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.