not this morning nor any other time
has silken hair been a concern
old jeans black ashy tee
worn grimy chucks
red painted lips not for me
scab marks on fingertips
smiling face collecting things
at the antique store
thoughts of politics tea and scorn
stopped in track by butterfly songs
flutters of black orange magic
DTLA
bad brains tanka
dread locks dc dream
hard sounds real life scream and sweat
riff like diamond steel
pulse of nation under ground
old bones work natty haired girl
she stares back
she stares back
bold strong ferocious
history upon history
of countless hearts
whispers in brick
yearnings in mortar
cracks in silence
to have known
souls long ago
proper in poverty
hidden behind threat
fear of starvation
ghosts in abundance
moonlight is scarce
sidestep history haiku
dear
sisters
in
power
don’t
forget
to
ask
the
people
of
their
needs
stay with me America
im not of pedigree or coveted fame
ive tripped many a time along your winding lanes
here in alleys where ive sat in ragged tents all day
a lowly worker with brochures of life altering events
the propaganda of voluntold indoctrination
my name is just like any other
from my hands that shake from harder times
i try to read between the lines
when ‘we’ are face to face
drowning betwixt the ones ‘we’ call the ‘us’ and ‘them’
we lure to come into the wasteland charm
of stretched out lips and forked false tongues
gimme gimme gimme the desperate and dislocated
the addicted and the berated running from the demons of corruption
has been the bait and switch liberator’s motto
send these the disturbed and ex-comfortable
so they will become the poster child
of the politica apparatus tweet of the week
yet as a daughter of your sacred strata
formed with the international soils of pioneer steps
of all the peoples’ diaspora
stay with me America
that i may serve
as my inalienable right guides me
to be free to love all human beings equally
erosion
my roots never grew
i stayed for a little while
then climbed on the first wind
that blew through this soul of sand
my grains turned pale gray
tumbling through this earthen hourglass
alone in the company of droves
of other discarded lonely vagabonds
from what i gathered
love had stopped rooting at the dunes
when i finally got there
Diego the flowers
Diego the flowers
that you painted on the backs
of golden skinned girls
farmed in mass inside buckets
now sold by broken old men
Diego the flowers
bloom no longer green and grain
just soak in buckets
on sides of freeway exits
food colored twisted blossoms
Diego the flowers
indigenous majesty
from a time before
the conquest of Silicon
with barcodes on their petals
eating my words [xv]
murky
did not from the man i come
the rib to be exact
and when i die
you’ll lay me to rest
like broken asphalt
why is there only reverence
when in my place i stay
across this she world
from hut to home
but when i dare to steer
a clippership and wear that big hat
even my mother hits back
we cant free the goddesses
with the same keys
used to lock up their minds
not feeling well
sleep cradles me im on the lawn black rolled towel holds my neck im tired the train screams and my eyes pop open i get the sensation of German mustard on my tongue and think of mother we called her by her name an extra insurance policy of disconnection although i never knew what she really felt then the Pantry floats about memories of standing in line on Figueroa at the mouth of downtown when downtown was a city there are signs lights most unnatural sports sports drinks sell sell sell dont think dont think dont think i saw a man in Victoria’s Secret robes worn out of poverty then im tired no more then im angry again defeated and dissected from my nature patches of this and that round off the frustrations of seeing this world pass by falling into abyss and in all my time i have done nothing
words less spoken 