Summer 2007

 

the memory of you

is still swimming in my head

like a sublime goldfish

in the universe that is my pond

ever present in my mind

the vision of you

coming toward my presence

with a quiet confidence

that I could almost taste in my mouth

rolls in my tongue

like bitter sweet coffee

you shake my hand

and greet me

with your mild humor

like it was the last

but for me

it was a first

...

March 8, 2005, a few lines dedicated to Starfish

I am rain

I am fire

I am blood

I am water

I am contradiction

understood.

I am afraid to write

Because I know that each word I fashion with my hands takes on a life of its own. 
And once made flesh, they shall surpass me, outlive me, outshine me and outdo me.
I am afraid to write because I know that the words that I have created in my own image and in the image of the world I perceive has the possibility to destroy the very fiber of what I am and what I have become.  
I am afraid to write because the message becomes more meaningful when they are perceived by others which makes my original message become meaningless.  
I am afraid to write because the perception of the written word is not mine to control and shall never be mine because I know I own these ideas in my head but once I have commited them to words they are no longer mine to possess. 
I am afraid to write because I know that these words liberated from my head, from my mouth, from my hands, from the pores of my skin are the same words that become a Judas to their Jesus.  
Yet I write. Still.
It is my birthright and I need to claim it.  
If writing is my salvation, it is also my damnation. 
Inevitability is such a beautiful word. 

Youth makes a poet in all of us

I was shuffling through my old files and I saw this poem I wrote years ago.  I think it's almost ten years old.  I remember why I wrote this piece.  God I was so young then and so unemployed. Wait. I'm unemployed right now.  Whatever.  You know what I mean (just say yes and we move on). Yes youth.  All that idealism and supple skin. I think youth makes a poet in all of us. And yeah, I was sorta angry at the time I wrote this poem.

Ire

I am standing on rooftops high

Sky scrapers magnificent of concrete and steel majestic

I gaze down below and I speak tongues

to cars and buses and subways and trains a running

I gaze yonder and I speak tongues

to ferries and ships and oil tankers a sailing

I gaze up above and I speak tongues

to jet liners and fighter jets and space shuttles and satellites soaring

My lips drooling

I shout at them from the pit of my stomach

My yelp resonates into airspace,

pulses through streets and alleys and highways and freeways

vibrates through the edifices

of concrete and steel majestic

I shout at you with spit flying,

drooling I shout in your face

I sing psalms barefooted

I recite my verses naked

I am becoming, transforming at this very moment

Into something never realized by your architects, designers and think tanks

I sing my psalms barefooted

I recite my verses naked

I curse you from my bowels

I curse the penis and the vagina that spawned you

I curse the breast that fed you

I curse the hand that rocked and cradled you

I curse them all yet bless them the same,

as I curse and bless you all the same

I shout at you spit flying, lips drooling

I shout in your face

You can smell my breath from where you stand

You can feel my anger from where you sleep

You can taste the hate from from your salad bowls

those garden salads, wilted and dead you eat

I am here

I persist

I persist as the sands of the deserts

and the sands of the oceans persist

I am here on your rooftops crying in tongues,

spit flying, lips drooling

I sing my psalms barefooted

I recite my verses naked

My yelp fades then resounds,resonates into airspace

pulsates into streets and highways adjoining

It vibrate through sky scrapers magnificent

of concrete and steel majestic

Fading then resounding

Dying then resurrecting

I sing my psalms and recite my verses

I shout at them all in your face

that you may at least even have the littlest comprehension

that I am talking to you.