To Mi Alma With Love

These eyes are Norwegian:
changing from green to blue
with the ocean tides in the fjords.
Hiding behind books like the fog
that wraps the cliffs at sunset.

this tongue is Swedish
catching words like fisherman’s nets
tangled and gasping with life.

These lips are French
as lusty and warm as the Riviera;
street cafes and cigarettes
easily getting full or loose
with wine and laughter.

This spirit is German
built back from ashes
not knowing that walls
dont mean strength
till all walls fall.

These hands are Irish
calloused from carrying
too many burdens
that were not my own.

A bloodline;
Norwegian, Swedish, French, German and Irish.

A Bloodline that
does not point to conquistadores, mestizos or maya.

But this soul, esta alma, born of the dust of the Andes;
It has been plundered like the foothill
Minas de oro by those that lust for quick capital.

It has burst its banks in the Amazon spring
carving valles with the tears of Gods
sacrificed and forgotten only to be uncovered again.

You would never know
los secretos I’ve hidden
just behind my ribs
letters from motherless children
memorias of singing to them
under a Mexican moon.

You would never know
the memory of rhythms
I carry en mi cadera
Unable to resistir the down
Beat of drums in salsa,
meregue and bachata
at times lento and sensual
then agile and electrico.

Thighs like united fruit trees
Swelling with heat and the cycles
Of la tierra.
Mouth up turned to the first
lluvia of the summer.

My heart bleeds la pasión
for justice like jungle guerrillas
desperately single-minded
loosing myself to the best intentions.

A skin that sweats the morning
dew on the cacao trees
knowing even the harvest can not
change bullets, stolen lands and unmarked graves.

At night my ears still hear
the victory cries of
Havana Revoluciones.

To my ladies....waiting is not a bad thing (sort of a rant).

This might not be a poem maybe just some thoughts. Maybe I am too comfortable being alone but I think that it is important for women now-a-days to not desire commitment at the sacrifice of self-discovery. The truth is there is no human that can complete you except for you. It is only in knowing loneliness and its beauty that you can understand what it means to be together with someone...not just romantically but in all relationships...cultivate the positivity associate with loneliness...make friends with it. Give yourself space.



The lake has finally frozen.
You stand at the edge and erase all memories
of the summer.

The trees are bare and
naked and shivering in shame.
A thin branch reaches towards you
as you hear the echo of the waves
and the fading symphony of the fallen leaves.

A suspended moment a quick breath
sacred reopened.

full.
It is your own.
In attic of your intimate ramblings
safe to run wild in the flesh of solitary grace.
It is your own...or him
that emptiness that brings full.

As the wind howls through
each molecule of crisp air
the layered eves of your hair
have begun to dance around your eyes.
You used to let it foxtrot the corn silk
of your school girl braids on your back.

Between the tomato plants and green beans
long ago
you were enough.

Between the rushes and the birch
right now
you are enough.

Between the seeding future and rooted past
you will be enough.

The vast silence of frozen water before
is not frightening.
The noiselessness perched in your head
is not restless.

It breaths you an elegy
Dear woman
Do not dread the mate of stillness.
Let its taste become your skin.
Find its hair on the pillow next to you.
Love him for all of his contradiction
the pain of alone and the pleasure of refuge.

He will leave his consistent
occupancy in the empty spaces
in your tooth brush holder
and vacant side of the bed.

For these few years he is yours

Only yours.

Let him know you.

Let him.

Know you.

Know.

Empty.
and
Full.

I like it.

I can not pretend
that I have ever made more
than well placed shots in the dark.

but here we are.

Minnesota Welcomes You

Surrounded by former failures

post makred and brief

they litter my kitchen floor like post cards

WELCOME TO MISSOURI

HAWAII AT SUNSET

PRAGUE WISHES YOU WERE HERE
PARIS JE' T'AIME*

I pick one up.


It has a picture of the Grand Canyon…
we never went there.

C'EST TOUT'*

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* JE' T'AIME means "I love you" in french
* C'EST TOUT' means "that is all" or "that is it" in french

Found this in my journal from about 9 months ago. Interesting to reflect upon. I am glad this is behind me now.

The last memory I have of you is how you held me delicate and hopeful like a wish you wanted to keep; safe forever. I swear that when I closed your apartment door I heard a sound like the ripping of a tattered cotton sheet. Love will never be enough for us to return to when the sun breaks the day over our hearts. Every bone in my body has anticipated this moment I think I started taking extra calcium just in case the impact of my hope train hitting the wall of reality was too strong of an impact for my human frame. I know breath will not always come easy…I know that hearts don’t always break fully on impact.

I know that hope can be your bitchy neighbor that hangs out on her lawn trying to chatter at you the moment you step out the door. I want to shut hope out but I can’t because of the enticing prospect of your return to me. It will be marked by well rehearsed and sincere apologies coupled with an amputation of all things in your personality and mine that stood between us. This is at best unrealistic and at worst sadistic for both parties. Yet closing the door on all hope makes no sense…it means we close the door on truly living.

Do I wait for the wind to blow a strong gust that will allow the door to navigate its own way to the latch? Do I force it shut and in the process accidentally shut the proverbial thumbs of my heart in it? Do I simply watch it leave it open and let it remain so in the recesses of my mind? I can’t put my finger on what is right. I don’t want to miss you. I don’t want to see you when I pass certain buildings on the street or hear certain songs in coffee shops.

Yesterday I heard a Duran Duran song and I almost broke into audible sobs over my raspberry vegan muffin and my skim latte. I want to breathe you out of me slowly like a long drag from a cigarette. I smile at the reflection of myself in the rear view mirror and turn the radio station up louder.

So glad EPT are EP.

Oh Baby
your daddy eats atom bombs,
cat nip and camel 99's (BURNING);
likes only American blended whiskies
like his women
one part schizo
two parts maniac.

His favorite letter: X. Carved into
the whip of glass bottles he uses
to flagellate his insides;
a thrashing in the womb.
Not enough till it breaks
scatters
sins leaking
from his inebriated eyes.
He counts his own fingers and toes
religiously like they were yours.
Like it can bring you back to him.

Baby, he's lost
in the dance of anarchy
spun faster and faster
until half truths
blur to lies (BURNING).

Keeps company with a public
that hide the same demons
in their empty pockets.
They remind him to
exorcise his ghosts daily
with their fist spit,
perforated punch love and
words "they dont mean."

He told me "She took the best shot and
it always felt like shit(BURNED)
all the way down."

Said he couldnt find that moment
to look in the mirror
it was only between dreams
it was only passing out
and coming to that felt
like sleeping anymore.

My fingers were too gentle
when he begged me to pluck
his ribs;
guitar strings
a lulluby for him to keep his fears a bay.
To keep your face (BURNING) Baby.

He tatooted your fetus
behind his eyelids
memorized it by moonlight
inked in solid guilt.

I am sorry.
Baby.
I have no razors edge excuses
to explain him to you.
I dont know the map
of his hash marks
on flesh forearm chalk boards.
He told me each mark
was an apology to you (BURNING).
An apology to
the nightmare sunrise
you would never see.

Still he keeps
whistling to your song, Baby,
by the light of the rerun reel
of a hungover horizon.

Every morning
he lifts your body from his bed.
Smile of Icarus wax
falling far too close to the sun
or the edge of that roof (BURNING)
made of tortured family portrait's (BURNING).

Baby. Your sonogram seared into his palms (BURNING)
"We dont have time for polaroids" he said (BURNING
and lights another 99. (BURNING)

Memoir

On a stretcher they wheeled me
3 am in the morning
A time when insanity breeds
And multiplies like cockroaches
Beneath the nail beds of the city streets.

Looking at the clock
It was the last one I would see for two days.
No time in those fluorescent hallways
Only three meals and the mumbling
Ukrainian roommate;
She saw squirrels.
Walls covered in red crayon
From my predecessor:
“Lions are coming to get you…
Eat your eyes”

Eyes that could not look at my unfamiliar
Reflection the mirror or the barred windows.
Locked in this ward
Locked in our own minds
Prisoners of a sick joke and Lakeshore Hospital.
Thelma quoted Gideon’s bible;
Eyes wild pacing red lettered words
As she paced the hall her diaper sagging with each step.

I kept my head down
Don’t seem too happy or they will think you are in denial
Don’t seem too sad or they will think you are suicidal
Don’t talk too much to others or they will think you are schizophrenic
Don’t keep too quiet or they will think you hear your own voices
Don’t be alone too much or they will think you are anti social
Don’t be anything ….be nothing and somehow they will keep
Their vigilant eyes that gloss over you as empty vases
Holding no water for these thirsty dregs of society.

The only friend I made was my mattress
And the bare tree outside my window
The crinkle of the mattress cover reminded
Me that my heart had not crashed through my ribs
To stop beating on the sterile linoleum.
The bare tree bore its own faults in nakedness
Each twisted limb and broken branch became its beauty.
It held no mocking leaves to flaunt hope.

Hope was never a light burden to carry
a pendent around my neck pulling my face,a memoir,
Towards the concrete.
To be hopeless is to learn hope.
To posses hope is to crush its gentle wings
No, it is in release, that hope finds
A way to burst open doors
And call you back to life;
The simple rhythm of feet,
Leaves and breath on the Chicago sidewalk.