we want poems that tie Billy Collins to a chair
and beat him. we’ll see how pretty, witty and meaningless
it all is: a million stanza march ready to flood his organs
alternate multi-cult cannons shoved in his paternalism
backfire prosody until his blank eyes’ black
we want poems to stop lying
in showers of middle-age heartbreak &
cancer. fucking grad students ain’t noble.
poems that grab New Yorker subscribers
by their neckties, hang them in Morning-
side Heights, Harlem, West Wicker Park
River North, University Village like piñatas
summertime shooting galleries, gentrified
chicken shit wax-that-ass museum displays
of quaint colonialists discovering a cafe.
white poems about whiteness devils & white
powder medicine men. poems that stole everything
we own & won’t surrender. 40-line reparation pathologies
to jazz writers who beat-bopped a century of plagiarism
who beat-box between line breaks, who cop language
break /ups and think they in OH! /vating
white poems / little dick slavery poems
blueprints rolled on the table in daylight
poems that cut school funds / a(f)firm
white woman ass/imilationists, dic-
tion bigots, cracker gun barrels, white poems
w/ mathematic inconsistencies, voter fraud
interest-rate hikes, red lines & red-stamped
bank loans. poems that smother children
in knock-off handbags & Nike shoes
poems starved for attention. a white poem
that destroys a white world that eats itself
rather than consumes the Other finally
a poem that will grab the king’s keys & stab
fair maidens and game wardens repeatedly
the royal court bloody, shocked & clawed.
9
I’ll kill your baby.
Then, I’ll come for you.
Wenches awake jaw-drooped,
weltering from my machete-clipped wings.
Submerged in vinegar sweat,
clenching Christ crosses, they moon-chant:
Night Owl, Night Hag: You Can’t Scare Me.
Night Owl, Night Hag: You’re The Enemy!
I’m their martyr
peroxided in scripture,
now the heresy who rejected Adam’s body
atop. He cleaved onto Eve
who still left him foolish. I leave men wet
with dreams of women with bird-taloned feet
taking flight greeting angels at the Sea.
Docile Marys fetter selves to rock,
dirt gardens, preferring the sting of stones
inscribing maid on their backs.
Their daughters invent Bloody Lillith
with lights out, terrified
my likeness will burst through their mirrors:
Who second-sexed these servants?
Dared they lie beneath men
& raise boys?
Who exiled me from their tongues?
I cut throats & uteruses
If I, who denied beneathness,
am now beneath,
why not slice open their bellies
& score their wings?
10
This a bus with wings
Flying me high above the earth
I need red clay forgiveness
I need a nina simone gun
With no bullets
Just fire
Just freedom
I bite down hard at my bottom lip
To remind myself of the pain
To feel something soft on my
Body filled with concrete, metal
And somebody else’s needles.
I am a shadow of myself.
I am the after-hour party
The next stop is my stop
Any stop. Just don’t stop
Keep driving bus driver
Till we touch the first
Cloud in the entrance to
Heaven.
There has to be a safe place
For women who had a yesterday
And a series of uncertain
Tomorrows.
This window is the entire
World. Maybe the earth is
Flat and square after all.
Maybe I would stop running
In circles if I just went to
The edge of this mutha fucka
And jumped.
This is better than jumping.
This is a church revival. Ooh. Baby.
They could never save me in those
Pretty places. Too much stained
Glass. I need to be able to see
Inside.
I wanna hear my God in a simple place.
The loud speaker at a drive-
through menu.
There u are. I can hear you talking to me.
I love French fries. Always have. I can
Fix a lot of things about myself. That one
I ain’t changing.
Changing. What the hell is that anyway.
We all the same from the moment we are born.
Aren’t we?
I’m moving, but I’m still me. I don’t have a
Costume. Not for this life. I will ask God
For a new one next time around, maybe.
Change is good. Things we can’t control we
Name good. Getting high is good, when u can
Control it. Check that out.
I just want to eat and sleep for a few months. Wake up
As a movie star in a different movie. And maybe more meat to cover these bones.
This is not my movie. I had to convince myself.
So here I am, a jar full of empty promises
and letters never sent.
I couldn’t hold him. I didn’t know how to hold him.
Who was gonna hold me? Huh?
Why we only born with these two hands anyway. Explain that
Shit to me. Women need more than two. What if
Someone cut these off. It happens.
Or arms. They can just fall off from exhaustion.
What’s up modern medicine. Help me grow some new arms!
Why can’t we just grow new ones? Humans ain’t so special.
Can’t just heal our wounds by a touch or a kiss. That’s never enough. We gotta take pills
to fix Our brains. We so smart, we don’t know how
to think.
Without some help.
That’s all I need. A little help.
A cross to bare. A bridge to cross.
I am not broken. Just tired.
Damaged slightly.
Nothing good lasts forever.
And sometimes nothing bad does either.
This is my stop. Can we land now
Bus driver?
That old bridge exists in the reflection
Of the new. Simply beautiful. I need
To sleep somewhere like that.
I need to wake up in the care of the sun.
I need to feel safe with my eyes closed.
I need to land. Like an alley cat.
I paid my fare a million times.
I am not a secret!!
I am screaming
Inside this shell.
Time can’t find me here. No more
Watches. Everybody watches.
Watch me get off.
Watch me get off.
Watch me land.
I got wings
This bus got wings.
Just put this baby in drive.
And let’s fly
Let’s exist together
For the very first
time.
11
who told you
you
could
expose
your
wings
black girl
don’t you know there is no room to evolve here
no room to resolve fears
dissolve tears
back into the earth from which you came
your name(?)
lucy(,)
loosely
considered hominoid
human
beautiful
woman
marvel at your buttocks
and legs
slim waist
and breasts
yet make child suckling illegal in public
we need no remembrance
of what we taught you to forget
of heru and
auset
jesus and
mary
forbid to teach the babies
that the messiah had a messiah
and her name was
Mama
12
Despite your small victories
you were built for digestion.
There is a fire in your chest
that will burn you in the right
direction: follow it.
Blind yourself
with anything.
It is the only way
to walk properly;
sightless stumbling over
cobblestones, molars
under your feet.
Tonight, you are
the offering.
Every step taken
is a minor rapture
for your tongue,
your nose, ears,
and hands heightened
by the surrendering
of your pupils. Walk
your heels skinless,
until your blisters
are just pads
of pulp. And then, when you collapse,
sprawled out like a starfish, you will love
with your whole body.
You will bleed the earth
a sky.
13
no one tells you
if anyone does you do not listen anyway
if you do still you do not understand
no one tells you how to be free
there is fire in your neck
ocean in your ear
there is always your fear
the words you cannot even
no one is here
when the world opens upside
down you reach toward dawn
your weight on the earth changes
some of us plant deeper
others ache to fly
14
Hot wind sprays sand in our eyes, and I know you’re still angry with me.
To the west, Eden’s trees sway and the cool water washes sinner skin clean.
Don’t worry love, you’ll be free of me soon.
Babies’ blood upon my chin, sweet as pomegranate syrup. Oh, how many fetters
wrought in love and unmade by lust, were soggy-skinned and tender.
Fear not my love, you’ll be clean this afternoon.
How you loved to weave the bonds and strap them to my belly. Now
the heat of your anger scorches the plain, lamenting both hunger
and its satiation. Don’t worry love, you’ll be free of me soon.
When our sons have a taste for their young, you’ll remember me.
Attributing a lineage of sin to your sister, though I only meant to
bring you unburdened to your fate. Oh my dear one, remember this tune.
Eve waits in the shadow of a fig tree, the virgin daughter.
Her juices will still feel unclean on your fingers,
Tasting not quite right. You’re impossible to please, just like your Father.
Dearly beloved, this demon’s love for you was true;
Here you stand at Earth’s gate, I’ve carried you through!
Lust and fire defeated, remand me to the dunes;
For all that I bore you, I’ll be free of you soon.
15
It is fine to mourn the dead
--- but this is not that poem.
This for those we haven’t lost.
This for those
who couch surf until
waves of hospitality cease cresting.
Then, they crash
on floors before
they find another place,
paddle over and pray
the tide rises high
enough to hang 10
or however many days they can.
This is for those
whose disorganization
was amusing and endearing
until it cost them college,
those for whom
“damn homie
in high school you was the man homie
the fuck happened to you?”
was written.
This is for those
who only call once
ever 5-7 months and
have the same conversation
each time,
like pop songs
— the chords might change
but the progression’s the same.
It starts with
a warm greeting
and details suggesting
progress paid a visit
before the cover
of enthusiasm fades,
revealing
the only real change:
their location.
Sad nostalgia infects
their voice, reminding
of every errand and chore
and other reason to
get off the phone
right now.
This is for those
people, we all know
those people.
They were our best friends
growing up, the ones we looked up to.
Now we can hardly find
the energy for half a smile
whenever they cross our paths.
This is for those
because after so many
unsuccessful efforts,
offering help feels
like attempting to push
the boulder of Sisyphus,
it seems absurd to even try.
All that remains is hope
and hope can elect a president
but it can’t save a person’s life
so we write and read
poems like these,
like lighthouses and maybe
those people will find their way
back to shore.
This is for those we haven’t lost
because there is a fate worse than death
and it’s living to hear eulogies
for the person you could have been
16
There was no way
to say goodbye
that last day I tried.
There was thank you.
There was I love you.
There was a hand to hold
and your eyes
and the great shifting paintings
of your windows.
The ocean and the sky
and you, so tired,
everything deserting you.
Years unwinding to this;
From far away, I call,
trying to keep your voice in my ears.
Your warrior girl has pushed
your bed to the window.
Your head rests with the rising
of the sun and of the moon.
How many hearts broke
themselves, trying to hold
and keep, before she
who could stop a coal truck
with her will? She makes you soup.
The waves break over her.
I knew, this morning,
before it came.
You had gone under,
deep beneath morphine
and out with the tide.
I am here, helplessly alive
trying to find you.
You, the long, brown,
gypsy boy,
trailing your ragged beauty.
You, the man,
wild-eyed and righteous,
throwing your shoes at the murderer
behind the pen. You, your shirt
splotched with my tears. You
laughing at my absurdity.
Your shout of “What are you, drunk?”
You the maker of hangover
eggs, the eyes that shared the joke,
fellow chaser of storms.
the one who loved my swagger
and knew everything behind it.
The huge moving sea
is between us.
I no longer can hold
your disappearing hand.
Your body is as earth
and stones and all
there is to offer
cannot bring one more day
of your sweet, sleepy smile.
I cry out from the sinew,
out from the agonized clutch
of my chest. My flesh
has never seemed so undeserved.
This grief is a hurricane
that passes and passes.
The eye. The storm. The eye.
I remember you,
that last afternoon
in your high, white flat.
You were unafraid. The sky
was already taking possession.
I remember you
in that seaside room
where the windows held no shore,
only the vast horizon.
17
Trace the red cord
from tread to source
to find threads
of a crushed case,
the screeching white
rib of animal
framework splintered
through a pelt still
fresh with fleas
fragments of ivory
archways snapped
tangled in viscera
of violets bruised
rouge and mangled
tubes pulsate spurts
in the midmorning
rays till the last drops
sheen in every crevice
of the road we glance
away to avoid
the scene
a deflated carcass
disappearing
on the horizon.
18
1
Broken
Pieces of bone
Skulls
And feet
Eyes and teeth
Mixed with shattered concrete
All this rubble
Cousins
Bricks
Steel beams
Sister
Glass, mother
Tears, blood
Brother
Babies
Buried under all that unyielding
Unforgiving rubble
When the dump trucks
Come to scoop up
Toes and clothes
Papers and arms
Who will take the time
Chorus Page 2