[naked art]

written about a man and his art...someone i shared a day with once, touched my heart deeply.

with fists he 
claims the courage 
in raw configued art.
naked in front 
of spews of 
bodies, pointing at 
her painting.
with words he 
calms her dignity,
trashed by the
 ignorant mass.
jaded in front
of spews of bodies,
she can not hide
her face. ~

[soul eyes]

a patient choreographer for my thoughts,
words stage nervously; pli’e,
turn quiet to leap away.
dark rows and vacant misleading spotlights,
mistep and darken my toes; miss my deliberate limbs,
turn the thoughts away.
poor oh quiet director,
hums a pleasant Soul Eyes;
nods the head
bows the hat
and shuts away the stage;
good night you quiet dancers,
sleep for better bravery and
a quiet beautiful tomorrow.~

[ode to analemma]

I could not turn from her;
I fixed myself on the line between my reality and her light.
It was comforting to be loved
And to watch Love bend with light;
Ascend with grace; give life its shape -
Beautiful Analemma.

[lost]

game trails to hidden treasure.
one hand to hold the sun,
for relief; then measure and give the news.
another move:
this is going to be the last time, she said,
but she couldn’t admit the truth-

and we kept going.~

peaking

when the pinnacle of your life was escaping something, you tend to live life as if you've just escaped and easily find yourself caught up in trying to feed the rush of actually escaping. the past nips at your heels, you can't think beyond just taking another step...one more step thats all you know, box out everything else, just focus on the step in front of you...one foot at a time. when you reach a finish line or a wall, you get bored. your body is still triggered, it jumps by anything familiar to a chase. escape. run. it runs, it flees. at the drop of a hat. and when you find something good, when the finish line is better than the start and whatever the fuck you were running from, you jump. you just jump in place. because your body still wants to move, your heart still races but you know you've ran as far as you needed to go and so just jump up and down, jump for joy!! this is it!! you've made it!! this is the escape. life is no longer a reaction to something negative. but the act of something positive. and that forward motion, the light of positive will be the cycle which continues.

[127th Drive]

127th drive]

our hope is not here.
in my heart, i watch the
colors fade.
i wash your hard day at work
i mend your button
and watch your color fade.
your cheek will turn,
not fade; it cooks,
burns, it bleeds
and soon too hot to touch.
i mend your buttons
and wash your troubled day.
i stir pots for five
or six, then seven til close
to morning, ready for your
comfort, i prepare my best
peace with patience and
prepare for the fire which
will come cause you are home now.
your cheek swells as you
trance through the walls,
around the edges, lucid your
pace, the arms begin their
swing your skin anxious
it builds upon its layer of
cooking coals, a blaze, you
raise a fearful fist oh,
but not so quick -
just enough to empty any
hope i had for the day
i prepared with peace.
you press your strength
against my weak
limbed kindness;
my deep rooted patience
and brand me with your long hard day.
my one day off
from my days i wash the old people
but i wash you.
i wash your plate
your bowl, your socks, your boots,
your hate, your potatoes
and your meat.
i wash as i watch my color fade.
i sew and cook,
clean and hook
on to any hope i can muster
for the coming day.~

[schatz]

i have no mind
for the thickness in the gas,
spraying onto a child’s skin -
but i have the thought
that your alternative to the conflict
counts not for sin.
and if it did, i know
my God has forgiven
you, before the guards
who brought you there,
or the man who took your bribe.
in some brown and dingy
image, i piece up
the war you lived:
the hands that held you down;
the tattoo above his tongue;
and the marks of beasts he obeyed.
i try to uncloud what earthly will he had
to make you some sort of slave,
but these things are not known to me.
i don’t have the focus
for the picture, sitting in your mind:
it must come before most thoughts
and boil under others.
it must denature joy
and any hope you build for forgetting all of that.
and i guess for this life,
(a child looking both ways;
both ways are bombs)
i hope the chaos paused
somewhere along the way;
though only to return, once you began to think it wouldn’t.
if you’ve had to earn the quiet beyond your bones,
(for having nothing to believe in)
so be it;
but now its yours! this calm from Earth’s whole storm!
i hope Heaven makes a room for you thats all yours!
even if its just to polish floors,
rest assured, there’ll be no war:
no wooden shoes or embedded shrapnel to your limbs.
i’m sorry you did not have more happiness
but what calms you now will be forever,
so says our God who art in Heaven,
there, i pray you’ve found your way. ~
this was for my grandma who passed away in Dec. 04. She was an orphan in Nurnberg during WWII and as a young girl, offered her body to one of the guards to avoid the gas chambers. she lived a very promiscuous life with never much guidance and had it not been for my grandpa (an american soldier), I can only imagine her fate.

[same as one]

says words that never meant
God could be a pawn
but GOD would be the ____
we'd live upon
for where there is nothing, HE's there
like the nameless he is famous for a name we'll never know
and so its not to convince someone of something
but that through that something we could be someone as one; same as one.~

[jazz]

swing in, to the languid Monday night affair:
a romance between pandero and bass,
Rhythm and reason.
unexpected Time;
not to be forgotten but be listened.
the sense of a season,
steps in, from behind the Tap Root door:
Voice approaches microphone,
with closed eyes; and an understanding of what for…~