The Poetry Marathon

Private Morning

Putting moonbeams in my coffee
To make it taste sweet
I step into the fog on the porch
The whole world wrapped in a collective hush

Even from this distance
I can smell the fir trees
Their thick aroma combining
With my dark liquid and clandestine cigarette

I add to the mist surrounding me
As the smoke slips from my lungs
The cold concrete bites my bare feet
Punishment for my quiet sin

I hear the clatter of a canteen on the dock
Followed by a shout, “Damn thing!”
Just an old man heading out for the day
Just as he has done every day

I turn back to the house
Rest my cup on the shelf
Flick ash into the cut glass receptacle
That I took from my grandfather’s house when he died

This quiet morning
Before the day begins
Is my greatest joy
My private ecstacy

Grow

Infinite potential takes a root
In dark rich soil, it uncurls
Pushing at the barriers of the known
Emerging to bask in streams of afternoon light
The first breath of transformation

As the earth it was born from circles
The source that nurtures it
The seedling grows

From tender green
To tremendous grown

Towering amidst mountains
Believing it has achieved
All that a seed could hope for

Severed at the base
Rings exposed
Lifetimes worth of reaching
Cut down

There is nothing more to hope for
No branches to stretch,
No leaves to grow
The tree despairs

Processed and bleached
Inked and bound
Transformed again

Infinite potential waiting to be found
To grow thoughts
To stretch minds

Erasure: “Why Latinx Writers Should Decenter the Narratives That Have Been Weaponized Against Us” –> Latinx Writers US

 

connoisseur, listen to it all

close friends

smarter eyes

rare Latinx writers

drug war or violence

reinforce stereotypes.

the rejection felt

cut down

Do I have a moral obligation to do anything as a writer?

clickbait-y talking point

stereotypical drug lords, maids, gangbangers,

pushback against this new Trump administration

built on stereotypes about Latinx people

informing very real US policy today

Have we boxed ourselves into stories only about good brown people and better brown people?

by looking away from those

stereoptypes does that make us complicit

weaponizing stereotypes against us?

James Baldwin taught us

respectability politics will not save us

look it in the eye

explore the complexity

of that stereotype

reclaim it.

those stories

are ours

basic truth

we feel cheated by portrayals

as told through the white gaze

It is significant

Look these impolite realities in the eye

Why/ How?

Demand complex stories

You don’t know the lives you’re deporting

You don’t want to know

If we ignore the complexities of our world

we make literature dumber not smarter

we should tell those stories.

 

Why Latinx Writers Should Decenter the Narratives That Have Been Weaponized Against Us

Grow

Grow

Dearest,
Your have one charge in this life, GROW

Grow like fire
Sometimes tame and sustained
Other times voraciously clearing the land
Always emanating light and seeking fuel

Grow like water
Sometimes permeating and nourishing
Other times flooding and terrain reshaping
Always gathering to yourself molecule by molecule

Grow like air
Sometimes playful and inquiring
Other times twisting and carrying away
Always transforming and ineffable

Grow like earth
Sometimes steady and compressing
Others shaking and remaking
Always a story layered on stories

Erasure of the Constitution of the US of America

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish

Justice, insure domestic

Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general

Welfare, and secure the Blessings of

Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Pocket

I am a writer, and my currency is words.

Some authors carry wallets, dictionaries, thesauruses

readily at hand.

I keep my words like loose change,

jumbled in my pocket.

My vocabulary pocket, I am loathe to say,

does not do its job.

A phrase gets caught on something else,

stray syllables lost in deep corners.

My mental fingers are not nimble

enough to wedge them free.

Speaking is a nightmare,

grabbing verbs instead of nouns,

fumbling with my payment

to purchase social           .

Oh no.

It seems my pocket     a hole.

That         thing always      me down!

I’m so sorry       like this.

me      some patches

Before                  out.

almost

!

oops.

prompt #15, hour 12 ~ erasure

See the way I have of growing?
November.
I find myself pausing
before funerals.
Prevent me stepping into the sea.
This is a philosophical flourish
nothing surprising.
All men cherish the ocean.

Hour 12: Where is Anne Boleyn’s Head?

Where is Anne Boleyn’s Head?

Traitors

Displayed on spikes

A warning to others

Heads on spikes

Anne’s head

Ladies covered over it as soon as it had fallen

Carried away lifted removed and wrapped

In a chest here ready

Laid to rest beneath the chancel

There they remained

A skeleton small

Beneath the chapel floor

Ashes

Torn apart
By words on a page,
On a picture,
By you.
Destruction of the person,
You once loved
To make you the victim.

I’m ash,
Surrounded by the flames,
Of the lies, you have told.
Bleeding from word bullets,
From people, I have never met.

Our love,
Relegated to,
The wish I never
Pile.
Was it, truth?
Was I a lie?

Destroyed!
Broken but
I will find a way to
Rise again.
A Phoenix,
Of Love.

Hurry

Hurry, Hurry!

I’m late for a very i.portant date

Like the White Rabbit,

I am often scurrying to and fro

Usually with multiple children in tow.

And it never fails,

No matter where I’ve hurried off to-

It is more of the same

Life has become a waiting game.

And that’s why I am trying to learn

To stope and smell the roses-

And why I don’t mind being just a tad bit late.