buk,

/ mbrazfieldm / 10 Comments

i
think of
you today
it was tough
her screams
biting at my ears
meant for him
and her
and them
the whole lot
maybe Jesus too
buk,
the women around here
but who knew
i’m a woman too
born and bruised
and i don’t have a clue
but then again i was her
a long time ago
her hands jingling
her bling about
like falling feathers
from the boxing ducks
at MacArthur park
little waist
banded by Calvin Ks
why do us tough girls always dress like thugs?
mother issues grab her tissues
here come the waterworks
you’d say
buk, dude
work was hard today
the LA streets
me at her teat
this grimy Goddamned city
as she shared
about the girls she had
and the guys she fucked
all in a litany of blows and scars
her brothers left on her
mother called it teaching her the ropes
buk, i pray to you
were women like this
back when?
or has politics and Hollywood
fooled us?
broken afraid her fists she raised
fragile steel jaw
little girl unspoken
tender where she should be strong
she weeps over her barrettes
her brother broke when she was four
not about the busted lip
her lover gave her
or the county checks that can’t support her and her only child
buk, how can i counsel
when i haven’t been
consoled myself?

transformation

/ mbrazfieldm / 6 Comments
mbrazfield (c) 2023

i miss you
the smirk when you’d teased me
the boyish giggle
the curls on your forehead
i miss your hands
constantly incessantly writing smithing your tales
i miss the weather your shoes and hunters coat
the Italian deli and posing on Kerouac’s road
i miss following you into those portals of City Lights you and i there
when Allen died
i think he became a butterfly
i miss your passions for beauty the people and their pain
i miss Sunday morning sipping coffee at La Boheme thinking of ways to make you love me the way that you loved them
my heart my soul in silent pain it was so much so that i couldn’t see where my place in the world was
i’d like to think it was in all the flowers that you lay your eyes on

for the Parrot

African Violets

/ mbrazfieldm / 1 Comment

it’s the poor fabrics we’ve worn all of our lives that have roughen our skin she said with a menthol sigh

her sister runs her ankles swollen with years of defeat and three lost sons one buried in the ground and two alive within a legal sepulchre

what the doctor say about the sugar in your blood and did Titi pay the light bill on time because the worker’s coming on Friday

a fly lands on her fractured hand and she shoots it away with her thirty five dollar salon acrylic thumb nail the charms and doodads were free

I’m suppose to cook dinner for Brother Murphy and his wife for the wake of his momma Lord rest her in peace I heard she left him some land in Tennessee

carefully following the mailman with her dark brown eyes she hopes to get a letter from her daughter telling her she’s won the fight against the slumlord in Selma

you know if we put our checks together we can buy Kayla that puppy she wants but how do we hide it from HACLA

the sweat on her brow she’s lied about playing it off as the vapors gets harder to hide under her cornrows as the tumor begins to rise

you should take some B vitamins for your aches and pains by the way Dwayne called at 8 talking about he wants his money by tomorrow

the African Violet out on her patio turns to look at her as she fill a cracked styrofoam cup with cool water from the sink takes a silent sip and quenches the soil of the thirsty velvety faces