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.