THE BLUE MORNING

BLUE MORNING

The rocks will speak should I ask them

Their voices are decayed & brittle

Yet will I hear them with my liver.

Secrets will be exposed

I shall be the Truth-Bearer

Only once fooled, & then by a Liar.

I will uphold the words

& roll them into a starlit glyphs.

I will put them on rings all will wear to the wedding,

Blue for hope: black for knowing.

And each shall have their own.

THE TALL-MASTER AT ANCHOR

Scribes a slow, lazy compass circle

As  a wake forms at the bow

While the sun sets up behind the horizon.

Its light music is humming acceptance.

I wonder how many times I’ve heard the words

“If something should happen”
yet, hasn’t it already?

Have not the stargates opened

In hunger, breathing wetly. Haven’t they claimed their last?

THERE IS A CRONE ON A BEACH CHAIR

Of green thrift-store canvas with one wonky leg.

She smells of patchouli & crackling dreams.

Her eyes unopened, she sees with other senses.

Does she wait? Then for how long?

Was she once arrayed in sweet spearmint gossamer

With sleeves like angel wings

Lounging,

Legs slightly apart

With promise of enclosure?

Did she sit for so long the whole world

Grew up around her

Saplings to trees

Trees to asphalt

To ruin

To grass?

Did she call her cave into being

A shelter never needed

For she could not leave life alone one second.

I have watched her for decades

Growing up in the tenement across the park

My own cycles now ending,

The time coming soon, to find a thrift & buy a chair.

THE PERMISSION SLIP

I remember the consent form

I signed before coming here.

I never read the clauses, nor asked for my glasses.

There was a whole page about encounters

And other words beginning in “e” for

entrances, exits, efforts, extrapolates

Experiences, extortions, extractions …

Paragraphs fluid & binding

Words unapologetic, grounded & flying.

There was a chapter on true love I skipped.

I signed with a shadow pen, winging in

On a scream I heard as a prayer.

THERE’S ALWAYS ONE

When someone says, “I don’t like poetry.”

My eyes gleam, my nails sharpen

For I know I can render their world apart with one word.

A laugh starts in my belly

And I must look away

For I Am Poet from

Underneath my toes to the last golden glow of my head.

I pick up my tools & retreat into shadow

To write them into smoke.