the thoughts are balled up
pulsating and cruel they come
tonight my eyes weep
Grieving
after the viewing of our father
it’s the hour in the rotation of the world when i don’t know why i think and i only hear snippets of what she tells me in between her gulps of coffee it has to be that i’ve lost my mind i think but i’m not sure she continues on to point out how difficult things are and how weak people are and i say they never stop to think that women like us have had it hard she agrees with hot coffee in her throat mid gulp gesturing a resounding yes with her thin eyebrows pointing up like a big foam hand at a baseball game he wanted masculine children and he cried when he had us but we had to be ladies in the midst of manly challenges how the minds were molded i think and i quip out loud there are no real man or woman challenges we get equal problems shoved down our throats and we gotta grow a dick to solve them and then chop it off when we’re done cut us a slit and put on lipstick and smile and stick out our boobs and then take it like a man all over again and again yet i’ve known so many who fold at the slightest breeze of uncertainty
and we laugh at the newest meteor hail storm we’re coasting through i marvel at our ability to be A Lincoln M Monroe J Dillinger and E Roosevelt all in one mind warp to answer and resolve the sums and restitutions owed by our father we are told girls don’t hold a quiver in your voice but it’s expected that when the crowds go home you should wither like a delicate orchid ripped from its stem and i see her from the corner of my eye tired a daddy’s little girl who is now the man of his house a mother and a father to us all she’s tired then i look down at my big boy feet my small girl hands my soldier’s soul my lost spirit angst and it becomes unbearable
rock bottom

Taino el de abajo
the room is sterile
free from any love germ
only the tiny beasts of whatever
perfect in nature are adored here
in this sterile cold dry room
my gut told me
“She passed.”
referring to the death of an aunt
i hardly knew
i don’t feel grief
not yet
and
as i explained to my-self
some people might never feel it
to mourn loss is difficult
to mourn loss of a loved one is hard
to mourn for and carry a heavy heart for an enemy
is tougher
i don’t feel such loss for the masculine things in life
as i do for the feminine
to have had a physical mother
never to have experienced an emotional mother
or spiritual mother
has been loss
yielding veils of survival
darning lies as i went along
because for this ride
you must be tough
to have had to rip my addiction demons
from me without a cowboy’s hickory stick
to bite on
while all of Murphy’s laws
chose to shred themselves
has left a raw gaping hole
in my crippled soul
yet there is a certain life-long journey
a chipping away of the spirit
the grief polishes
nearly to transparency and vulnerability
that fake shine as seen on t.v.
we can certainly fight
for all our lives
against this erosion
but we will not win
in my age
i can now see
the entirety of who Taino was
what he meant to me
i could not
in my youth
see that deeply yet
*dedicated to Jose Montoya POET
finally relieved
my sister later said
that when mother left
the tears on her velvet cheeks
were like lily petals
time has passed
on most days when
i notice myself in the mirror
memories of her voice and sorrow
crowds my day
by eve’s time
sitting alone on the porch
some plump flying angel
will rustle up the honey suckle
and a vision of mother i can feel
quiet resting finally relieved
into consideration
i write this to myself
because i don’t know about forgiveness
it hurts too much
to still have to bend that far back
in my secret life
i am the hatchet undertaker
bury hatchets under buried bodies Beth and Devereaux say
but for how much longer
life has passed me like birds
silently looking nowhere
only forward
wings rigid
pushing away
from the skies above my head
that bird super highway
and when i can tear my eyes from the smokey heavens
my feet tired as they are like lead can sense the cool soft caressing clover down beneath the holy patch of Earth
regret from my hatchet burial pulley
begs me to take into consideration that some hatchets transform into boomerangs too
Spring haiku
deep
breath
eyes
closed
in
peace
no
dream
but
rest
comes
slow
hope
blossoms
somewhere
blue steel
i’m feelin’ like a blue steel gun
with my fine determined sharp lines
my edges separate the somethin’ from the nothin’
and the come-hither handlin’ parts
sleek momma eye candy deluxe
making genitalia of all denomination shape and size
feel like a super daddy fuckin’ stud
i’m feeling like a blue steel gun
caught between your palm and thumb
a dialysis rig for your bad juice blood
my nuts bolts springs and inner workin’s
the physics and reasons in me aching
of no interest to you your heart or your mind
i’m feelin’ like a blue steel gun
remember in that case where you found me
promises dowries certificated truths
stroking of the barrels looking into soot
my trigger and your raging accusin’ fingers
you offered as my wedding band
i’m feelin’ like a blue steel gun
cast out after years of deeds gone wrong
silent spitting fire of your tongue
looking out my winda’ late at night
wonderin’ why you are the way you are
we chameleons tempering our feelin’s
showcased on a devil’s iron eye
cus we’re both rusted raw on the inside
cooing sounds of city pigeons
January
cold restless
eyes opened
limbs clasped tight into the womb of the donated forest green love seat
two suns and one absent moon ago
there you were in faded cotton gown
bleach rough by the sanitation bound
gasping and heaving
not too different
to the cooing sounds
of city pigeons
i never thought that you would go
as i expected that you were fighting
now
so much time has rushed on
and late tonight
while i write this for you
i wonder
were you crossing the Styx
neck deep
tell me
does that river ebb and flow
like your spirit and your soul
is the current soft
do the little waves embrace your ankles
like precious jewels
time split the light in two
we both took in your make up bag
i the incorrigible one
mumbled unsanctified Kaddish
not finding the words
no matter
YHWH had cupped
broken and trite utterances
from my mouth
apostate’s haiku
not all spirits were meant to be part of an entourage my hand says
