substantial
My peace is protected
Tomorrow I may be slow to wake
Tonight, I have no regrets
I smile
I laugh
I remember
I hope
For just 10 more minutes
Or maybe 15
Before I know it
Tomorrow will come all too soon
And this time I have
It can only come with the moon

         -after the image by Paola Corso

If you are to move at all, 
stay still, 
allow nothing 
but breath
to step down 
and around the self,

syllables that don’t 
need connections to words
descending spirals 
of stairs on their own 
accord. If you are to speak 

at all,
let voice cascade
toward empty stairwells
where no echo dwells.

Let thought whirl in on itself
till it whispers God

as final landing.

last summer’s strawberry syrup sits in the fridge
my shoes should have been cleaned before I left them for you to ship

the truth turns so quickly
i find myself lying

the murmur of people sing a different song
our semesters are cursed to different timelines

maybe that was sell by
we aren't the first or last to try

pinky promise
being honest
syrup down the drain

The tricolored blackbird is a native of California, and reputedly the inspiration for the electronic sounds of R2D2, for which it received no credit, no benefits, no compensation:  it is an officially threatened species.  A feather from the epaulet can be used in divination.  The blackbird is a tri-gendered subject.  It is majestic.  And economically oppressed.  It is related to the red-winged blackbird, its far more common cousin.  The tricolored blackbird of California is underprivileged; 80% of its urban population is located in federally designated food deserts.  They subsist by dumpster diving.  Those still in the wild eat their fledglings, Medea-like, in acts of vengeance against unfaithful partners.  The blackbird’s rating on the Quality of Life Index (developed by M.D. Morris) is 16 out of 100.  Its metalinguistic habits have not yet been explored.  The tricolored blackbird is asexual and aromantic.  Specimens in aviaries reproduce by IVF.  In the wild, they rely heavily on social reproduction.  A recent government grant provided $1.2 million to tag 10,000 tricolored blackbirds.  The recipient is a major R1 institution with plans to attach electrodes to the blackbird’s brain and transliterate each caw into English with the long-term goal of constructing a Franco-English-Blackbird pidgin.  No one asked the tricolored blackbird what it thinks of being tagged.  Increasingly, they are found with BP oil slicked on their wings.  Poachers have been known to kill them for a single red feather from its wing. The blackbird is itself and nothing else.  But this one here is special, No. 07115.  The blackbird is itself, but we all need some ID.    

“Poetry is a survival.”  --Paul Valéry

“Poetry is a pipe.”  -- Paul Éluard and André Breton

“Ceci n’est pas une pipe.”  -- René Magritte


Poetry is a pipe
and not a pipe
Poetry is music
or perhaps a polar bear

This is not a poem about a polar bear
It is a poem about a poem
and the bear too is a poem
a poem written by a bear
                           about a bear
a bear by and about a bear

the bear, a god, self-fertilizing
the bear, a bear, self-poetizing

Poetry is not a pipe
until it becomes a pipe
filled with stilted words
filled with lilting music
filled with walrus-tusk tobacco

the bear, a poem, self-ursinizing
the bear, Narcissus, self-mesmerizing
the bear, a pipe, self-smoking

The bear is a pipe
and not a pipe
The bear is opium 
The bear is music

the bear, a rhyme, self-aestheticizing
the bear, a drug, self-anesthetizing

The poem is a bear
and not a bear

The poem is a pipe
and the smoke, a forest fire
a poem to burn down the world
The poem is a bear
wearing a ranger hat 
who threatens to let you do it

the world, a pipe, self-playing
the world, a fire, self-immolating
the bear, a poem, self-saying
the bear, music, self-syncopating
the bear
              self-conscious
	          self-prophesying	
	          self-engendered
	          self-contained 
	          self-referential
the bear rhymes itself with perfect rhythm
the bear rhymes itself with bear