Open Window

To be awoken
By kisses up my back
A pale kingdom under the sheets
To be told, in secret,
In corners, in whispers
The million ways to fall in love
To memorize the story of the initial meeting
To meet eyes at every boring party
With awareness and playfulness
The world will be born again-
Out of the ashes of old, past, dead
As a playground
And I hope to be the first
And I hope to be adored.

Blue Moon

Searching for a blue moon
Between bubbles of laughter
I beg the fear not to set in
I offer a green bowl of tears to the black hole
that has already taken too much.
Distraction, distraction, offer simple distractions
So when we're alone
I can crawl into your mouth
And catch the words that come out
Afraid that I'll have nothing when you're gone.

Straw Men

When I'm done being mad at myself
for all my bad decisions
for all the things I set up to make sure
I won't get what I want
The straw men I built
to create a beautifully crafted distraction

(And maybe I could fall in love with
those delusions
for a short time
And maybe I could love you
for your part
in them)

But when I'm exhausted from
all that self-sabotage
it's still me
and only me
in this mess.

Two Burnings

Walcott watched the Ramayana
Transform children into warriors, princes, and gods
Actors crossed through their mirrors
Stepping into an alternate reality
A moment where past and present shared a bed
To birth the beautiful union of their drama
And a God-like umbilical cord was ignited.

Walcott was witness to this ritual burning
The metaphorical igniting of a God
On the edge of a sugar field
A vibrant flash of light
Descending on the horizon like a sunset.
The ashes used to paint memories
Onto the Caribbean landscape.

Fire inhaling and exhaling
Breathing life into ashes
Red lips
Orange anxiety
Blue night sky.

Burn has another name in Queimada
A fictional island set on the outskirts
Of a colonial empire
Where waves of truth and fantasy
Wash up on the ivory beaches

Slaves mirror the pallid shores
And the masters
Mimicking their wickedness
In dance and song riding
Tides of vibrant colors
Carrying a human hand that
Waves goodbye to flesh

Profits ignite a fuse
In pale isolation
Inhaling green
Fumes from a poisoned sky
Exhaling dark ashes to cover the shame
Walker serenades memories to sleep
Singing “One builds to make money,
And to go on making it,
To make more,
Sometimes it’s necessary to destroy.”

Sad Egos

I leave the warmth of a café and the comfort of coffee
To face the dark, violent streets
Littered with the muffled voices of women
Who were caught on the pavement
Their hair and fingernails scattered in the wind.
The forgotten, the ashes, the bloody hearts.

A pile of poems for all the men
That never asked about the circumstances of my life
That never saw me until I was in their view
That never thought I existed before them.
They say to forget about the before.

The Aztecs cut out hearts to keep the sun coming up
That bright ego that needed feeding,
From virgins and spoils of war.
We can't break away from this sad ritual,
I found Monica's fingernails under a tree
And I won't forget about the before,
I won't forget about the superfluous sacrifices
Of this sad ego.

Tiger Claws

I've perfected the art of letting go
Even though,
At times
In the silence of my bed
I grip my pillow with tiger claws
And moan
Wanting to hold on so tight it hurts

Connection

brother, sister
I went to find you behind the
bright billboards
folding like blankets around
hard, cold concrete
screaming obscenities
and masking all the atrocities
of a slow and draining war

I know I can sneak a note into the city grate
and it might make its way to you
but tonight I feel love's urgency creep
up inside my throat
a million words bubbling up
so quickly that I need to shout them out

I miss you, I miss you
I tried to tell my stories to a stranger
while sharing a cigarette
but quickly realized there wasn't
much connection left
except for the black tar,
razor tobacco cutting us apart

What about when you feel like
you are drifting in blackened space
with nothing to tie you down?
Sent spiraling like a satellite
orbiting to catch the big picture
but missing all the little things
like packing in the back seat of a station wagon
hanging on to someone's coat while they lead
you through a crowd

I need to crawl under the cardboard refuse
find you waiting with compassion
and laugh until we cry
forgetting about the tin,
electric, wire, clock,
assembly line pushing
us apart.

Fall

On grainy video
I memorized the movement of your hands
playing that same beat
over and over
nodding along to all the things
you didn't want

And another fall has settled its
cold hands around me-
I know you're gone

I know you're gone
because your hands aren't
brushing my hair
as I fall asleep

I'm not greeted by warm light
soft music
all the signs of life
when I get home

your clothes aren't hanging next
to mine in a
messy, stuffed closet

the dishes wait for me
and me alone to wash them

our inside jokes
fall on deaf ears

I fall asleep
and
wake up
in silence.

Ode to the Economic Hit Men

Mid-western upbringing,
private high school
and all the exclusion money can buy lands a government job.
Green almond eyes draw money men into the mix of things.
In them they see the Amazon twisting and turning,
swinging its voluptuous hips to the tune of money.
They plan to play a jungle beat on their leather wallets.
They get drunk off martinis in a Manhattan bar,
thinking of oil pipeline workers kicking soccer balls across a barren field:
They'll bring everyone into the future on a wave of oil.

A plane ride to Ecuador and reality tears a significant hole in capitalism's tapestry.
The lines this theory drew in steel and concrete don't quite compute.
Hand-woven intricacies pieced together by generation upon generation of
Quechua-speaking indigenous Ecuadorians seem to paint a more accurate portrait of the landscape. The Incans were right about the location of the equator--
and the Spaniards were wrong.

Indigenous men and women surround Quito like a halo,
stopping traffic when the IMF fails to pay off.
It's set up so Ecuadorians are in tangible debt
whilst the IMF leaves behind the abstract idea of broken promises.
That's the trick the money men get right every time,
boy they know how to manipulate people
who will always give them the benefit of the doubt.

And they have a river,
and they have a river,
and they have a river in Guayaquil that is so polluted you can't see its current.
Solid sludge stagnates on top while a slow, sad stream fights beneath,
fights to bring water to the people
washing their clothes and their faces in this water.
Cooking their food and drinking this water, this water.
'El agua es nuestra, carajo!'

The town was built at first with no treatment center,
sewage dumping right into the river.
Then NesCafe moved into this industrious city,
this business-friendly city with few environmental restrictions.
They pinned their pretty billboards around town, happy, white-faced, green-eyed children posed like snake charmers to sedate a desperate city.
We'll create some jobs and some products they boasted.
They holed up in a corner surrounded by concrete walls,
like a distant castle to keep out all the unemployed.
A few men wait by the gate every morning
clutching onto a hope that has become more dangerous than helpful.

A gate opens up the girls' orphanage, as well.
The orphanage is run by nuns and the church,
since there is no public money to fund these projects.
The girls make cameras out of scraps of paper,
each taking a turn snapping faux photos of dancing girls and passerbys.
They bring us tin cups of water from the bathroom sink,
that we've been cautioned not to drink.
The clean water for washing is under the ground,
a door opens into the cavern of water that looks like a mirage in this concrete desert.
They cannot be greedy,
there is only so much water
delivered once a month and that's it, bottom line, period.

Greed is not for orphaned Ecuadorian girls,
it's for rich, white men in Subarus trekking from Quito, down to Shell, a town named after an oil company.
Armed with soccer balls and whistles
they plan to strike a deal with the locals who've had no outside contact with
an oil-addicted world.
They plan to sell the land and rights for a handful of whistles.
If things get rough they'll offer the soccer balls,
then the goals,
then they'll arm the government with US guns.

Late at night when the money men are holed up in a Sheraton hotel high above Guayaquil lulling themselves to sleep by counting dollar bills,
Israel climbs to the roof of the boy's home.
At 11 years old he finds an isolated corner to huff some shoe polish and drift into a fuzzy haze of lights and sounds.
He tries to picture his mother in Quito
selling dolls and tapestries to American and European tourists,
He shoots his focused thoughts off the roof like a flare in hopes that his mother will respond with a map in the stars.
'Here's where I am' she'll say.
'Here's where I am.'

When the polish wears off there's a hungry hole in his stomach
mirroring the pitch black sky,
no response,
no stars,
no hope,
no map.
He makes his way to the edge of the roof
To stare at the contrast of his tiny toes to the overwhelming city streets.

I get a muffled, frantic phone call at 1 am,
Andreas found Israel on the roof poised to jump.
He's without a mother, money, a job or food.
He wondered what was left.
The money men sink deeper into a delusional sleep in their Sheraton beds,
dreaming of being white saviors, the Quexatlquotl of the 21st century.
Their white horses only drag darkness,
big black empty blankets that look like death streamers dancing to the beat of Amazon river coughs,
singing greed's song and laying hope to rest.

Bridge

The mosquitoes hover
quietly landing on
moist, sweat, skin
you are sweet and silent
I can almost breath you in

but it wouldn't matter
if you could push
past all the particles
hanging in between
and bridge connection

because I would still be here
mending broken pieces and
tending to my wounds

In the mess of being human
I want everything
I'm not ready for

I want love's kiss
and tight arms
around my broken heart
I want to dart in the dark
and fall into a pile of
yellows and pinks and reds
I want your hot breath
oxygen tickling my lungs
I want to smell, taste, touch
my way back home.

Time Machine

Thirteen and drunk
she woke up to her 18 year old friend
thrusting, panting
on top of her
while she laid there
silent, motionless

I draw blueprints of the time machine
while at work-
a golden sled, a dial, three light bulbs
this tiny machine will pierce
black holes and exit the present
with a tornado of colors
twisting light and sound,
for a moment the boundaries
between past and present
will be tangible
like a thick curtain
and I will puncture its fabric
catapulting into the shadows
of the universe-

So I can be there beside her
to say
enough, enough
and stop him from unleashing
his violence

But instead,
the past is suspended
over my head
and I can't pull it in front of me
like a canvas to rewrite, rework, reimagine
I must sit and digest all the things I couldn't do
and throw my time machine diagram
into the fire.

(Tiger in a cage,
I'm like a tiger in a cage)

But maybe,
just maybe
in the future
If we revisit it together
we can tug on that thread of pain
throwing new moments in the mix
until we've connected
the past, present, and future
into our own beautiful sonata
that we'll play over and over
until our voices are louder
and stronger
than his voice will ever be.

Homage

Smoking cigarettes on the roof like I'm 16 again-
I howl at the moon like a lone wolf
And bury the ashes under a loose tile,
Still operating in secret
Even though it's been ages since I lived
Under the oppressive shadow of a dictatorial man
I still cringe at the sound of heavy footsteps
Tuned in to all the noises of anger
And can picture my dog pinned against the side of
Her red dog house by her collar,
ingesting swift punches

I couldn't save her then
But on summer nights I pay homage
And mimic her sad cries,
Blowing angry smoke at an indifferent moon.

Limitations

The dirt keeps gathering in the apartment
now empty and waiting for new voices to fill it
I try hard to keep it clean

There are your toenails near the toilet
discarded and lost
cut loose maybe weeks ago or maybe yesterday
and some hair that may or may not be mine

I want fire to take me into its arms,
burn away the residue hanging around
this sad aura

I want to moan like it's the first time
Consumed by my childishness,
my foolishness,
standing there to face my limitations
and hating every moment

short stories have sad endings

I can see you leaving,
Joining a long line of those who have left-
It seems, these days,
I know the backs of heads most intimately
And I know myself as
The body,
The fist,
Desperately clenching-
Laughing and smiling and crying
Through a cloud of cigarette smoke
That continues to mask how sad I really am
At losing everything.

Monday Night

Foucault would smile to see the capitalist's brains strewn about a white canvass and think,
"maybe he's not so myopic after all."

And we've all thought of killing, once... or twice.
Gritting, hard, teeth clenched, tightening the cord-
An intimate, phallic dance with life
(The Aztecs didn't think subjugation, they thought pay homage to the Gods with blood)

But now I wish you'd blow my brains with your cigarette smoke.
Let the blue stars light up a white, night sky
and all the smoke
and all the smoke
Be blown like kisses.

Tide

The violin is propped against the wall
silent and hoping
to feel soft fingers
dance across its strings
again

The dark wood was
left like an open wound
bleeding and needing repair

I feel my back bend
mimicking the violin's
hunched form

I just want to feel the
solid wall against my
chaotic parts

It feels like I might
fall a thousand feet into water
wading in the froth
and turning like a stick

under water
the current would
move my hands,
my legs
like a marionette

While I'd think
what is this
tide that pulls me
and why

Oven

State of the art
is how the manual described it.
Honestly, I don't even know what that means.
I haven't really seen a lot of ovens,
I haven't really seen a lot period.
Once when I was bored
I sat in front of my oven
and pretended there was an ocean inside
with a thousand fish
swimming in every direction
I imagined them every shade of blue and green
that an ocean could contain.
I laughed out loud.
My laugh echoed,
hitting every pot and pan in my
empty kitchen
Frightened,
my fish faded and I returned
to cutting carrots.

Television

I found my TV in a giant warehouse that had a
catchy name like Circuit City
Walking down the isles made me nauseous
It was like a thousand robots talking at me
I felt like I was on a space ship
I just kept nodding my head until the salesman
put a box in my hand.
I put it right in front of my bed,
turned it on,
and waited to be entertained
Disappointment won
and I fell asleep to man made snow
packaged in a pretty box.

The Perm

When I was four
my mom permed her hair

my sister and I were so terrified
we threatened to never
speak to her
again if she didn't change back

But it was a change that couldn't be undone
she explained

My sister whispered softly to me
"I think she might be an enemy"
and I believed her.

Fate

You had beaten all the life out of those
sad drums
and exhausted the fountain of youth
with all its naivety

Your heart helped
string up all the rain clouds
they'll take with them when they go
(I don't want this life anymore)

Walking a tight rope between
Two torn hearts
the path is too tumultuous
the wind will tear it all down

Truth is a forceful lover that won't take no for an answer...

They had all taken the parts of you they wanted
and they came back
back for more

I wish that I could say love had torn it all apart
but it wasn't
it was an ignited umbilical cord
that caught up and slowed us down

you can't keep time with chaos

Neoliberalism

Neoliberalism constructed a hallway
for me to walk down
and admire all the gold, shiny, silver, oily stuff
I can't have
and a million plastic hands to shake
So that I might make it
nowhere
The paternal hand of the state
pats me on the back
and sends me notes to
collect debt
for the bankers, the bankers
I've got hallways and highways and byways
Toasters and jail bars and factories
But I have no one left to talk to
except myself,
myself.

Communal Imagination

I think my mind has sunk too deep too many times
Those violent episodes playing like the evening news
in my head
on loop
In my memory blood is scattered everywhere
and I only get a sign, a symbol,
a fuzzy picture of what might have happened
Who was there?
And why?
why, why, why
the question sings me to sleep on drunken nights
when I fall into a bed
that feels like a casket and
I imagine the night closing over me
like the cold door of my tomb
bony fingers prodding me for answers I don't know

I know there must be a choice
if I could only smooth over some synapses
like a mechanic
I'd oil and polish every space in between
sadness and happiness
to lessen the confusion

I don't know the why or the how or the what
I only know there was a woman in Brazil
who wrote down detailed notes
of her day
everyday
She built a rope with words
and lassoed herself to every corner of the world

There must be something in between
everything that has been explained
in that space there must be a white, blue, orange chaos
A whole world of difference waiting to be discovered
A communal imagination waiting to be realized.

Compass

Every day the world is destroyed and built back up
With wealth in the hands of fewer hands of fewer hands
And I wonder who is let go
When those hands disconnect from other hands
to grab at oil and water and money
And I wonder where they will fall
When all the walls have come crumbling down at night
Will they hit pavement?
or stone?
or will they tumble forever
into the spaces that no one keeps track of...

The world is flat, then round, then dark, then light
In seconds I can step from solid ground into a shadowed abyss
Or scale an intricate web of connection.
I dance with lightening and laugh with spiders.

But when I'm tired of feeling myself scattered
into a million pieces (some saved and some discarded)
I will piece together old maps into binoculars
and find my friends buried under the scrap heap of an empire
and we'll create a giant compass
To navigate another world
where no one is forgotten.

Silence

Silence is welcomed on restless nights
when it feels like all my limbs have low level
electricity running through them
which threatens to light the whole night with
sharp, neon dreams

Silence is welcomed when we have
both lost our breath and forget
why we were mad or
wonder how we let it get
this far

Silence is welcomed under
bath water when a long
day seems it won't end
and my mind needs to be
slowed by underwater undulations

But, now
and here,
While we breathlessly
watch bombing set off
a thousand screams
cruel fire crackers
ignite the hot earth
smoke, black, mess
of anger burning its
message into the limbs
of women
and children
the last thing we need
is silence.

On Fire

Derek Walcott once said,
"a culture based on joy is bound to be shallow"
And how can I convince you that all my uncomfortable emotions
Fight for depth, most of all.
Sobbing into a red pillow,
Joining you in the blue bathroom,
Arguing on a dark hostel cot
I want to feel my person,
Not like a shadow in the snow
Cut by razor wire and gray bureaucracy,
But like a pulsing open wound
Red, red, red
And anxious orange
And obsessive yellow
On fire, on fire.

Possession

The halls of imperialist history are lined
With its prized possessions;

A naked display of Saartjie Baartman,
A halo of Kurtz's shrunken heads,
The chains and platforms of the slave market
Alongside a line of gravestones.
(What power was gained from these violent articulations of greed?)

Now, there are only ashes and stone to hold onto.
Hollow, chalk outlines

And those of us left alive, with hints of humanity
Lay beside our lost brothers and sisters
Crying tears that mock the absurdity of possession.

Pin Up

Picturing her up on the wall as a pin up
With red lipstick and begging eyes
A million complications hiding behind charcoal eyeshadow
And remembering the time when I heard her muffled voice
over the receiver telling me
I'm in a hospital
I'm staying here for a week
I see a hundred ghosts a day and I can't sleep

Back then I pictured our bodies
Holding each other
And our eyes overflowing
Like a million sighs of relief
So entangled that I would feel her inhale and exhale
With her oxygen tickling my lungs

But now I know better
After she reminded me over and over
That she was alone in that hospital
And I remember
that I was alone in the hospital.

Territory

There was a silence sliced by a swift punch
that sent his blood everywhere
and my sister said she couldn't help
but get caught up in this red tornado
sending me a flurry of messages
it seemed like she was in a forest
darting around frantically
and I couldn't see if she was ok
or if she was
mortally wounded.

And I remembered a few years ago
another punch that sliced the silence
of a bar on Valentine's Day
when the bartender
had cracked a joke saying
"isn't she a little too young to be in a bar?"
His joke only landed inside the
hot coals of my step-father's anger
so they could simmer and smolder
and eventually explode-
heavy breathing,
a loud crack,
raw pain bursting out like a blue and green fire cracker-
hit the pavement running.

Keep running and running
and I'm back in the wedding
slowly walking up the aisle
to witness my mother
in a peach dress and
a black and blue eye
the vivid colors staining
hidden parts of my memory
so I can't forget them
instead they spill out
just as violently as they
were forced in.

And in the shadows of my mind
I can feel a beast stirring-
him, a father, a boyfriend, a stranger
(this isn't about love, it's about territory)
crouched and waiting
like a wild animal
for a chance to
take it all back.

Welcome Home

In the morning there is silence and haste
the harsh scream of my alarm forcing me to
'get up, damn it, get up'
All my reservations and misgivings
get washed off in the shower
Until I am polished to
work and keep working
with the quiet hands of guilt
nudging me along

But there must be,
in the midst of such
unconscious abuse,
something else

Maybe in the dust balls under my bed
there is a tiny world,
a microcosm,
that has carved out a place for me
and fashioned red dance shoes
so I can join their mini carnival
and travel to every corner
of my unkempt bedroom

Or maybe, just maybe
there is a world
that has already arrived
and is waiting patiently
at the airport
for someone to say
'welcome home.'

A Breakup in Five Acts

Act I: Denial
You didn't even flinch when I was leaving
almost relieved to let love go
spinning like a top

And why would you think I would stay
when you can barely put up a fight
like nothing in the world matters enough
to unsettle the cocoon you've built around yourself

And why does your reaction seem to
send me spinning and spinning
into a bar and a strange town and a bathtub
while you remain perfectly still

In all of this it seems I've lost myself
or realized I've overlooked so much
for years.

Act II: The Impulse
This is the time when that clock kicks in
and says it's time to leave,
time to go

When the bell first rang it meant
open doors
a cool breeze
young and beautiful
I felt freedom unfold behind me like a carnival
Convincing passerbys to get caught up in the excitement
pleasantly surprised when I awoke
in a stranger's bed,
in another town,
under colorful sheets,
under a tree...

I could wear freedom's impulses on me
like a multicolored dress
displaying all the things I took with me,
all the things I left behind

But now,
It seems that nothing will stick
and I feel more and more
like a vagabond
carting a wagon
of items
symbolizing loss and distance
My collection is more
a display of shortcomings
than a beautiful
coming of age.

Act III: Replaced
She doesn't know that when you're nervous you smoke
and when you're scared you talk fast
and she don't know,
don't know

Act IV: Alone
Darkness like a welcomed lover
silence and an empty apartment
I want to sit in stillness until
the world stops spinning,
spinning out of control
And maybe I have to face the fact that it's me,
it's me.

Act V: On the verge
I'll close my eyes on this sleepy city
when dusk has pulled its cloudy comforter over the horizon
singing a sad lullaby
(we hope you stay, they say)

But there is no resting when the
winds of change are blowing, blowing
and I hope I can find myself in this
beautiful tornado
I'll pluck pieces from the storm
to see if they fit

Jewels glisten in the night sky
winking at me,
like this all makes sense
and even if it doesn't,
it will still mean something
to someone
someday
even if it's only me.

Alexis

Part I: The Crows Carry in a Dream
Alexis is standing in a field and she seems almost as transparent as the weeds. Crows fly over her and their shadows crawl across her body outlining dark, violent oceans of space. I want to fall into my dreams, I want to never wake up because she is there... I think it is her and I think she is waiting (for me I hope).

Part II: Form and Chaos
She had a way of breathing that made air seem almost tangible and I've tried to put it into words a thousand, a thousand times and I can't. I miss her and everyday the memories of her seem fainter. They seem to melt like water colors into a noisy and chaotic world. Sounds and lights and smells all working to dissolve the tiny fragments of herself she left behind. I think I'm the only one who is fighting to protect them from fading into something else. I miss her.

Part III: Tiny Transformations
I retrace her steps up and down the stairs and through the hall. I try to remember what she looked like touching the olive paint in the bathroom after we finished painting. She was proud and amused threatening to stay in that room all night just to enjoy the color and the smell. Then we brushed our teeth together making faces in the mirror the whole time forgetting that we looked messy and foolish. Excited for bed we sank into darkness together, ignoring any signs of distance.

Part IV: Entanglement
When you spend a lot of time with someone, you forget that space is different when they're gone. Every object in our apartment had a different meaning with her there. Every object is anchored somewhere between she and I and I don't think I have the energy to untangle them. Our blankets smelled like her for almost six months. In September, I realized her smell had faded, I tried to find it other places- her shirts, her socks, her shampoo, but they smelled different.