Migration (audio only)
Click the icon above to listen to this audio poem.
Find and share the perfect poems.
Let me begin again as a quiet thought
in the shape of a shell slowly examined
by a brown child on a beach at dawn
straining to see their future. Let me begin
this time knowing the drumming in my dreams
is me inheriting the earth, is morning
lighting up the rivers. Let me burn
my vanities: old music in the pines, sifters
of scotch, a day moon like a signature
of night. This time, let me circle
the island of my fears only once then
live like a raging waterfall and grow
a magnificent mustache. Let me not ever be
the birdcage or the serrated blade or
the empty season. Dear Glacier, Dear Sea
of Stars, Dear Leopards disintegrating
at the outer limits of our greed; soon we will
encounter you only in motivational tweets.
Reader, I should have married you sooner.
This time, let me not sleep like the prophet who
believes he’s seen infinity. Let me run
at break-neck speeds toward sceneries
of doubt. I have no more dress rehearsals
to attend. Look closer: I am licking my lips.
Click the icon above to listen to this audio poem.
Click the icon above to listen to this audio poem.
1. When you have forgotten (to bring into Play that fragrant morsel of rhetoric, Crisp as autumnal air), when you Have forgotten, say, sun-lit corners, brick Full of skyline, rowhomes, smokestacks, Billboards, littered rooftops & wondered What bread wrappers reflect of our hunger, 2. When you have forgotten wide-brimmed hats, Sunday back-seat leather rides & church, The doorlock like a silver cane, the broad backs Swaying or the great moan deep churning, & the shimmer flick of flat sticks, the lurch Forward, skip, hands up Ailey-esque drop, When you have forgotten the meaningful bop, 3. Hustlers and their care-what-may, blasé Ballet and flight, when you have forgotten Scruffy yards, miniature escapes, the way Laundry lines strung up sag like shortened Smiles, when you have forgotten the Fish Man Barking his catch in inches up the street "I've got porgies. I've got trout. Feeesh 4. Man," or his scoop and chain scale, His belief in shad and amberjack; when You have forgotten Ajax and tin pails, Blue crystals frothing on marble front Steps Saturday mornings, or the garden Of old men playing checkers, the curbs White-washed like two lines out to the burbs, 5. Or the hopscotch squares painted new In the street, the pitter-patter of feet Landing on rhymes. "How do you Like the weather, girls? All in together girls, January, February, March, April... " The jump ropes' portentous looming, Their great, aching love blooming. 6. When you have forgotten packs of grape Flavored Now & Laters, the squares Of sugar flattening on the tongue, the elation You felt reaching into the corner-store jar, Grasping a handful of Blow Pops, candy bars With names you didn't recognize but came To learn. All the turf battles. All the war games. 7. When you have forgotten popsicle stick Races along the curb and hydrant fights, Then, retrieve this letter from your stack I've sent by clairvoyant post & read by light. For it brought me as much longing and delight. This week's Father's Day; I've a long ride to Philly. I'll give this to Gramps, then head to Black Lily.
like some 14 year old girl waiting for her crush to glance back i
keep waiting for capitalism to end
but it won’t end
my adult life lover states
on what will end:
Libraries
Birds
Retirement
Recess
Sprinting during recess
Hispid Hares
Starfish shaped like stars
Inconvenience
Wrinkles
Sunken cheeks
Living corals
Protests
Anti-Nuclear Proliferation
Non-Aggression Pacts
Dragonflies
Mangosteen
DMZs
Trade Embargos
Leopards, all kinds
Sawfins
Rewilding
Infiltration Plot/Dreams
Oak, Trees.
Partulina Variabilis
Partulina Splendida
(-------) Violence Prevention Programs
News. News:
Might a few jellyfish survive—
counting till revelations becomes part of—
The way air is at the same time
intimate and out of reach
(a void with light inside it
turned on a wheel of wheres)
Stars' lease on sky expires, breathes
in leisures of sparrows, wrens
and casual trees, wet sidewalks
twittering with tattered news, old
leaves (hollow bones and branches)
wind of wish and which and boys
waiting for white kisses, rain
of feathers, clouds saving their later
Suppose this sunlight, day split open
suppose these senses and the information
carried, thing and news of the thing
repeating place, location of position
Birds, for example, remembered
fluttering torn terms, congregations
shimmer of hummingbirds
but when does one see more than one
tumbling bright flesh (sky
at hand) pleating afternoon, banking
on mere atmosphere, primary
colors dividing white into
three clean halves (red, green,
blue-bitter berries rasp, crabapples
crush underfoot), the spectrum
says don't stop there
(smudged light a lapse of attention)
there's never enough world for you
I give up touch. My hand holds stems
of air, while I remember
the long hair I wore
as a not-girl child.
I give up touch to feel
safe in a body. How could I be
the girl they saw the man
I am? Somewhere beyond language
we are touching
only the long hair
of the cool stream
meeting the lake
and I remember
sky when I look down
into its surface, my face
only veil, and below, rocks fish
my shadow. My pulse. Sun and moon
set and rise. Everywhere branches
tangle. Mist from the lake
catches in my beard. Once a butterfly
rested there. The moment I said I’m not
a flower, she lifted away
and I was all bloom.
What is our essence and who
drinks its nectar? A small god
surely lives in my throat
a kind of temple. I have fed him flesh
from the forest floor
and he cradles my eyes
and he grows me up
into the green
of trees. I know
he’s gold though he’s only ever been
visible in dreams. He appears
as my mother, childhood
pets, a first love, a ghost
story whispered over flashlight
in a backyard tent, neighbors
whose names I’ve lost.
Here is where I try to hear him.
Here is where I study how to love him
bring him elderberry, oxeye
daisy, row of purple
foxglove, leopard
slug, mock orange, morning
glory, mountain lettuce.
It rains here often. I learn to be water
in a garden. A handsome solitude is not the same
as loneliness. It’s here I call my little gold god
beloved, friend.