My Poetry

Mo vi ng

I.
The hot fevered rush to the bathroom:
I've been holding this shit in all day.
The toilet becomes a flower
and I am a bee
pollinating.
It is beautiful in a way.

II.
I've thrust myself forward into this
new state.
A pilgramage into uncharted land.
I have my first house,
and responsability
is a garden of weeds
that i dig through;
a small explorer dropping
anchor for the first time,
saying "please
just let this be 
my destination."

III.
I feel like I might be giving
birth right now.
The push, the womb,
the placenta dropping;
this new life 
flowing like the after birth
from a vagina
I didn't even know I had.

Newark, 1986. 

Red lights are blinking in the sky,
like heaven is winking,
like god is winking.

My 5 year old body curled up
in the passenger seat of my father's car
sees judgment towering above.
So I wink back. 

Airplanes never know
how low is too low.
So god pushes them up.
Higher than even his eyes can see,
so that there light shines down on him.

The red eyes of god keep things in their place,
blinking away like a monarch drunken on lust. 
Me in mine, him in his own, 
and these machines above all else.

The Viewing

I never realized how many funeral homes there were
till we got lost looking for ours.
They said he fell asleep at the wheel
and was crushed to death by a tractor trailer.
What they really meant was
"this is why we are having a closed casket."

On the drive home,
all the streets were lined with funeral homes
and in each one death sat out
like a platter,
and the people feasted.

It made me realize
that sometimes things just need to be closed. 

When My Mother Feels Strong

There is lightning,
and wind outside the house
and my Kansas born mother
takes me to the front door.
She gets down on her knees 
and presses her nose and lips
against the screen
like she is kissing a boy 
for the first time.
She teaches me how, when the wind is strong enough,
you can smell the dust between the wires.
The small particles that had been
trapped their for months
finally breaking free. 


Working at the Natural Food Store

It reeks of herbs
whose names are obscure,
and hard to pronounce.
Herbs which come from countries
even more obscure 
and nameless. 

Four hours of life
which I trade for objects,
speed, and time to be
later spent on buying
and buying. 

Somewhere off where ever 
some mountains are obscuring 
the horizon.
And I’m sure that a trail goes
through those mountains.
People with funny skin
and names my tongue has 
never explored
spend hours picking
and pulling
and grinding.

Spend. Buy. Spend.


the Moon is Not Always Female

The moon is a weapon tonight:
a boomerang, a blade,
or a flaccid spear.
So I  find it no surprise that I
lay on my back and watch it now,
and think of how history repeats itself:
a bowl, a knife, a glass of water, a pistol.
But tonight the moon is a man,
and that weapon I think
may be more of a wink.
Sexy. Cool.
The curve never before so dangerous,
never before so violent.


Sunday Mornings: Father

Everytime we'd fight
(which was all if not none)
you'd buy a box of donuts.

(Like love was a ring for you.
A cycle,
an action,
a chocolate covered chore.)

One for every
silence
between ideas.
Clashing 
like chocolate and vanilla.
Marbleizing.


When I am Jesus

When the faith of America
becomes 2000 years old,
I plan to sleep through it.
Awaken through an untouched 
tightness.
I will become this miracle,
life without creation,
life without father, or god.
I will be my own religion,
my own faith.
When I walk it
will not be on sand.
It will not be alongside
2000 years of footprints
that carry my heavy burden
within thin pages of scripture. 
I will become my own savior. 


Mirror Boy

You're me,
but time comes in teaspoonfuls for you.
Life without a constant current,
without a connection,
just pieces of it as it happens.
You had sex, you did your hair, you cried,
smiled later, never knowing why, how.

I see it in your eyes...
the fear of me in each
single second you exist,
not knowing what I have done,
what you have done.

I place it out for you,
create it for you.
And when I place my hand against yours,
I sense your coldness,
Hard, flat, trembling.

I see it in the nape of your neck,
the corners of your mouth.
You're silently,
uncontrollably,
begging
to be smashed.

Sunday Mornings: Church

My family viewpoint on religion
is best displayed by this:
we were Presbyterian
because it was convenient.
It was one block away.
It was a short walk.

When I was four (in Sunday school),
floor length skirts
and tucked in trousers
taught me love came from heaven
without ankles.
Traveling small distances
to get to me.
Only a block.

And i thought: God's love
must not care much for me,
to cover up that pearly white skin
where the hair stopped,
and the connection to earth began.


Principles of Biology, Chapter 2

On the first day of my biology class,
(as my teacher handed out paper)
i noticed his wedding ring.

On the second day,
he spoke of his wife.
How, she was also a science teacher,
and that they had a child.

Love seemed to become 
a hydrogen bond.
And biology grew a heart with them.
Atoms crashing together
and becoming one chain.
My english mind thought of a ball and chain,
but my text book argued that idea
with diagrams, and charts, and molecules,
lipids, and a whole page of definitions.

I find it amazing how love can exist,
even in this.


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