Away With The Night

You who are with me,
who ache with me, please,
lay still, hold your breathing –
we are sinking
we sink,

beneath wings of bad mothers,
through sad voices of home
our dead limbs fall off,
our bones sleep on their own.

You who are with me,
who are silent at night,
who separate stars, who burn with out light

hold on
hold on
to the hands of these words
we are sinking
we sink

through this very dry Earth.
God isn’t softening,
we are starved by disease,
by darkness, by deepness
of the valley’s between us.

You who are with me,
who ache life away, lay still,
hold your breathing,
hold on to your life,
we are sinking
we sink

away with the night!

Inside Out

It starts with a doorknob,
a brass trombone turning out
mouse squeaks.
Tiny little mouse pellets
squeeze out of my pores.
I watch them drop to the ground.
Still, waiting for respect.

But, it started with a violent door.
Swinging away from force,
away from poison palmistry,
which, in fact, I read.
Which, in fact, I understood.
Or it was the mouse being
meek; naive.

I swing with doors now. After wooden frames
attack my conscious, I become sub.
I create layers of plumb paste up,
licking drywall,
growing asbestos,
swinging from summer to fall,
landing in winter igloo’s to be swept away
by spring baby sprigs.

Only the mice can bring me back.
Salt sweeping palms turning
yellow bellied
rats, wringing out gathered droppings
of last year.
Only the mice remind me
of stagnant feces laying around
my house,
my home.

And with a cold, slick doorknob,
I turn my insides
out.

Haunted

Midnight visits with feeble jaws,
while my teeth grind on white
horror –
my head has awaken, my body
has not.

A house is clouded with
my ghosts. Beautiful,
disgusting!
Numbing my legs with
a chainsaw gaze, I am barely breathing
again.

Her pale hands reach out
to
my frozen plan. I am barren, dry of
thought, palpitating.

The daylight brings demons enough, but
I cannot
escape the night.
It comes as expected. Never without
ugly dread
and
cold sweats. Always.
Always
soaked with paralysis, drenched
with the past.

Paranoid Of A Possible Love

How can I be certain that you are real?
Each day, you are a noble rider; a sterling chain
seeking my affinity.
I want to cover myself in admission
while you are
straight,
natural,
throwing butterflies. At my feet

they become Ackee centers, flying up, up, around me.
Take a bite!, you say, It is only Vanessa and her Red Wings.

Jamaica made her crazy though, and
you present her plague
to me!?
Do you mistake her as beautiful wings
or
is this MY aberration?

Jamaican fruit do not raise her
butterfly appendages and flutter
about a young,
ripe woman.  They don’t!

This is truth or it is fallacy, crossing a frying pan.
And I am preparing to cook either
butterfly
or
poisonous exotic fruit!

The Child Within

I promised a seven year old girl
that
sixteen years would never happen

“don’t be afraid of driving, it will never happen”

in her rancor,
she pissed off a ten
year old girl’s
silhouette –
it was a hollow
young thing
but

outlined in
potential

the young early version
stepped into her
vacancy,
thickening
throughout
the
void
angry
silhouette,

she ripened

in body,
in vocabulary,
in age.

Sweet,
sultry,
sinister,
sixteen,
finding small doors
leading to
thinned
ice,

crystal air
loaded,
ready to explode.

She picks at
glass plank
floors, pulling
strips
of her new tool.

That young one
so afraid,
timid,
playing hide-and-seek
with her
developing
womanhood!

Enough!

She clutches
on to
her
shard sticks,

carving away
at her pumpkin
arms,
her pumpkin legs,
digging her out…

that little
phobic brat,
quivering around
her
prime
poisoned internals.

I made a promise
to the little
one,

sixteen would never come,

now here she is;
butchering
my promise
and
my child.

 

This Is What Happens When A Child Raises Itself

a small child has taken camp
in my intestines

she clutches
to my innards
holding on for her
dear little life

my stomach twists
howls at me
begging for relief

but she is afraid
she will not let go

in the morning
I awaken, as I should
I suggest a shower
and dress, as I should
I advise eating
sometimes the little girl
is too afraid
squeezing so loudly
making digestion impossible
some days
I skip that part altogether

I drive
I work
I laugh
I smile

practice courtesy
compliment
understanding
patience

return back to shelter
out of the
distraction of
a
daily life

back to the voice of
a scared little child.

Yellow Belly

Where are they? Oh, I have lopped off
both stones!!

The pair hung below
unused –
what should have been bold
is now shriveled.

What disappointment!

Do not fear, dear Man,
they will be kept well,
here in palms;

in succulent, sweaty,
sweet feminine
palms.

Cyclone

Cryptic House of Knowledge,

I stroll,
I shift around your
halls – the deep and starving
space – hungry for
ambiguity and definition!

Where is the edible material hidden?
Do you have a frozen room
where you store it for keep?

Not frantic, but fixed!!
I want!
I need!
I am fierce on my knees….
I beg

Give me what I seek!!!

A deep rumbling vibration rips through the floor, knocking me from
my roots. I hear my bones crunch and snap as I hit
the concrete.
The House answers. It is evident. Strong.
The rumbling becomes deeper. It is here!

I roll against a wall, for
a seeker has no haven.
The building ripples and rips,
the walls shred
and crumble around me.

I am still.

I watch as a cyclone tears down the
structure that protects me, ripping through cement
and stone
destroying all that I had known.
The outside light came pouring in and
I am exposed!!

The cyclone stopped in its spot,
turned, it found me.
My frightened frame could do nothing.
The heart could not beat.
The lungs could not breathe.
My body and I just sat in fear….

The twisting tornado did not move
from its place, but
targeted my eyes,
smiled

and I understood!