class
I would like to do
away with the awful
machinations of class,
To destroy the pyramids
of rotting flesh and
endless hierarchies,
To gnaw the hand that
refuses the untouchable
To pummel these distinctions
Into an ellipse –
s h a p e l e s s with hands
joined in
f u l l c i r c l e
welcome
God,
I am lingering in
the fixations of
my prayers,
silent or enacted in
the devout furrow
of my brow
Michelangelo was inaccurate —
when I reached
for your image,
our slender fingers collided
teeth
These are charred little things,
blackened out from the stench
of cigarettes and drags,
joints and ligaments,
cartilage and bone —
They are snaggled in your
countenance, the shifty-eyed
stares at the bar,
the reek of wine and spirits -
ghosts creeping from the
cracks of your smile
And no matter how many
times you may lose them
in your sleep, your
sweaty nightmares,
they hang like frightened
shadows, still black and
consumed by your ashes
samba
Last night our lashes
danced in acrobatics
clinging from
follicle to follicle,
our own little Samba
extending from the planets
as they circumvented one another –
the nightly streaks
traveled from the Sun to the Moon,
bouncing towards the taxis on ghetto avenues
they’ve found their way,
these illuminations,
my darlings,
towards the ribs that rise slowly
across the room –
somehow I am still left with
music ringing in my ears
a letter to Atlas
My dearest Atlas,
Forever long you have proved to be the bearer of the ultimate burden. I wish I could reassure you that one day this burden will prove to be the greatest fruit of your accomplishments, I wish I could levitate from the floorboards to make the weight at bit more bearable for your weakened shoulders.
As the Earth turns on its axis and makes your job a bit harder, our skies are turning on us.
Tonight you should have seen the way the Heavens opened up. The stars have begun to fall from the sky like rotting teeth, and I am afraid we have nothing to look up to and admire but bleeding gums. Just as we watch the sky at night, we are being watched. The clouds have formed the contours of a face – wisps of blue colliding to form strands of a white mane, crystallized pupils, and furrowed brows. As I stare up to the Heavens – as we all have for the past week – we have seen nothing but the fiercely glorious face of our Creator. And he is ashamed.
Do you not feel it at all, Atlas? The rumbling of the Earth as we collide with one another?
This morning the sea has disappeared. You no longer have a cold sweat down your back without the great oceans lapping at your neck. We have grown scared – the ground beneath us rumbles at almost every hour. I believe God has pointed his thumb downward, and we will be fed to the lions.
Have you heard us?
Perhaps you confuse our pleas with the North wind that blows down your neck – perhaps it has never reached your ears. But I am speaking to you now, whispering through the crevices of the mountains that poke your skin.
I would like to tell you this, my dearest Atlas: the weight of your burden will decrease in time. I’m afraid many of our kind will begin rolling down your back in due time – I would say three days. Your burden will decrease as the Earth begins to crumble over your shoulders. Our ashes and the ashes of creation itself will scatter over your locks, and it will carry itself between the cracks of your dried skin. I can only tell you that I hope you recognize each of our scents, no matter how insignificant we may be in the eyes of our own.
We have grown close in time, you and I. We have learned that our burdens are connected by our consequences. But, Atlas, would you stand for this? Would you accept the fact that the burden you have been carrying for so long has disappeared as quickly as it has been lugged onto your shoulders? As we rise or fall as limp psyches, you will be left alone. You will wander around looking for something to be responsible for again, something to find purpose in. You have refused to let us crush under your blistered feet.
This is human nature, Atlas, and although you are anything but human, you have become us.
astral projection
I will pull the threads that compose
myself until I am no more
And unbind the particles that
accumulate on pasty flesh
Once the weight of being awake
is diminished to a feather
I will soar to heaven again
and leave my remnants on the bed
the traitors
We are traitors
by the way we
carry ourselves
Incessantly,
Indifferently,
Intolerably –
As we shrug our
scrawny shoulders
To deny that
we are at fault
for Earth’s falter,
We kiss the Lost
on their pale cheeks –
without so much
a word they are
sent to their horrid
crucifixion.
writer’s block
There it goes again –
As I try to desperately
grab the dissolved particles
and remnants of
pent-up absolutions,
I am left with nothing
but wasted thoughts
bridge
As the winds travel
freely and holler
through my structures,
and as the water
beneath me reaches
for extended heights,
I am still in one place.
