trident to the sky

the last of the daylight cracked through the building sides one could tell it was after 5 pm the watermelon sized baby rats were out for their breakfast
     she laid down to think of Jupiter her drug crooked back to the pavement scrawny bedazzled legs extended upward on the art building wall hieroglyphs of desperate youth her eyes scanned like Oklahoma driver’s radio then she noticed her left boot lost its heel the right boot had none to begin
     sooty mullet waxy matted with environmental phlegm coughed out by bullshit talkers she looks toward the up and the moon tries to enter her nightly stage but as always held back by adoring tongue wagging angels watching for a ghetto bird sting
    now stretched legs stiff  uncrossed arms posed around her ribs she aches slightly the shallow in her breath helps to stave off those unaffordable desires that quickly become her monster jaws grinding she settles noticing a lone cluster of plastic hydrangeas bleached by the satellites looking down as a cherub babe
     her soul comes and goes from door to door looking for a score body limbs head torso dirty flesh colored blanket 100th hand Betsey Johnson gym bag mildewed Wet n’ Wild goth girl pallet from 1985 somewhere between Hollywood and Union Station the overlay has lasted 20 years
     the streets cacophony of laughter and cries lights scream to her good byes cop cars dog fights stabbings overdosed doves starvation American relief fleeing from here the NARCAN generation paper plate nutrition styrofoam hydration we recycle ourselves shallow is her breath brow sweats but no bread
     inside hep C rots necessary functions ulcers void of burn no food no internal bleeding red cross she’s nailed to it the drums somewhere in Africa a cradle hands outlined in caves a body engulfed in darkness a mind she remembers remaining there
     without knowing she’s there legs cramped stiff against the wall forever head reborn again sewer water baptized her eyes closed chest deep in its stillness head cocked to her right shoulder the angel of it won
    

moving on

night is here thank the heavens
your face in my mind quiet and rough
your hands calloused from life
your breath with no warmth
language rusted in your throat
the times are changing a Dylan song
you’d hum on your side of the room
i was not unique enough to worship
your love the accolades of poets
smithing words then catapulted into skies
to let the satellite cast your ego widely
and now we’re old but i not enough yet
the patina of good living never tarnished me
i too have a room no satellite just memory
no accolades just words fertile with thoughts to be

cyber Monday

cyber Monday tired long drive
random Target children crying wanting
mothers sighing fathers walking behind
cops strolling looking for something
not in particular looking plain
inside partly broken hard times
we all stare out far
our thoughts hidden polite smiles
riddled with worries this that
crimes in our head saddened
skies blue clouds fluffy right
still deepening in the heart
a desire to be upright
while looking inside of grief
snow is fake elves shelved
Palestine hurts Israel bleeds here
America sinks as she steps
on heads backs shoulders hands
the people we hang dangling
Betty Crocker’s ads cannot repair
the damage of those here
walking shopping pretending most wonderfully
to be free to do
to love to speak openly
but we’re not just drowning
underneath raging mad correspondents with
all the lies that linger
here at a random Target
on cyber Monday we are

transformation

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