The Poetry Marathon

anger-ghost pepper spicy left me

gasping for words so instead I:

-organized the board games in alphabetical order

-stared into the sky

-pounded nerds like a frat boy

-created a new profile image

-swam 1.5 laps

-tried to clean pool deck

-tore my thumbnail far enough to bleed

-played sudoku on my phone while balancing on a pool float

-looked up a rabbit’s nose

-tried to remember all my passwords to set up my new phone

-got grumpy with my love

-started a new macramé project

-knocked my bong off the table 

-swept glass off my patio with the push broom

-played more suduku

-listened to the broadway cast recording of Moulin Rouge until bed

close your eyes

imagine,

one hundred  years in the future

laid out in a magical novel.

solitude.

one patriarch 

lighting a match 

to see what’s left standing 

after the phoenix broke her chains, 

poisoning the well water,                               screeching her rage.

ear bleeds rupturing pouring down his cheeks like

                   red tears

falling onto the cracked concrete

already wet with the                                       putrid infection 

        leaching 

from the firebird’s broken shackles

her flight made                                     impossible 

feathers.                                                mangled

                                                  100 years in chains

her cries awakening 

 hearts held in similar                           cages,

the patriarch stumbling now supine

looking into her eyes

before his death ushers in a new era

how many times did it take you? 

going back / rewinding, uncoil the tangles / smooth the sharp edges of the world that scraped away at me / made me vulnerable // the hardest part was acknowledging / I had been allowing it for so long // hiding from anyone / who knew // a tiny fire shone / in the eyes of children / who loved me // lighting the path to freedom 

miles to go

(after Robert Frost)

blood flows 

         hot and               ragged

a collective thrum.

walls

 surround 

    them, 

they have chosen to 

            let our cries be drown out by 

their preachers

whose shouts of condemnation do                     nothing 

                             but spur us 

further on

this will not be the culmination of 

                               feet marching on            cobblestone streets,

                         pepper sprayed petals in                 hair,

                combat boots crunch over                       broken      glass,

and miles to go before we sleep,   

and miles to go before I sleep.

I am                              free

pain 

        washes 

                   away

      as ears                  fill–

sound filtered through.           water

each joint 

                      unbound, 

cursed connective tissues 

                      slacken.

Damona,          my healer,

I call to her, 

my feet buried in

                 tide pulsed sand—

cleanse me of my 

   woe.

copious fluid gums up both lungs

that’s what I was told by nurse

go home, nothing to be done

you have covid pneumonia 

no big deal, really

what doesn’t kill

but it could

nevermind

bye

he leaned forward, vape in hand, onto his storefront railing

eyeing me as suspect

thin, bubbly, too goofy and far too old

still, he ushered me inside and spread out his samples.

periwinkle florals and fluffy clouds were shown to me.

I raised an eyebrow, this is not what we discussed.

his fingers beat a tune on the countertop, and he slowly pulled out his sketch.

I planned on shrinking it, so it’s not all skyscraper size,

he really did not know me yet.

my eyes alight, it is everything I wanted.

I jiggle in delight.

in that case, I’ll go set up my needles.

hey

so yeah 

my birthday 

in winter kinda 

technically late autumn 

and for a long time I really dreaded the day

aging wasn’t so bad, but the performative bullshit was far too heavy

(after George Condo’s “The Age of Reason”)

fragments of architecture 

a person.

fragments of people

a building.

macabre tinny music blares 

from big top tent pools

pendulums of trapeze artists

in a vermillion tinged sky.

disassembled

distorted

torturing and tortured 

soup of eyes, breasts, clenched hands and smiles.

frenzied chaos.

fragments of color

the age of reason.

fragments of reason

a work of art.

(after Octavia Butler’s “Earthseed”)

there’s this place where I am special

I can feel others feels

famine, war, tyranny, this all complicates things

so I travel

on foot

picking up other travelers I hope are safe

victims

children

healers

and others afflicted with being special like me

as we all search 

search for water

search for safety

search for lost ones

search for ourselves