I Poem

I demand my right to a verb.

Painters paint, singers sing, dancers dance,

Workers work – hell, even engineers engineer stuff.

All I want is my verb.

I’m not just a writer – I’m a poet.

Writers write and that’s all well and good for them,

But I don’t just write… I do something else.

I just don’t know what you call it.

Somebody wiser than me once said that

It’s not what you do that defines you,

But it’s who you are that defines what you do.

Salman Rushdie said, “a poet’s work is to name

The unnameable, to point at frauds,

To take sides, start arguments, shape the world,

And stop it going to sleep.”

And that’s fine by me – so from now on,

I don’t just write – I am a poet, and I will

Define what I do. – And I poem.

Digging in for Another Day

All around me are familiar faces,
oh, the band marched on in formation.
Racey days help me through the hopeless haze.

Blessed be your name,
dear Prudence...
we fall down.

Hey there, Delilah,
better pack your bags and run.
I'm the son of rage and love!
Go!

You feel bad
As I walk through the valley where I harvest my grain.

I must go on standing.

She lives with an orange tree.
My life is in you
fumbling his confidence.

Chronometrophobia - the fear of clocks - the fear of time -
I've got a black cat walking across my path,
every night I get down on my knees and pray:
how lovely is your dwelling place?

A Brief Suggestion for Anyone Approaching Beauty in its Natural Habitat

Faerie is perilous,
pitfalls and dungeons...
The realm wide, filled:
All beasts and birds;
shoreless seas and stars uncounted;

beauty is an enchantment, and a peril;
A man fortunate to wander,
richness and strangeness tie the tongue.
Dangerous to ask questions,
lest the gates should shut,
the keys be lost.

Heaven's Ghetto

inspired by a conversation about 2Pac

I wonder if Heaven's got a hood -
A divine ghetto where the only way
The streets are paved with gold
Is if we melt our own teeth.

We tear our bling from our ears
And necks and toss it in the fire,
And from its diamond sparkle
We build towers of home.

The ill, and the sick, the broken
And the needy folks, left mamas
And abandoned children, we all
Gather in heaven's ghetto.

And in the perfection of poor love,
We wait. As Wall Street squeezes
Itself through the eye and
To the front, we wait patiently...

Knowing God will still be
there when we get there.

Casserole

I came to your table on a Friday morning
looking for three bites of a three course meal
But i left your table on that Friday, mourning
the food and the ambiance and the service's zeal

The words were stale and left a bad taste
like when you get biscotti but wanted biscoff
and the grease on my page was nothing but waste
a sensation that will take all day to rinse off

Though we know a poem to be a delicacy
like a caesar, a souffle, and between, a mackerel,
it's clear that, without energy or accuracy,
you threw one together and called it a casserole

An Acrostic for a Friend

Ignorance of truth is no reason to refuse
Love, nor ignore that which is
Obvious, and speaks for itself, as does a mirror.
Verily, verily, I say to you:
Every looking glass upon which
You come is calling; screaming loudly
Out to you! Sweet Angel, it says,
Unlearn the lies their Prince has taught you.
Judge by those that love you -
Ignore Him who hates you.
Let not the deceit of Him
Lead you deeper into yourself any longer...
In human beings, there is only darkness, but God
Affords peace to His children. When you trust Him,
No lie can penetrate His love for you.
Cry out to Him, my friend. Pray for strength to
Lean upon Him, even when he seems
Absent from wherever it is that you are.
Remember the history of His promises, and
Know that He is trustworthy, and will never fail.

The Forest for the Trees

Where did you go?
Where did you go? - I said to him. -
What could have been so important?
What could have been so important? - I asked,
sticking a vocal finger in his absent face, -
that you deemed it necessary to leave,
that you felt it impossible to stay?!
Do not be afraid! you said to me.
For the Lord, your God!
is with you. You said you were with me. -
And at this point in my soliloquy
to the emptiness, I began to get a little upset. -
YOU SAID YOU WERE WITH ME!
YOU LOOKED ME IN THE HEART, AND YOU SAID
I will never leave you!
Nor forsake you!
Do not fear! for the Lord, your God
is with you!
Is with me... but you are not here.
I cannot see you. - And in the pain of his desertion,
I began to lie... and lying to an empty room
is the same as lying to yourself. - I can't see you...
and I don't care to.
As far as I'm concerned, you can never come back!
NEVER COME BACK! BE YAHWEH!... But be
Yahweh way way over somewhere else...
I don't need you... -
And then, I began to cry. And in my tears,
I heard the voice of HIM... and he turned to a
brother, and said this: -
My son's face is too far pressed into my embrace
for him to even know where he is,
and he needs me too much for me to relase
him with either arm. Do me this service.
Come, and open your brother's eyes.

Innocence

When I look around, I see nothing reflecting my face
and I know that I haven't influenced this place
and there is nothing of me filling up this space
and I just wanna go back home,
where the dirt on the street has fallen off my feet
and the brown on the ground is the sweat off my brow -
where the baseball diamond is a jungle,
and the jungle gym is a made-up war,
and the war-zone is all around me,
but bullets look like baseballs
and grafitti is nothing if not public fingerpaint.
Ignorance is bliss, maybe,
but it's nothing compared with innocence.
That's bliss married to unresponsibility
and it was given to me naturally and unconditionally
and nothing was expected save the childish ability
to entertain my own damn self.
My hood was an apartment complex in North Long Beach -
a quarter-block as far as the imagination could reach
and the barbed wire was higher than truth could teach,
and so I played with guns
and basketballs and girls,
and was never aware of the ugliness of the world.
Violence existed somewhere beyond the railroad,
somewhere even my folks didn't go,
and it certainly never had anything to do with me.
And I just wanna go back home.
In a world I built - a backyard made guilt-free
innocent - more innocent than adults would dare believe,
even though my innocence was their baby.

Let's Have an Orgasm

Let's have an orgasm together.

Let's get together -
yeah, yeah, yeah -
why don't you and I combine?

Let's get together -
what d'ya say?
We could have a swingin' time!

Although, we needn't be
so 1950s-the-Parent-Trap
about the whole thing.
All I'm asking for is the warm,
heavy breath of an intimate look.
An intimate smile.
An intimate kiss.
An intimate touch.
I'm asking for laughter and
the chocolate milkshake taste
of silliness.
I never found skin so soft
that it was worth sleeping in
till you - and that is
all I want.
For you to be in me and
For me to be in you and
For us to be in the moment
and share the exuberant, joyful
culmination of all that is -

all that is sex and desire
and passion and love and certainly
beyond description.

The Bard's Delight

I am the truth in the shoes.
I am the knowledge gained.
I take my steps in twos -
and then I pause -

to see what you have learned.

I see the good in light.
I see the worth in warmth.
I have not come to fight -
establishment -

but just to be discerned.

I love to state the clear.
I love to be the mist.
I pose my questions queer -
and smile inside -

to see your mind returned.

The Heart of the Garden

In the footprints of my brothers
I found the path to my knees,
to the place that sees the truth of me
and all the others - to the
place that chooses us for its peace.

And now we are a family -
a brotherhood-in-His-arms,
surrounded by the glowing rainbow charms
of a garden -
we find ourselves in the center,
hands joined, drowned out by silence,
bound by our violence,
begging for redemption.

And it. Is. Given.

We are connected by the thread
of a hot, red needle,
woven through the slightest of events,
in a place willing to forget,
even when we can't.

A great hand is laid upon us.
A great tear is falling to us.
A great love is spread over us.
And the great thread is pulled from us.

We are bound by our
common freedom,
and weeping, we
begin to pray.

Wrapped up in a Snowflake

I live in the space between two snowflakes.
Surrounded on all sides by the thorns
of wonder and beauty,
piercing my side and spilling water in
its most ferocious and least glorious state.
Sparkling, splendid dreams wrapped
in crystal, wrapping me up,
and I am buoyed by the emptiness.
Do I elevate the shine?
And if I do, does the shine belong
in the sky? - I know I do.
And when the ice around me falls
and is trampled underfoot,
I am released from my pretty prison
and live again among nothing -
where I belong -
unique in all the world.