Sunday, December 15, 2019

I Wish Grandma Had Lived Forever

I Wish Grandma Had Lived Forever

I find myself walking down the path that almost wasn't
there, a path that I have made myself.
I am going to my grandmother's snowy tombstone
on Christmas Eve, because she is my only last relative
I have left, everyone else has left me, even if they
are alive.
I find myself walking, contemplating about life,
really, and anything that has been thrown at me
these past years. I am thirteen going on fifty.
All these years I wandered, dark and lonely,
wishing on a star that wasn't there, wasn't present,
wasn't omnipotent.
I know I will never be content as I was when I was a child,
and we lost my pet turtle that one day, Danny, my brother,
hid him in a box and he had climbed out somehow,
or the box had fallen over and he had crawled away.
He apologized to me after the incident, saying he hadn't
expected that to happen, just like I expected Grandma
to live forever.


Wednesday, December 11, 2019

I'D LIKE TO FIND.

I'D LIKE TO FIND

I'd like to find my way in this place
of peace,
where darkness is not prominent,
and I can see my hand in front of my face.

Shadows are full and daunting.
I am not wanted here.
This world is not mine for the taking;
crows flock the land.

I see myself in ten years, on the verge
of life, on the verge of hysteria,
and I don't know what this is all about...
I don't know what I'm doing this for.

Is it for me? Is it for someone else?
Gladys the mule meets me every day after breakfast
from her stall in the backyard,
and the stall is cold and cruel as everyone else.

I can't begin to fathom what my mind can reach.
Is this a heaven's place, or is this hell? My mind is
numb, far-reaching. In this void I think I have
found my home.


Tuesday, December 03, 2019

A WALK THROUGH THE PARK.



Walk Through the Park

It was 4 30 pm in the afternoon and I was taking a walk
in the park.

Dogs ran by me like they didn't see me,
sometimes sniffing my leg but not saying anything.

I had just moved to Florida with my daughter, she worked
at a bar downtown, taking the bus to and from work.

She was a hard little worker, never complaining,
even when the guys would hit her behind and call her dahling,

as if that meant something to her when really it didn't.
She thought she was the bomb in her own way.

I missed her while she was at work. She filled my thoughts daily
while she was gone, and when she got home we would make

dinner and talk about what we did during the day-me,
usually nothing.


CHRISTMAS DAYZ.


Christmas Dayz

I am past thirty and the days are getting longer, colder,
more bitter. I find myself looking into the flames of the fire
place and dreaming of white Christmas, just like the ones
you used to know and all that rubbish. I wish I could
see Santa. I wish I could get a dog for Christmas and
walk him every day and feed him dog cookies like I used
to do with Ruff, my little dog from long ago. I miss him
now, him who is in Heaven, running with all the other dogs
that had passed on, running forever, his little legs carrying
him as far as he wanted to go, which wasn't very far,
or maybe further, I couldn't speak dog language then and I
can't speak it now. Very little I wanted for Christmas,
maybe just one package. And then I will be happy.


Monday, October 28, 2019

THE WINDOW.

THE WINDOW

As we grow old together, I am constantly aware
that you do not like me,
you never did, and you are only here for food
and a blanket.

We park you in front of the window so you can
sit and look out,
but that's not what you want to do.

You want to be a fisherman or an aviator,
and I cannot let you have both-for, out of fear of flying,
I have found myself yearning for my foot on
the soft earth.

I have found myself waiting for you to come
to me in the dark of the night, your footfalls
on the wood,
but yet you never come. You never please me.

Yet you are always watching, gazing out the window
as if deep in thought.

The Dawn That Fills the World.

The Dawn That Fills the World

The spot between a rock and a hard
place is where I want to be right now.
In the middle of it all, in between it all.
Just like something out of a horror movie.

I guess nothing makes much sense right now,
but in time, it will, just like the sun will rise
over the earth each day,
and the night will melt with dew.

The seasons will change. Day to day, everything
changes at the heart of the world,
and the world is at the heart of it all.
We are one. We are the earth.

The soil rises up out of the darkness like a song,
rises up, the flower pushes past its roots
and sings to the dawn that fills the world.

Saturday, October 05, 2019

I AM A WHOLE BIRD.

The moon goes round the sun.
In bitter reverie.

I am a whole bird,
trying to stay free.

Caught in mid-flight,
I don't know where to turn.

I wish to go out tonight,
it is what I yearn.

Moonbird, moonbird,
you flock the world,

gentle word,
feathers unfurled.

Thursday, October 03, 2019

I KNOW WHAT I KNOW.

So I know what I know
is a feeling that I know
in my heart and in my mind
I rescue myself alone.

I heal my heart that has been
wounded
by an arrow
the love of my life left me
for dead

piercing the veil of the shiniest star
that looks down on me
with good tiding.

I have a misfortune to love
what I love and to know what I know.
Everything else is transient.

SPIRALING.

I am spiraling out of control.
Downward I go like a whirlpool.
My mind is a whirlpool that goes
and goes.

I am tapping my innermost force to
be reckoned with.
I eat salad like there's no tomorrow.
Drink a powdery substance until I am
bled dry.
I am a weathered vein.

I peel and fold
like a potato that is withered like
a stem.
I am gone.

I come.

Monday, September 30, 2019

MY BEAUTIFUL JAMAICA

I do not lie above the rest
my heart is at rest it is beating steady
Jamaica will always be my home
the clear blue waters the birds
making a nest in my roof
the old man selling fish on the wharf

Saturday comes and it is church time
I close my eyes and see my beautiful Jamaica
an old man is whistling as he walks by
my vision
an old man is calling

In the end I am in Brooklyn, New York,
selling jewelry on the side of the busy street,
looking for a way to buy a butter roll,
and the man at the counter eyeing me suspiciously.
In my beautiful Jamaica no one thought I was a stranger.
Here there are strangers everywhere.

Thursday, September 05, 2019

IT'S FOREVER

IT'S FOREVER

Print is stuck forever in my mind.

It lacks on wind of chance and stormy days.
On the end of promise and poverty,

nothing is secret not the wind, not the wind,

not the rain that falls in sheets.
I found myself walking like a shadow born from pain,
in my heart and in my head. I am one with the wind.

While tending the lion, I ask myself do you know what
you're tending or who? What flock, what face in the mist?

Happiness glows and glows and glows
and I am standing here, waiting for the bus boy to relinquish me
of my stale food and old plates at a restaurant downtown.

Monday, September 02, 2019

THE HIPPO SAYS TO TRY HARDER.

THE HIPPO SAYS TO TRY HARDER

I told myself I wouldn't dance at the wedding
because it would make me look like a goddamn
fool and usually it did because I wasn't always
kept up in appearance sometimes I dressed up
like a hobo to keep the other kids occupied

because I didn't know how to stand on my own
two feet and yesterday was gone just like that
and no more making people laugh but then a new day
was coming and I could make people laugh again
just like every day after that and then one time I

thought I saw a hippo waddling across the road on
my trip to Florida and it smiled at me and I thought
I heard it talk to me in my mind just like animals do
sometimes when they're trying to tell you something
that was rather important more so than necessary

or even quite extraordinary I thought to myself
maybe this wouldn't be such a bad gig after all
you know but maybe I could do a little better at it
and sometimes that's the only thing you need to do,
try harder next time.

Thursday, August 29, 2019

THE LIGHT SHONE.


The light shone on the window glass.
Life is passing before my eyes.
I can't find myself listening to reason anymore.
I want to do what I want to do and what I

want to do alone.
My mom is knitting a sweater in the den.
It is getting colder outside.
It is autumn and it is time for baking pumpkin
bread and pumpkin cookies and making pumpkin
spice,

and time for Halloween and jack-o-lanterns and
everything in between.
I don't want Halloween to come.
I want to stay cooped inside though reading books
and watching television but meanwhile my life is
passing before me at each and every waking moment,
and I try and try to put it back together before it falls apart

like it always does, as it is falling apart now,
I am going one way and life is going another.
This is how it is going to be from now on.
This is how it will be every waking moment of my day.
Me going one way and the world going another.

It is getting colder outside and I am painting a picture
of autumn leaves falling,
and my mind is not on anything else.

Wednesday, August 28, 2019

YOU ARE.

You Are

The clash between beasts is utterly complete.
She speaks to me through her words.
Time is like a transcending void.
I am utterly whole.
The foreign land glares in the distance,
we go by boat, not by shore.
In the rising sun we find different ways
to keep us from floating out to sea,
from the rising sun to the horrid moon,
to the day that breaks and bends,
I am here waiting for you, my love,
as the tide fades away.
You are the river that waits for me.
I am the course of the action in the void,
I am the darkness that seeks out darkness,
I am the wading of the tide.
Night hides from me. It is broken.
The seeds of the grapes have been bitter and weep;
I weep along with it.
Nothing comes short of darkness,
bitterness fades to gray.
I am the wholeness and the light,
the darkness does not take me,
nor will take me in the night.
You are whole with me.
You are the grape to my strawberry.

Saturday, August 24, 2019

MYSELF LOOKING.

MYSELF LOOKING

I found myself looking
at the glow of the lights of
the city
and everything looked surreal
in the dark

like in every house there were people
living sleeping playing
in all hours of the moonlit night
shadows bounced on the leaves
of the trees because the wind was
blowing

and it ruffled my hair and I called

out to you in the depth of the night
but you didn't answer and refuse

to

answer

still

Friday, August 23, 2019

THE VASE I WAS MAKING.

THE VASE I WAS MAKING

The sand paper rushes against the slowly
turning vase on the pinwheel that doesn't
run as smoothly as I hoped and I looked outside
and the sky was a little wishy-washy and I felt
like I was at the top of the world.

The world had me by the heels and I couldn't shake
off the feeling that something wasn't right and I looked
in my fridge and there was no food there.
The cupboard was bare as well and I got on my coat
and went into the rain and walked down the street

several blocks to get a whole bunch of food to
eat for the next four days and my mind was not
on food at the moment but what I was going to create next
because creating is all I know even more than food.

Tuesday, August 13, 2019

FOUND MYSELF.

I found myself
deep in a void

I can't get out
I can't refuse to breathe

like water receding

coming back in
the tide jumps

I am the rain
I flock like a flock of

sheep
they flock in meadows
made of pain.

In the summer I will flight

like a sheep that is in fight.

Airplanes run on runways
that are empty and void
I am void too.

Tuesday, July 23, 2019

DULLY NOTED.

DULLY NOTED

She said it was dully
noted like it was some
kind of perch,
a band of some sort
she didn't particularly like.

She was known for her scones, that tasted bittersweet
as the sky,
and a man who didn't love her but loved her for her
movies.

She was known to be promiscuous, as if that were
a word I would use otherwise,
a mother I never knew about but read about in obituaries.

Friday, July 12, 2019

we are growing...............................................

we are growing

All the ways I found myself
looking at the abyss
that which is the knight
full of light
and life

and yesterday's days
into the night that
is bright
and misery's praise
full of sorrow
and again
we are home
I found myself alone
yesterday's home
tomorrow

like bright as
light in a dark room
full of misery and gloom
like a shadow

WATER.

WATER

The water carries me like a little
bit of a dragon

calm in its wake
like a little bit of night
that is liquid and shimmery
like a shimmery night

in the dark
I am alone
I am not the only one
who is tempted
to take the stone

and throw it in the water
that is also like a willow
that grows in the garden
in the garden where I live.

I am the sister and friend
to water
I am all water
I am the water of good
I am the water of wise
I am tempted
I am not fending

Water goes down in my mind
like the mind that is there
it is my sister
it is my brother
I am not tempted

Tuesday, July 09, 2019

i want to talk to you the essence of the moon.

I want to talk to you one on one
about my moon problem
that seems to be heaven's problem
as well
like a flight in fright
like dracula's mammoth sized
moonbeam based in a jar

she is shadowed based on yesterday's
dream
that didn't know what it was dipped
in tomorrow as in today
and today as in tomorrow

following fast along the way
we bend and break
like moonbeam's that wans
and waxes

saturday's purse
fallen onto the head of things
like yesterday's strife we

don't know what's best of us
or what's least of us saturday
is more than today

Thursday, July 04, 2019

ESSENCE OF EVERY DAY.

ESSENCE OF EVERY DAY

The essence of the self
is to know more than what one
will know
far away like a dream
nothing glows like what it seems

the fireworks of early dawn
encompasses itself
like a morning glow
into ecstasy
a new dawn
comes

falls like shadows in
the midst of it all
nothing comes without
all of us falling into
sorrows of doubt

in it we will not find out
the other thing that doesn't
stand out in the middle of
morning

into the neverending
void
you don't know how long
you'll
live or
even die in the neverending
veil of life
long-lived

tonight is the night
sacrifice
is imminent

Monday, July 01, 2019

SNOW.

THE SNOW EGRET

The snow egret is large
as a mountain in the summer
against the powdery blue sky

just yesterday I said to myself
I wish I was a bird and I could fly
anywhere through the clouds

that mend and mold my future
any day of the month it can turn

fresh and sour and I don't know what to
do with myself because everything seems
and sounds too complex

and complicated
and everything that works

Tuesday, June 25, 2019

PROGRAMMED.



PROGRAMMED

We have been programmed to hate
everybody
the mailman the minorities
even the people who wear jeans
and have flowers in their ears

I don't know why we hate
everything or don't know much
about history
but it's still staring at you

the way a man stares at his
beautiful wife
ignorant of life as it

passes you by
ignorant of anything you
chose not to see

like when someone loves
you we don't know why
and when someone hates you

everyone tells you everything
about the hate and when and why
love isn't catching it is like dandelion

fluff that catches on the breeze
and sometimes you don't know anything
about the people who love you

but you wish you did.
Because that's what makes the world

go round not cars or even the depths
of space
which is dark and round as your heart.

Saturday, June 22, 2019

poem.

The alien forgot where he was and wondered down a path that was lit with white noise and he didn't understand where to turn and where to go this is planet you know something that moves around the sun and doesn't fade forever we remain in this slumber like the hands of time rocking outside your eyes the night comes from dew and within everything is broken and the same.

Sunday, May 26, 2019

SHADOWS.

SHADOWS IN DISTANCE

Shadows fade on the stone.
Just like yesterday when life is
a token of things I couldn't find
in greed and redemption
just like losing yourself and losing
you

and what it's worth
I never knew anything
but the sad and broken lies
full of shattered things
and broken wings

like a mirrored image of
dark
I wallow in self-pity
in the night of the light
I am not the worry-filled
terribly burdened by my
will alone
into the heart that's where
you met

I can't find reason to end this
you and of me
and bitter and alone
I can't forage through
the darkness
when night is bent on time

and so are the you and I
and I gave myself a light
to see by
but nothing is more worrisome
than despair

and the hate that surrounds me
the you and I
in talk in code
and you're no longer there
but I am
and you're here

Tuesday, May 14, 2019

THE TIDE.

THE TIDE

The tides bend
like waves of shadows
forlorn movements
into walls of darkness
in the eve

when the night falls
and the storm rolls in
fireflies are gone
and children are asleep
everything turns into
balls of fire

that is nothing more
than helping what we find

like broken bones
and things long gone
into the lone woods
where nothing moves
except the lone wind
and the shaking branches
of ever swift moving hands


Saturday, May 11, 2019

CURSES.

CURSES

flew far away into the night
where traps are full of animals
and I see myself standing
on the edge of a cliff looking down
into the darkness
that is nothing
where shadows fade
into the ether

and I couldn't see
but the thing
that was next to yesterday
and everyone betrayed
who I was
the night that
was there
and there was calmness
everywhere

into the void

I don't know anything
but darkness
and things are thicker
than water
I found myself floating
on the edge of fear
looking into the abyss
I couldn't seek
from anywhere else
and the shelter I found
was somewhere inside
myself
not anywhere outside
and I found nowhere
to hide

Friday, May 10, 2019

INSPIRED BY WORDS.

INSPIRED BY WORDS

I am inspired by words of
beauty
not by making people
miserable
but by getting rid of the planet's
greed
and
giving everyone a purpose
for purpose unknown
a human is a human

who makes mistakes
but that what makes them more human
and drives inspiration
beyond the greed

and realms of space
thinking is unknown
beyond mother's forces
into a life where I live
forgiving things I can't
achieve
a dream of sorrow
that I don't need

LIGHT WILL.

LIGHT WILL

Light will exist
if we exist
and words tumble
from shattered mouths

all light is dim
in words of wisdom
like building blocks

moving in shadows
words form
from broken dolls

on all molds of time
and sorrow
moving forward and backwards

into the voice
where we remain

in hospitals on the other
side of the city
in drug-darkened fields

that sing of rain
and molded rags

and nights are calm
and we live trapped
in a world without words


THE BUILDING.

THE BUILDING

It is made of a box
the box is like a brick wall
I fall in love with the wall
and move away from it

just like the ways
I used to be
in short of time
I am growing old
and one day

I will want to look back
and try to find
the difference
in so many things

like love and life
and how many ways
I can fly

standing on the
edge of a wall
I find myself
wondering how many

times I never noticed
anything
or nothing

in special ways or normal
ways
glorifying
things that are mine
and maybe
never were

Friday, April 26, 2019

WHY CAN'T ADULTS.

WHY CAN'T ADULTS

Why can't adults act like adults and stop acting like
children?
Why can't they live in the sea of today
instead of the sea of tomorrow?
Why can't we dwell when hope will collide,
and things are broken and torn down in ruins?

Why do we live in a perfect picture image,
where nothing is shattered and lives are not
grown?
On the edge of the world where hope is bestowed.
Love is an ingrown nail that follows like lilies.

Some people do not hear the wind in the windows
or feel the pain of their blood running down their
hands,
shadows and moonbeams are just as strange,
and we cannot live on the moon because
the moon is strange,
shifting patterns of light and darkness.

Oceans and vast and unique in their days,
and everything is wrought of vision and destiny,
but everything is torn and hope is broken.
We strive to win but nothing will win.
Everything is torn of darkness.

Monday, April 22, 2019

HAVE YOU TRIED.

HAVE YOU TRIED

Have you tried to see me at the end of the ocean
where nothing is more solid than gold.
Everything is more transparent than weather
that is old,
and the shadow of courage is lost in the end.

Taking nothing more than anything
we weather like fear;
broken like yesterday all the words
are quite clear.

I fold like diamonds on the edge of a river,
I melt like courage at the head of a giver.

Round we go like a little lost fish,
it would be in sorrow that we give us a wish.
In the broken world that we know of today,
hope is a garden that is helpful along the way.

Folding like flowers we know what to do,
on the brink of extinction we have risen anew.
The world is more solid than that of gold,
the world is for the strong and the bold.


Wednesday, April 17, 2019

ANEW.

ANEW

A sunset is a void of color
etched in the lot of time
it is yours and it is mine
like a shard of grass

that doesn't bend
in times of dew colors mend
tomorrow is both near and far

beyond the setting of the star
into the world where we grew
all we held was life anew

Friday, April 12, 2019

where u r i think of u.

where you are, i think of u.

where you are, i think of you
like soldiers on a silent hill.
your voice it whispers like mountains.
sound folds in a cave.

i hate people who abuse my trust,
who put themselves above other people.
who trap themselves when they don't need
to be trapped,
a person whose wrist needs to be slapped.

i am strong and i am willed.
my lover is harder than anything.
in my heart i am not gone.

the night is gone for the taking.
where you are, i think of you,
like night molding out of dew.

twilight sparkles in the night.
some things go and some things come.
out of all the darkness,

a man stands in a corner like a prop,
and thoughts whisper in my mind
and i am stiller than the dark.

drifting outward in sleep.

DRIFTING OUTWARD IN SLEEP

The house stands close to midnight.
It is alone with its thoughts.
The thoughts are half-willed.

Drifting outward in sleep.
All we have left are our dreams.
He is with me; he is in me.
He is the man I do not know.
He is pain and he is sorrow.
Nothing without will or pain.
A light goes on in someone's house.

The motorcycle gets tossed in the gutter.
Someone's breath is moving so shrill.
The house is empty. Life is gone.

I'm finally ending myself. All the pain
will be gone, just words on a page,
it is raining, nothing left for me here,
nothing left for me to go on,
just me standing on the end of the world,
alone.

I drift in and out, the waves of the sea.
Whispering to me into the night.
He makes me lonely. I am no one without him.
My best friend who taught me to be alone,
the man who is full of pain.

Sorrow is like sorrow in night.
We are gone. We are not.
Words are wounded.

CLOSE.

CLOSE

In this world time is a shadow
that moves and bends in waves.
Numbers crawl slow as molasses,
and hope furls in song.
I whisper in the night of time.

We don't have many seconds to spare,
on the edge of the shadow that bends,
in time that's wanted wear,
we move in grace and space that mends.

Space is beckoning to the night.
On the end of life we sing in song.
Hope is burrowed into the light.
Love will conquer all our wrongs.

It's snowing, it's raining,
all of life is abating.
Everything we know inside,
is like a dream that will collide.

On the edge of hope and fear,
we do not fade and disappear;
in the tides that run quite near,
hold us close, the ones who are dear.