SELECT WRITINGS
The Word of Gaud
Cover the beliefs bestowed upon you in an idea-clear coat.
They will shine, but not bend, nor flex.
Call them yours.
Harvest the thickened bile from your liver to weaken those structures.
Sword and shield them [as though] they could crumble.
Let dry.
Sheath your beliefs in shrapnel pillaged from wars with other ideas;
shrapnel and opposing incisors.
Baptize them with your plasma.
Pierce them with your bone.
Crown them with your hair.
(from "Holy. Wholly. Holey." manuscript)
(Untitled)
My grandmother's voice tells me who I am not.
In the small apartment she rented
after selling the house where all her
granddaughters shared chickenpox,
her pots still sputter secrets on the stove.
The throne of her recliner chair is empty,
save a cold crochet needle
gleaming amid geometric yarn. She is
in the bathroom showering,
Westerns blaring from the television- “Stick ‘em high”
The percussion of her body against ceramic
melds with the high-pitched screech
of the shower curtain.
She slips in the tub, "shit…"
Fear grips my voice with generations of familiarity.
I freeze before the long barrel of unknowing.
I am silent.
“This town’s not big enough for the both of us”
My blood gallops,
heart beating on ear drums,
lips condemned to each other’s company.
There is no room for either of us
to be ok
in the gorge of my silence.
I panic, praying that
she is not hurt. Praying that
she says something, anything
but “help”.
Praying that I will not hold her in my arms
as I have been in hers-
cradled and vulnerable.
The weight of my love for her is crushing.
She emerges, haloed by the yellow light
of the bathroom.
I lock my eyes on the quickdraws
and gunfights in front of me.
I am not a hero in this story.
(Published in "Joy Has A Sound: Black Sonic Visions" - Find it here.)
Chalice
(for the people of Flint, MI with empty cups and running faucets)
Someone fed them
A story
Of Jesus turning water to wine
Here they heave
From their subsequent thirst
Lies wafer-thin as the body
Lead pours out as the blood
Do this in remembrance
Do this & remember it
Do this & dismember them
Amen.
(published in "COASTnoCOAST: Issue No. 2")
The Garden
Adam realized he
was inadequate.
Naked.
He saw what the woman
pulled from his body
knew long before, that
he was dim and
dirt-made. The angel,
her own piece of
forever to consume, while
he was merely her
limitation in paradise.
And Adam, feeling the heave
of less-than like the first
heart that ever broke,
told Eve:
put some fucking clothes on.
(published in "Moss: Volume 4")
Programming
They all wipe their faces
My grandmothers & great-greats
They pray with faces meeting palms
Rebirth by their own hands
My great grandmother had the residue of fallen hopes on her brow
They were not sullied
But they were heavy
And she couldn't breathe
And didn't know that dreams could feel dirty when they were not yours
So she cleansed her brown in brown
To reset
Six greats ago the mother of my mothers
Heard herself called
By a name other than her own
She wiped the perspiring accusation from forehead to chin
Again
And again
She washed their sins
I am no different
I palm my prayers
With oil on my face
Dirt in my dreams
I perspire until I am reborn
My mother showed me how
"Close your eyes, baby girl
But only for a second
Then you come back
You always have to come back"
(published in "NILVX: Ancestors")