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The Bed Cage
The twin ceiling fans spin just fast enough to Blur.
They are white circles filled with linear patterns,
Framed, side by side, by the dark brown wood of the naked bed
Frame.
Standing high and unclothed, the empty
Space above my eyes and to both Sides beyond my reach
Screams precariousness.
Down to the tips of my toes, toes that had so hesitatingly
surmounted the lacquered steps
Hours ago, or so it seemed.
I try to focus on a single plank; the speed of its rotation suddenly
appearing to slow.
But this control is only momentary
for the Swirling Sounds of angry voices Swiftly run up the stairs
and down the hall,
Stealing my focus and Sweeping my plank
Around and around until I, too, am
Lost in the circular Illusion.
Love's pain floods every detail of being.
Anger, frustration and Impossible love beyond my comprehension,
Tear away at the kernels of reasoned argument, until,
The owners of the voices are
Lost in cornered Reality.
Blessed with inevitable child's slumber,
Their battles only my bad dreams.
Growing Out of Love
Unsubstantial needles lick her skin,
her arms, her ears, across her shins.
Seasons of training erupted, sending a river of pain from kneecaps
to ankles.
On her back, the ocean of pink walls
Creates an aura of holistic healing.
Auras
She projects an image upon the screen of her eyelids,
so close, it seems herself; and it is.
A scene seen through her own younger eyes:
In her youth she had stumbled upon the supernatural essence
of light; the shadow of light Encompassing strangers, invisible
to most.
And with these closed eyes, she recalls her innocence.
Before her sits an older woman in whose large eyes twinkle reflections
of the glitter and glitz of the room.
And so she came to realize the existence of supernatural possibilities.
But as she grew older she came to run only the trails she
knew well,
A set track, one tracked, focused under the pretense of necessary
success,
While the shadow of light faded into a shadow.
Now she runs ceaselessly,
Unable to see beyond the physically real.
How different her perspective would be if she had often stopped
to
Stretch her legs.
Sí por Cuba
Convenient rain organizes infant ringlets
and the cobbled roads, at times misleading, direct my tired feet
home.
In the company of strange friends, each self-expressed,
I find satisfying unpredictability.
Issues, open-ended and resolved within a night's context, relate
human intentions with Incredible Security.
The loud stomps, snaps, claps of swirling distraction, attraction,
seemed only to have forced our focus inwards towards each other.
Evening breeze, moist with Cuban Malecon,
The periodic crash of her waves compliments the sudden crack
of violence on the unwatched television. Paradise lost?
And I return to the actuality of this nation's state:
tourist Innocence, tourist Ignorance: Hunger needs no translation-
spoken in eyes of bitter coffee
spoken in voices, aged from brash and pity
spoken in body language, sexual, commercial
whistled, pleaded, prepubescent, cracking with rising maturity,
cracking with age.
Guiltily I question the sincerity of such illicit requests.
Their needs are true and happiness deserved.
Who am I to allocate the luxury of milk and bread?
I return to my own indecisions, the cursed luxury of Choice.
Yet even in gold-plowed America life's options are rationed.
America claims equality and civil liberties,
citing our progress towards equality with pride.
But there is still sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia,
Fear
Fear prohibits love-
Fear defines success-
Fear spits on the homeless, on the disabled, on the profiled
and
Stereotyped- fear traps women in
civil war zones, straps men in hard hats, and deals wise children
blindfolds-
Fear traps Cuba in shifty waters, heavy waters, Anchored by
History;
Spain pierced her with swords, America punctured her with laws,
and Russia poisoned her with illegitimacy.
Cuba is limited not by her selfless system, but by this Fear.
We are her pubic hair in the drain, her double-knotted shoelace,
and her stone on the spring.
Branded with the Guevaran suit of arms, employed by the Castro
stratagem and inspired with Martitian courage,
the sinking island is kept afloat
by the underwater volcano of la spirita cubana,
Sí por Cuba! |
Before and After
I am not terrified.
From within this stale cubicle, my view of Trenton, gray.
The geometric similarities to a waiting room play upon my anxiety.
On too many occasions I have prayed and prayed for rain and it
came, late.
And now on time this drizzle clouds my mind.
The signs too clear, as I write them now, and still I cannot
fear.
It's no coincidence I've heard this story before.
But as warning, impossible. They are here too late. Perhaps only
as consolation.
The parallel lines of the high telephone wires frame the roofs
of dirty houses into stacked horizons.
The parallel lines of the high telephone wires slice the twin
buildings clean through to the other side.
The parallel lines of the high telephone wires continue floating
above the trees, in between buildings until they melt into the
sky.
And the parking lot roof of the building next door seems grounded.
The slow ache does not send my head high, but grounds me.
For all my words, I have done nothing. For all of my claims on
life, I have shown nothing.
With a test Upon my Head it Falls and I want to cry.
The steel planks of my rib cage expand with heated emotion.
Content to sit, my brain seeks that which it sees beyond the
glass; I must escape despite my weariness.
……….
I am not terrified.
The graduated view across the city filled with treetops and churches
reminds me of European landscapes.
Swinging the distance further, daylight's tennis balls rebound
off the nearby building
towards me, and bring the structure closer.
The varying crimson and cream shades of the townhouses seem historical,
the faded brown awnings, retro-60s.
The glittering streets, windshields, and the shiny leather seats
of passing convertibles deny anything more than a temporary recognition
of the slightly overcast sky.
Such random and irregular architecture is not confusing or disorganized
as much as it is personable.
I do not leave to escape myself but to live with others.
I am not disillusioned; Caution, Care and Conscience guarantee
me Freedom.
The Visualization
Volkswagen green leaves, highlighted by sun-streaks, perch
on their toes.
Hearing whispered encouragement they reach fingertips in looping
adjustments.
Clustered edges like barrels of rice,
The plum-brushed pink velveteen petals congregate like a koosh-ball-
Steady Stalks and Claimed Territory,
The dancing leaves blow.
Surrounded by beautied diversity,
She is encountered yet again.
In the race to space, the Althea wins,
staking her flag on my mind's landscape.
Over time the highlighted leaves dim and the althea and I
retire separately.
Yet in intentions for myself, I find her once more
And this time it is she who whispers for my embarkation.
This whisper passes over my skin like child's kisses compelling
my own leaves to perch, nodes and stems bending strong.
Steady, with the confidence and intuition of new eyes, blooms
sing my colors, drawing up spirits from the webbed well at my
feet.
My pollinated eyes enjoy the fruits of the earth, the diversity
of shapes and textures;
Distinct tones of barks and leaves, shifts of elevation, tiny
prick-thorns and baby buds green with anticipation.
Both smoothed and stimulated by the wind, I breathe in my own
scent intensified by the catalyst sun.
Warmed and rejuvenated, I wander home,
Hopeful for chosen moments in which I can bloom again.
untitled
The sudden downpour steams sweet smells.
For a second I lose track of time, the scent is so familiar;
Summer rain that turned gloomy days into glory; mud football,
fireside movies, and charades.
Losing touch with my daydream, expecting to look up off the porch
onto the smooth lake and trees of soft pine,
the hard angles of the concrete walls
and the regularity of the metal chairs shock my senses.
This is my outdoors, and it is a blue plastic umbrella,
shaking in the wind,
that prevents the rain from washing across my forehead.
Even rainfall is controlled in this life,
I am surrounded by man made creation, predictably pretty.
Sweet
Becca and Derek
Watch football, impassioned by
Grandma's best Plum Cake
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