Category Archives: Poetry

My poetry. Mostly Collects

Demands

What is the chance for destruction 
     to follow the same path,
     by wind or by water or by fire,
     twisting, taking, turning,
     collecting possessions
     into its embrace?

Is the death of one child not enough
     or must the demands
     of the demons who cry, More,
     make offerings a daily ritual,
     to be met with trembling
     and with tears once again?

Dreams

I have seen balls turn uphill,
neither rolled nor thrown,
when the world went upside down.

And the streets grew wider
making a way for thousands
to walk abreast holding hands.

Sheets removed themselves
from lion-clawed chairs.  Food 
and drink appeared on tables.

Warnings turned into eyes
wakening, dressing for time
captured during the day.

And the mudball needed
just a light rub or two
to become golden.

The Latest Report from the Stars

I said, "The flower must die
for the sake of the fruit."

She asked, "Are you purposely
being morbid to make a point
or seeking to pollinate conflict?"

I answered, "Just passing along
the latest report from the stars."

She said, "Without the first stars
exploding into dust there would 
be no flower."

Satisfied, I said, "I was hoping to land 
ourselves into the midst of an infinite 
regression."

She said, "If that is the case then let
us dance in the vastness of all that
comes before us."

Blood Ink

     “I am used to
      making ink from my own blood.” - Abdulla Pashew

I sighed with relief when evil passed by
unaware of its existence while mechanisms
for bringing goodness began to turn with the 
first bird call of the morning to raise the sun.

Remaining anonymous carries ferocity yet
dancing unknown steps for something 
calls the poets to liberate pens and letters
onto pages stained with the marks of history.

Conscience

Yesterday unbinds the conscience of today
twisting happiness free from the pressed grip.

     Gripping hands wrench happiness away,
     claiming some divine birthright over all others.

My right to birth claimed nothing and everything
when I arrived from nowhere into expanse.

     Arriving, somewhere rather than nowhere,
     I learn how to be sadly dangerous.

Danger and sadness merge silently
when blood threatens to appear on white pages.

     No blood found on pages, black and white,
     means demands have not yet crossed borders.

Borders demand to be crossed so as to
unbind the conscience of tomorrow.

Difference

We need differences in order to be most fully human,
Say the wise, articulate theologians of the one g*d.

I spend my morning walking the same path carefully
Placed by the laboring hands of cement workers,

Thinking beyond the advertisements inserted inside 
Mailboxes in countless ways by the systems of the world.

A mourning dove coos for no apparent reason other
Than to hear the sound of its own peculiar song.

And the amaryllis sends two blooms colored with blood
into the morning air to ask, What difference do I need?

Three Wishes

To be released from the search for constant bedazzlement
into a rest area along the road I have been walking for years.

To cease contriving false romances with those things 
I do not own and will never have in my back pocket.

To get out from under the bright lights of the big city
and move, slowly, into a dusk where I can stretch.