The Most Humble Love is nestled deep In the hearts of the most humble They are the lost The forsaken we only speak of As if this makes us care Our thoughts, only echos Bouncing off their dreams Small change, petty offerings Pools of pity at their feet This is not love Love hides In
A Short History of Epiphany And what might the difference have been if Three Queens came bearing gifts. “An evolutionary epiphany,” they declare. Imagine if the Queens came first, even if superseded by three patriarchs bearing gold (the capitalists); frankincense (down a long church history of swinging censors); sticky myrrh (more often used in embalming.)
Bellum. When the war came for us, we locked the remnants of our dreams inside our gap tooth & sprinted for fear that it would swallow us like it did our homes. When the war walked into our city during the sky’s siesta, we thrashed a mother’s lips with these cracked feets, in search of
homeless: greenway note: the black sheep brothers sleep on the biking greenway, the path from here to eternity or bella vista, missouri anyway. sisters too, splayed, displayed on the asphalt, passed out, eyes shut, cans and bottles, mouths open, ragtag shirts, skirts, shoes, toiletries heaped on the rage of wet grass. and this: four thousand
THE MANSION [ EXCERPT ] ______________________ June 2006: It felt good to be in the old neighbourhood– Travelling to a vegan potluck at a house On Sutter Street on foot gave me A chance to see my first home in the city again. In between a Solid brick Black Protestant church & Expensive luxury condominiums
Alone I stand in a dark graveyard Bodies lay still but there are no souls I walk alone without my heart Can’t fill these empty wormholes How can anyone say she didn’t matter She was everything to me Selling their soul is what they’d rather Married into a portal to hell on earth I’m born
At seven a.m. the trees at this park make a green horizon like a fence whose slats are neither warped or out of place. It is the only green part of the day. Lawns are brown, their grass as dead as brooms. It’s October and the trees still have leaves. We are in need of
It’s a short drive to the park. Winter has made a whimsical return as if to poke fun at Spring. Snow powdered trees appear to float in rainwater lagoons. I throw my daydreams into placid pools and wish for sunlight. In the foreground, flakes fall, melting instantly on a glass stage. In the distance, they
With a fleeting first glance, I walked past you standing along the path, instead giving more attention to my footing and my morning conversation. But something about your weathered features struck me. I knew I needed to see more of you. So, I turned around. Retraced my steps. Approached you, reverently. Raised my camera ready.
–After W.S. Merwin The Yellowlegs skims the surface of the creek. Polished by first light, the water frees its liminal soul from a veil of mist. It flies wing tip-to-wing tip with its self. The Sandhill crane cranks its voice. Ratchets its call to others standing tall among the reeds, their long necks just visible
