drowning

mbrazfield (c) 2023

a simple glance across the freeway
is nothing just blindness
i see them feathered creatures flying
full of methane and chewing gum
enough today so i only cried
tragic for us not having
sweet sorrow of missing we won’t know
urchins us all
we walk the music in our head
outspoken messages are
the voices in disturbia drown
flowers are unique grown in farms
across the stars fertile ground
pregnant with disease and poverty
bundled flowers of sun’s tinted roses
blushing hepatitis bud
rabbit holes he said won’t go
i count only numbers for the bosses
you will dole out the splintered crosses
a glance from LA across the bridge
work i need to stay
hold her exhausted hand
offer tissue packs
drying rain
drowning

an appointment

all he wants is mother
cool hair dark shades
crip color representative
who can never go back
eyes black soul pale
little child lost
on his neck and throat
over his hands and arms
details of alternative
birth certificate needled
in prison ink
the grimace a schizophrenic pull
dear boy who smiles for me
and cheeks contort
to hide the tears
of anger and pain
a story unraveled

belonging to the angel

is it possible to love you
when your love feels like a hot railroad track
is it possible to walk with you
when your paths break my back
is it possible to hold your hand
when my beggar’s grip repels you
is it possible to look into the mystique of your eyes
when your face is my nightmare
is it possible to honor you
when you revel in being thee harlot
is it possible that you birthed me
only to orphan me

mbrazfield (c) 2023

Grand Central Sunday

hollow cheeks 1 buck a week not numb enough dead to it most the streets don’t cross we all get crushed beneath the guilt too deep to drill the Holy Host where is the Father your sons are lost and ghosts are paraded across a TV desert we’re separated those old those botoxed young buds in springtime I owe starlight inside s narrow tunnel wasteland we lay

that love situation

It was cold for the city today. Cold like the first time your palm touches a beer from a cooler. Tuesday around Pershing. Kicking around cigarette butts I look around hoping I can figure it out. The sky is gun gray so are the prospects of the tent city by the children swings. One lone chubby security guard swipes at his phone. Oblivious.

     Love is the hardest thing to think about. The thought of it is frightening to me. To them who dwell, and hustle love is crystal clear.

     She is there with a pink metal suitcase. The pink pops betwixt the stains of dried blood, chili, and grime. She wears a broken cowboy hat and underneath a matted polyester wig. I’m not sure what to have called the color. Across bent body a poncho, crispy looking like KFC clotted with dirt and hysterical indifference.

     From the banana plants steps out a man thin with skinny fingers and yellowed fingernails which at a closer look were filled with black dirt underneath. An unholy French manicure. As he reached in to hug her his Jamaican flag colored letterman jacket levitated in the wind. Then the rain came down on his worn Oakland A’s baseball cap. He smiled with a meth mouth grin and crust around the corners of his mouth. She placed her broken left hand on his left shoulder. And with her less broken right hand nursed a blunt as she offered it to the OA man as a new mother nurses her baby.

     I drew closer pretending to look past them and secretly taking them in like a hummingbird delights in nectar. He called her Lucretia, and she laughed a raspy sound. She called him Cesar and thanked him for the three dollars last night. He hoped the cough syrup helped her with her chest cold.

     Sitting down on the steps that stare at the jewelry and finger printing fronts across the street on Olive I caught patches of their conversation. Cesar was from Nicaragua. Years of exposure to the richness that is the immigrant community of Pico Union I learned to decipher at least 9 accents and dialects. The raspy lady was from L.A.

     The blunt was crushed on the tip and tucked in the hole of her chest. They sat down on a cardboard and took a long look at the day around them. I could tell he sighed as his lips pursed like an old Indian chief portrait at the natural history museum. As she stood up again with her less broken hand she slicked her hat off her head and took off her wig.

     “My last daddy hit me with a bat,” was her disclosure as she felt the stitched cut on the left side of her head like braille. Cesar shakes his head and reaches up to hold her hand.

     We turn to the west as a swarm of pigeons flap over the playground. The three of us look at each other and smile.

our picket signs for St. Peter

infinite is the same color gray
stones upturned not a smile they bring
the bulbs of spring red will be
blessed are her feet
they carry a soul to heaven’s gates
wings await to offer flight
descend your faith into our light
on the corners where the orphans fade
a glance will do from eyes of gold
our picket signs with prophecies
adorned
will see the blooming of a brave new world

mbrazfieldm (c) 2022