pace, day break

On the break of day

A daily, long  line of papers fly

at the perfect pace

olive picking

Three on the floor
legs between buckets and century old trees
olives pitted and non pitted
let down to earth with nimble hands

a king

A light afternoon
glides like a caring king
because of the wails

recycling

reuse, the minute because it doesn't come back
reuse, the things you'd throw to others to handle your burdens
reuse, the power of the muscles on a human body
reuse, the weight of a summer's sun on your skin
reuse, the way you turn around to the sound
reuse, the births and deaths of hope
reuse, the purpose you've made for yourself, revised
reuse, the minute of eliminating burdens.

this is art

watermark, is what's left
a splotch
onto dark paper

After the music, bodies

Your body, left like yesterday's clothes
old music, neither indie nor popular
some form of a symphony that bridges 
the space left on the bed

Scout girl in uniform

Girl scout in uniform
beret in hand, smaller than half my waist

lifts her head up, demands
a treatment that is fair to her

despite the lack of fair skin
long hair, night-dark

a mother behind her, makes a scene
with her projected speeches

about respect. I wonder
when will I be able to raise a woman

of steel and feather
able to love and break as equally

as two sides of a coin
a woman unlike me

that has no bother with the things
left behind sunny days

this is the effect of one girl scout
asking for a glass of water to quench my thirst.

a battle against tongues

I feel like I am running a battle against tongues
one my mother gave me that contains
enough expressions to make possible, life
with the others I have gained along the way

collecting like star-dust
meaning, word after word to make sense
of other ways to say the same things
but with gentleness, with vigor, with insanity

I feel like I am running a battle against tongues
that get out of the way when I love
because I lose language in seconds
before I fall

stammering at my basic ABCs
that are replaced by music,
butterflies and somber lyrics
one I call softness

I feel like I am running a battle against tongues
as one leaps to the front at the very minute I push it backwards
biting down on sailor language, wrong adjectives
in fear of the sharp blade it has

making peace in a battle is impossible
but living like siblings has proved a good use
for you cannot hate on your own blood
even if it flows through different veins.

distraction

distraction is the gift of those
who are willing to buy time
to save themselves

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

late poems, as per normal

it feels like a chore
this
late poetry

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.

I am waiting

A vacuum in time
heavy feet continue to pace
the same small space that becomes more familiar
while we wait

bad internet

This is the result of a third world country 
an internet that cuts
mid-song, my chain of ideas

coming your way
your voice is ill-prepared
to the temperament in mine

this is all the result of a bad connection
blame the internet for it
blame us, for not beating our skins enough
to reach one another.

who wins against time?

Who wins against time, 

if I leave the minute to look backward 

at your body walking into a lit room

no one, 

I hear your laughter 

commending what I have left of bravery 

that I have loved a ghost 

dedicated my life to the shadow of a star 

because it was easier to be in the dark 

morbid, I know 

but for some reason I think of you

young and raw, like a new apple left to nature

no one wins against time

it is the only race 

I have been running for years. 

another anniversary for the ones gone

for T, twenty years onward 

Soft blue eyes,
pale to the understanding

a little girl
with her hand in yours

jumping over a moving stream
picking up the clothes for toys

because she would not have know
motherhood then, like she does now

soft blue eyes
never letting her cry

because tears are made with our most precious
pain, that reverberates

when she thinks of you
away from your city

your old bones now,
tired to the call of a voice

tender to the fact that you
her protection is the first true father

she's ever had.

a renewed faith

for miss B

You had a spark
a touch, that's always been different- you tell me

I shudder at the faith you give me
one I lost when I last saw you.

for hope has more than one definition

The painter's tools before your hands
sparkle
when I ask you say;
there's more than one definition to hope.

Rethinking heritage

A vision of my grandmother, with glasses on
strands of yarn in her fingers making jackets
to restrain warmth in my chest
this is heritage,
the way love is weaved for us to hold in our hands.

Palm Sunday

He enters Jerusalem
like a soft breeze, on a donkey
we weep the walls that keep falling for him