citywide

I have been thinking about this word for three days now
how can something be wide as the city

yet small enough to contain a sack of old marbles
crossing the pit where they were thrown

I have been thinking about this word for three days now
how a thing can multiply and find itself similar

in cities that wear different capes, husky
brawling, windy or plain desert like

I have seen people describe cities
like they would a lover

with soft eyes, with skin for stones
but I have seen cities eroding people

like lime to acid
like our city to our heads

this is a citywide gathering
for town-wide hearts.

things I call autumn

once more left
to this rush
the fake leaves I make and call autumn

in the bottom of a glass of beer

The world flips, languages change
yet here you are
stood in the bottom of a glass of beer

falling stone

There's a stone that fell
rolling with it
a nation

words or selves

I got written a poem
to save my soul

you tell me and I am not surprised
you feel touched

I haven't written
to fill your voids

but should up at your door
wearing all the past you don't even remember.

fighting laziness

I am not lazy
you say
to a sleeping head floating in the bathroom

an almost knocked over glass

Almost knocked over the glass
in anger
these hands

blood moon

a blood moon
eats our skies

eats away the clouds
another face to the same star

eats away the anger
keeps still the pain

a blood moon
predicts

the end of an earth
with an earthquake

not a bang
not a whimper

not big or small
just a little shake

who said earth isn't allowed a dance
for her lover,

a heart-torn
blood moon.

what continues

what you allow is what continues
this is a case that's almost the truth

cursive painted, how many times have you
stolen kisses in the elevator

called it a love, how many times have you
caught a wrist in the kitchen

grabbing hard the stick arms
bruised, called it another form of kindness

how many times have you told someone
who was uncalled for, it was called for?

what you allow is what continues,
touch, kisses, a word slanting sideways

you are what has been kept happening
a little less kindness, a little less love.

as I wait for an official paper

I wait behind the desk
as a starving cat jumps
into a void trashcan

an awkward second

Are we related?
the question comes up
as the waffle gets colder

prolonged reunions

Your hug is a prolonged reunion
that waited five years
over bird-sat wires

an east wind in summer

standard summertime
an east wind blows my way
it's only an hour's timezone difference

the rule of three

the rule of three tells you
it is better to have only three things arrive
like lines in a haiku

a nightmare of hallucination

There's a jaguar that follows your son
into a mouse hole, same available in cartoon
but you are real, flesh and blood in my arms

there's a daughter holding a teddy bear
crying about unborn children
yet she's unmarried

there's you, Kohl filled eyes
brown like pine cones
caressed and written for, for years

there's a moment of fear and love
wrapped like a blanket at once
like it's a thing we cannot deny

existing in the midst of all unexplained
switches, trees swishing over in seconds
transported into another space

that has no bitterness
you are real, flesh and blood in my arms
the jaguar gallops
your son goes into the mouse hole and wildly I wake up.

not a portrait

tired eyes that cannot look ahead
this is your body, heavy and lumpy post the morning hours
yours and not yours at the same time
the way it is fixed : not a portrait
not a painting, just a mere reflection.

letter, words, thoughts

you can say a lot
in so many words, thus poetry
still never lacking in power

sickness strikes steady

you say it swiftly
like a sword it cuts

a sickness strikes steady
unnamed, a little virus

knocks down a fort
that was being built for five years

in limestone and alcohol
in abstracts and foreign words.

late poems, as per normal

it feels like a chore
this
late poetry

mid sentence

interruption
is never appreciated
especially when it is stopped
mid
sentence

noise licking my ears

I can never get used to the sound
arriving after glory of silence
with many tongues licking my ears

with driftwood

We drift, each talking at a higher wavelength
call this another form of love
I call it another form of painting with blood
we call this a family swayed with driftwood

heat and cold

how to do deflect from cold?
try a sheet made of wool

how do you deflect from heat?
try a bit of water for better measure

how do you keep a heart warm?
try small things

how do you keep a heart cold?
try the wrong statements

an if clause

if you are satisfied with my pain
don't then think
that there's more space for you

human formation

today I saw with my own eyes
how a human is formed

tiny dot, black in a black space
that falls into a void

tiny dot in a black sack
will arrive with a stork

when we stop waiting.

dandelions, or mixed names

what do you call it,
she blinks at me

the flower that you puff
the one for the horses

we call it horse flower
what do you call it?

a dandelion, with mixed names
clear genes to hold its spine up.

Reputation to uphold

this is what is said about reputation
it has to be upheld
like a coin into the sunshine

the poet on the job

There is always this fear
that you will get caught first

writing poetry, a virtual nonsense
or dreaming in a language of speed

type one word and quickly hide
as if lines were a bad reputation

that will follow you everywhere
that open you up, like a second tomorrow

there is always this fear
that you will have to recite verse

like you say your prayers
in silence or before everyone else

a new stop to shaky tunes
this happens when poets do work

manual in dirt
or in offices

this is the fear
that only stems from an imagination that knows

to write in short lines instead of long ones.

Motherhood

I damned this motherhood
the time I saw you in my arms
lifeless, even in a dream

privilege

is to think with deep considerations
that none of your shoes fit you
when the children of your neighborhood walk the streets barefoot