Flowered

he has inspired me.
flowered a garden of illumination.
he came.
unmasked a wretched pattern.
shook up my world.
no plans.
just an embrace for the present:
him.

i've brought sweet life
to this earth.
predestined mother.
Mine -
she believes in her own defeat.
keeps struggling towards the light,
don't you know Mom
the light is present within.

a reach, a squint is not needed.
a grasp is all.

Flower Beads

memory stay
restless
resistant
a future petal
unblushed
from her sweet
lips

a hot mama
tender kisses
pregnant belly
capture the moments
of her love
a swollen
everything

a concept
drained
like colander
or wildflower seed
a secret parted
lips

the mussels spread
a womb open
flower beads spread
baby tumble
out of parted
lips

Star Goddess

I am a star

Blue and purple Star dust sprinkled onto my nose

I wiggled and sneezed

yielding force as light sabers

from my corporeal center

inside light pulses like an alien invasion

radiating outward

a galactic explosion

I have already been reborn twice

during which you see me twinkle,

already dead

already lived

reflecting in your pool of irises

a gentle breeze

flexed windows in city brick buildings

pulsate with every breath

Reincarnate

She grasped me as would a gentle man.
I, illuminated like ambulance
with fingertip grips behind back.
I had almost to peer, like through a rabbit hole
see her scabs:
hardly any.
I'd lick them with rabbit love.

When I was young no line existed between the hood
and Wonderland
drawn out branches reaching for the sun
now the line is strict red and solar purple
on an eclipse night. Strung
out home alone with seaweed fetish
a masked parade of flesh
feelings. My only guest:
abstract meaning of a woman
breasts or no breasts, more.

Kiss my lips

pucker. marigold
pollen flies between our estranged lips
sunlight glances
on seashore breaking
waves. a cone shape spirals from my heart
chakra. reverbs outward,
your inspiration
the cause.

lick my heart
while it shines, wolf.
nurture and enjoy the blood
your chemistry creates
a split
the earth quakes. cracks of light
pulsate, destroy heart chakra for phoenix rise.
keep me safe my king, keep me safe.

Harlem to Brooklyn

while pressed against marigold skin
the plants in the sidewalk cracks develop
purple haze gliding from my mother’s voice
she eats shrimp roti on the bench outside cursing the red and blue
police sirens and car horns
I can feel the air and smell
the exhaust brothas yell from the rooftop
in flatbush the view from my best
friend’s window sweat and dick inside
marlboro reds and cat litter
we’re sexin’ cursin’ pushin’
on the train
ride back home to 1st and 59th st
I can feel my sister’s lips and donuts on my fingertips

avoiding the chicken wings and pork fried rice
I run to the bridge in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden
I arrive panting
to the smell of arroz y habichuelas glide my hand over the brick outside
reminds me of my mother’s bedroom I smile
at the thought of rose water
oxtails and cat fur
skipping through yellow crosswalks towards home cell phones
blink I puff a joint
ash it under gold nikes

Hush

Our babies would be magical creatures,
left alone they would steal
the thorns off the rose bush
step a starlit path in the brambly woods

You are my world right now
because you refuse to be
because I just met you in a world of hearts
on a melancholy string

You are perfect to me
I am totally present
You run through my veins
pump blood through my body
My thoughts reflect your light crystals
When our fingers touch
You are me

I have hopes for us
you wouldn’t believe me
you would not understand
I don’t fall in love with everyone
Sometimes in the summer I do easier

When your fingers touch my skin
it prickles like a dirty cactus
Here is the trivial I want to see you I miss you
I’ll wait
You already know stars reflect in the whites of your eyes
You are not perfect, I don’t love you
You might be temporary I hate you
I don’t trust
You’re just another one
I’m scared of intimacy
You’re not mine
I am a writer My causes?
Later.
Your faults
your atrocities
the sun on your back looks like water.
You are me right now reflecting water
in grimy ponds on NYC sidewalks
and Oakland calles

Mixed-Race

Headed for the mountaintop,
where lives the snow,
we bypass the dirt
where flowers grow
womb of life
where brown color rises
in our flesh,
reflected in our irises.
Blind are we to our own beauty,
so focused on what we want to see.
In front of us is our earth,
same as our skin,
our place of birth,
Here we are, multi race or one,
where exists melanin
same team,
same flag,
same sun.

I Love You Raw

I love you raw
like Golden delicious apples
salads tossed like
red cherry tomatoes in auburn summer
mixed with purple kale, baby greens and chard
grated cabbage and beets
chewy raisins and hard cashews
raw okra/artichoke/carrots/celery/asparagus/mushrooms
and ripe green cucumber
a pear for sweetness
topped with ginger, dill, oil, lemon avocado dressing
spicy like cayenne pepper
and imported like red Himalayan sea salt

I love you raw
like emotions
vulnerable on impact
a Mac Daddy truck to a Buggy
no playing chicken here
we’ll both lose

I love you raw
like sloshing sex on my moon
from you,
an unrefined baby I will birth
impure, aqui, always
inhaling yogi breaths
during conception, delivery, maturation
inhale for three/hold six/exhale 9
swirling sticky breath and scent
licking your salt
raw like DeNiro in Taxi Driver
or ragged pink meat

I love you raw
sexy, slutty, nigga and bitch
I love you like gazpacho
I love you like that

I love you raw

Deconstriction

Tongue laps breath
behind constricted throat
rough wind blows
an unlit match
head bowed
hiding behind walls
like a cowardly soldier
pee trickling down pants’ legs
.
a bindhi cow rises
tramples walls of death
into burnt ashes and hamburgers
cooled ash settles
my throat, a present,
voice, my gift

Tattoo

icy needles
like cats’ claws
scraping skin

impotent rage rises
to boil a raw
creation

New Roads

Developers’ white hands
Point to the man
Controlling the bulldozer
Invoking a strangle
A tease

Brief smile brushed lips
Shiny tarred roads
Glass buildings, abodes
A bow of the head
To thank the overhead

Black tar roads
Paved for new people
Glass caught in the cracks
White and green
Color between the gaps forebodes

Delusion

You, a sun with no planets.
The lion baring teeth about to strike
falsely limping, another’s blood
dripping from your jaws.

Unity by Pablo Neruda

Unity
by Pablo Neruda
Translated by Clayton Eshleman

There is something dense, united, settled in the depths,
repeating its number, its identical sign.
How it is noted that stones have touched time,
in their refined matter there is an odor of age,
of water brought by the sea, from salt and sleep.

I'm encircled by a single thing, a single movement:
a mineral weight, a honeyed light
cling to the sound of the word "noche":
the tint of wheat, of ivory, of tears,
things of leather, of wood, of wool,
archaic, faded, uniform,
collect around me like walls.

I work quietly, wheeling over myself,
a crow over death, a crow in mourning.
I mediate, isolated in the spread of seasons,
centric, encircled by a silent geometry:
a partial temperature drifts down from the sky,
a distant empire of confused unities
reunites encircling me.

Inbetween Skin

zen mysterious kisses
light tapping lips on the buttocks
revealed a sensation
like a rocking chair in grandmother’s den
into the room sneaks tender moonlight
a baby falls asleep
food is left in the crisper
up the walls shadows creep,
dance on the bedroom floor
playing games like gypsy faeries
who cover their anticipatory mouths
stand on tiptoes,
watch with rose eyes
the nightly dance
of entangled legs
and white satin fingertips
crossing translucent lines
and curving bodies gyrate
like delicate knives under the moonlight

Mutual Love

sex is the fireplace in my living room
a giving of self you can hear
the echo of the sea in a shell
bonds as tender and strong
as stretched iridescent tendons
plucked free.

RIP Javad

This poem is dedicated to the dedicated, eternal brother of the Black Nationalist movement who died this week from pnemonia after having been in a coma and having H1N1.

a brother died in the struggle
not from AIDS, violence or abuse
he carried the weight
of his communities’ ailments
in his earthly body
offered self affirmation
to young people
JAVAD
You will be Remembered.

Look out for us
from afar
the spirit realm’s now
where you reside

* * *

a good brother died
because he carried other’s pain and hurt
and longing and separation
because he ate too many cheeseburgers
take care of yourselves so we don’t lose good brothers and sisters
to more disease

From My Apartment, Sunset Park

slight hues of the highway color my existence
the beams shake like tree trunks
lashing side to side from violent trucks
the branches reach cloudy skies

Tender Omission

intimate breath between our lips

sweet tender kiss(es)

before the parting

there’s captivated eyes

freckles on your cheek

goodbye

hello plump dick

sustenance

a lie

you know the truth

I love you

Palestine

Tear gas bombs exploding over kitchen

table. Pulsing vein in my head.

Sitting with a friend in West Oakland.

We talk about her trip

to Palestine, she stops talking, her eyes

glaze over, shows me the pictures of death.

It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day. It’s a new life. 

Innumerable holes in buildings

children play in the front –

her talking is scattered –

I see the tear gas canisters

exploding above her head

hear their firecracker whisper

smell the burning bodies

the black lost vision.

It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day. It’s a new life.

I see the laughter of the Israeli soldiers

hear the screams of the moms and babies

separated. I see a Palestinian woman

head held low walking courageously alone

to buy groceries for dinner.

I see breaking bread.

It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day. It’s a new life.