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'*

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
* 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.

Day 13

brittle words, brittle bones:

truth is a rusty nail that I drag

across my mind raining sparks;

a broken muffler on pavement



your eyes were azure sea glass

painfully dull, pummeled by

every matter of water and rocks



in moments of your absence

i wade into the center of the creek

asking to be cleansed of the shards

of memory you have embedded in me



i think of you when I smell rosemary

and thyme...we always had too much

or not enough of both the taste and the measure:

seconds, minutes and hours.



a dash of salt to keep me from

bitterness.

you liked to watch me cook

in your kitchen, standing only millimeters

away from my figure at the stove.



you never knew that the rhythm of

my wooden spoon was your heart beat;

the steam from the saute pan

was the breath you left on my neck.

Day 12

remember when
mixed tapes meant
you were friends forever

remember when smarties were the preferred
Halloween candy.

remember when stirrup leggings
and a baggy t-shirt was the perfect outfit
for any occasion.

remember when shoulder pads
made you sexy and double breasted
suits made you classy.

remember when your VHS
collection of Disney movies
was the envy of all of your friends.

remember when there was nothing
more powerful than an woman
in red lipstick.....and a red dress (Lady in Red).

remember when computer screens
were only black and white or black and green.

remember when Jesse from the sitcom
full house was a total hottie.

remember when Goonies
was the scariest movie ever.

remember when rollerskating parties
were the best birthdays ever.

remember the snowball roller skate and
how you always got picked by the guy with sweaty hands.

remember when gas was 97 cents a gallon.

remember when American made
was the only way to go.

remember

when.

For Grandpa

I feel your strong hands
in the pine boards in the attic.

Passing through each doorway in
this House I hear your methodical
footsteps that moved
rhythmically as
waves against the dock.

I remember the image of your outline
at the edge of the dock staring
into the water as if
to seek a prophesy or purpose.

But your purpose was behind you
waiting, laughing and playing games
at the the dining room table.

When your heart finally turned
to us we were silenced by the beauty
that you kept so secret resting beneath
your very own ribs.

You caged it from yourself
for so many years
maybe out of fear
or maybe out of guilt.

But is was not until your heart
began to beat in a broken
rhythm that you pealed back your
own skin for the very first time.

You were new and old.
You were frail and strong.
You were fear and courage.

We let our fears of your new life's end
rain from our eyes, pooling in the crevices
of our own broken and beautiful words
that drifted to the horizon of your open ears.

At dusk now, I think of you.
Of how brightly your burned in the end
not as the smouldering of a setting sun but
as a star that never knew it was a star.

A star that burst open;
a reverse super nova spilling
all of its color and grace on the walls,
the bed sheets and the tops of our heads.

The echo of that deluge will live
in my bones forever.

Day 10

We are not lost even
without maps or compasses
if we live as found.

Day 9

I hear that candy
coated atom bombs are the
new kind of sunset.

Day 8

Record stacks
and plain white t's

I am pacing around the rim
of my glass with my fingers.

Dizzy with insanity
daring not to look up into the eyes
that have been perched on my figure
from across the room

Every time I see you
the floor drops from underneath my knees
my heart does an involuntary hail Mary
and then rolls around your feet
like a lost marble.

Looking up from the drink
I see you shadow boxing
ghosts inside of your own mind.
Peace Be Still.

Peace Be

Be.

Quiet Tonight

His feet shuffle like sand paper
on the wood floor
down the hallway
to his empty bedroom

There are burn marks where
her hands touched the walls
and oil spots on the carpet
from her leaky eyes.

Sitting on the edge of the matress
he imagines the pressure of her body
on the right side of the bed
warm and restless.

It has been years since
her smile has floated freely
in between the kitchen sink
and the bathroom vanity.

She loved washing dishes;
she would hold her hands hovering
over the water in the sink
and watch the drops fall from her finger tips.

He used to laugh when she told
him she was born of water and fire
as if she were telling some joke
with no apparent punch line.

He sees her now in every puddle
and creek; hovering over the water
like a translucent veil of atoms
that merge the past and present.

After 43 years together
it doesn't seem right that her final resting
place is in the dirt beneath a shroud
of grass and stone

He just could not bear to watch
her in the waves of the lake;
the ebb and flow reminded him too
much of her own heart beat.

He found, though, that
the earth has quieted her spirit
more that he wanted. There is no soft rhythm
with which to measure his own breaths.

Now he lets the faucet
in the bathroom drip continually
just to interrupt the unnerving
quiet of his restless sleep.

Day 7

I am the forerunner and the background.

The blind spot you were never expecting to see

until I was four steps too close to your face.



My skin is a well worn cotton t-shirt and clay;

still soft and comfortable though fire

has burnt it enough to crack like the blood vessels of sleepless eyes



I am the last thing you think of on Easter

and the first thing you think of on fourth of July;

remember our fireworks...I guarantee you wont find their equal.



My neck is a young maple whose sap

is tart and sweet; choosing spring as her awakening season

and fall as a season of color blaze followed by naked and unashamed.



I am the first spark of light on the horizon

and the echo of thunder that makes your breath stop

tight in your belly before it comes back through your toes, legs, torso....



My feet are the traveling roots of the prairie grasses

moving miles but seeming to stand still; they sway in breezes

and gale storms alike but more than that; they dance in the rain.

Day 6

haiku


inspiration should
come sooner than 12 midnight
brain is too tired

Guernica

skin ashen like newspaper clippings
these toes will not stop breaking when I walk
it has been years since my shoes were burned alive
along with my books and brothers

the sun of God
did his eyes find us here?
is the horizon too big for him to climb or
did we dream up this hell on our own?

All the sparrows have lost their voices
and the lights of the village
have been extinguished by the moans
of motherless sons and son-less mothers

our screams tear at the sky
sounding like nails on slate
or the terror of an inconsolable mare
who has lost all sense of place

the sound of our tears like bones dropped in empty graves
it is our symphony of Morse code
but our message is not SOS
our message would say;

Come help us set our history back into our mouths
Remind us of what tales uncensored tongues may tell

Hold the candle above our heads as we crawl
so that our bodies will not break on the boulders of false hope.

And if you are not coming, dont tell us. Let your hand fall
unnoticed. For all we have is that whisper of rescue and survival.

Day 4

"what is that?" you say
a noise that envelopes your skin
as light as dust
as easy as your eyes resting in mine

the trees breath in our sweat
this moment is a wire balanced
between our teetering hearts
and yet they breath

as sure as the multiplying cells between us
this sound is the persistance of the highway
the smell of peetmoss
and the feel of mud between my toes

it is honest like whiskey
will always burn goodly on the way down
it is simple like the first down beat of moonlight sonata
will always hit you in your sternum

Day 3

The bricks are dusty and red
like the colors of the earth beneath our feet
like the color my heart bleeds as you turn around.

You will know me by the red droplets that mark my path
this heart on my sleeve that keeps bleeding.

free write

Her hair was the color of the wheat at sunset
and it kissed her shoulder blades as she crossed the street in slow totery moments.
She is as shiny as a new penny in the sun light.

I remember when looking both ways before we stepped on pavement was the most dangerous thing we had to worry about.
I remember when ice cream could cure anything.
I remember when we would tell stories through the scariest of thunderstorms.
Leaving all of our dreams tucked between the covers of your queen size bed.

You were a mother sooner than we both thought.
She will always wake to your face bright and open just as I did.

NEW BEGININGS....Day 1

Tonight I will embark on this epic journey once again...I will complete this full year of poetry if I have to type till my fingers break off and bleed.

Day 1

wet your whistle with
a tasty and short Haiku
yup thats it for now