Present and Unaccounted For

Halfway through my sentence

he left his eyes

and walked away with his mind.

Incorporated

Smudges of blood against yellow linoleum

on concrete

on wood

Smudges of blood on paper

and dirt

smashed into metal shed walls

slammed into dashboards

Blood smudged knuckles

and faces

and bodies

Blood in the water

soaking the fields

streaking the rocks

Blood smudges on the alter

in the pews and the aisles

Blood smudged on the knees bent in fervor

Blood to wash the lost souls clean

Blood soaked bones

buried beneath secrets and lies

Bloody remainders for scavenging, blood sucking flies.

Blood money to soften the sounds of the cries

Bloody Big Brother-

Did coins flow through the veins of your mother?

Vision

I can still see you.

Standing on your porch,

finishing a cig and watching the sun drop.

I am made of the distance in your eyes

as you carefully search the painted skies

looking for a promise that

she’ll never say goodbye.

I am built of the pain

that comes with knowing

that, in fact, she didn’t

and she never will.

I am frozen with the silence

that is her voice, forever still.

Those nights we should have been there

wrapped up and stamped with “don’t care”

are what she left behind.

You stare into the sunset

and pray for the bombs in your mind

to stop

to drop

but they don’t

and I can still see you.

Folly of a Full Time Fool

Secretly, she had always wished for all the love she could ever want.

When she got it, she turned it into blind destruction

and used it to break her own heart.

 

 

Debris

Photo Credit: Ayres Photogragphy

When the wind died down

and the dust settled,

we sat looking at the disaster.

Sifting through debris,

promising to go back to better times.

Times during which complication didn’t mar our intentions.

Times when our needs were less like chains

and more like opportunities.

Now we know,

we should have paid more attention

when what we wanted for ourselves

began to steal from what we wanted for each other. 

Then came the storm,

created by our selfish misunderstandings.

It poured rain into our hearts,

day after day.

It wrought clouds to crowd our minds

moment after moment,

building doubt so thick

we could not see the sea

until we were already choking,

flailing, sinking.

And as we reached out,

aching for something to save us,

all we found was each other to cling to

and that was all we needed.

Swallowed

Looking over her shoulder,

she knows all that is chasing her

and that everything will catch her.

Swallowed by a swell of blinding swirls,

Photo Credit: Ayres Photography

she has already disappeared.

Her present is lost to the past.

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It’s Open Link Night, Week 133 over at d-Verse~ Poet’s Pub.  This is my submission.  Go check them out, lots of great poets!

Love Words from Turtle Island

1491s are doing some of the BEST stuff. And also weird stuff- but mostly hilarious and thought inspiring! I admit- I’m a big fan and would probably act like a weirdo if I ever got to meet them. Anyway, here are some words of love- in many different languages.

Label

Tired of being told what to call myself.

Don’t say Indian, say Native American.

Don’t say Native American, say Native.

Don’t say Native, say Indigenous.

Don’t tell me what I am.

Entitled mouths come in every color.

I know what I am.

My children say mother.

My husband says lover.

My father says daughter.

My work says educated.

My friends say humble.

My skin says brown.

My face says Northern Plains Tribe.

My blood says Assiniboine, Sioux, Cree, Navajo, Apache.

My heart says that no one, not one person, can take away what made me.

Enrollment says associate member only.

I am not a label.

Tipi

They lived together in their lodge,

protected from prairie winds and rain.

Sheltered from the winter snows and warmed

by a fire in the middle of their home.

Watching each other’s faces, talking to one another freely,

they shared the expanse of the rolling plains.

Every morning they would rise with the sun

and walk hand in hand to the river.

Every morning the cold waters welcomed them, in a bracing embrace.

They plunged under several times each and

several times with arms wrapped around each other.

When they were done they felt whole and clean.

Returning to their camp,

the tingle of their skin awakened their souls

and made them thankful for another day together.

Disappearing Into This

He stays up late, smoking cigarettes and drinking whiskey or coffee.

Some nights he’s Bukowski; some nights he’s Neruda.

And yet the truth remains:

Every night, he’s someone that’s not existed before.

And someone that’s existed before being born.

Some nights the words pound through him

and smash into their destinations

Some nights the words flow through him

and pour into the souls who so desperately need them

Some nights the words leave him

and that’s when he is most alone.

He watches the sky,

relishes each form she presents-

whether it be grey clouds full of storm

or clear blue expanses that stretch for miles.

He is in love….

and no matter if she is filled with darkness or sunlight,

he wants to hold her in his arms

and fall asleep in her embrace.

Pieces of him were taken and given to her

and now he chases them.

He chases them even though he’s not sure if he wants any of those pieces back,

even though he knows he can never have them-

even though he never knew those stolen pieces were there-

until they were not.
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It’s Open Link Night, Week 127 over at d-Verse~ Poet’s Pub.  This is my submission.  Go check them out, lots of great poets!