A POEM A DAY

I'm just happy to be here.

Tag: napowrimo

April 11, 2016

10/30: THE LONG GOODBYE

we don’t want to leave, even when
we’re actually leaving, even when
returning home is the last thing
left to do, it’s not our style.
we choose to linger, stick around,
embrace again, embrace again,
our soft brown hands wrapped
around our soft brown bodies,
my grandma whispering blessings
across the back of my neck,
red lipstick stuck to my cheeks,
my aunt’s kisses,
my grandfather’s wisdom,
a bowl of tortillas
sitting in the center of the island,
an invitation to stay,
a warn place to put
your hands.
The swing set
getting closer to the sky
each time we sit next
to each other, our bodies,
old memories fitting against new stories,
I think the hardest thing to do
is leave when you don’t want to,
not always knowing
what you wish you knew.
Is it so bad to be late,
then? When the door
is such a chore to open,
let us rest in the love
we give, on the couch,
sitting outside in the backyard,
grandma’s flowers changing
colors and shape, their petals
holding onto the stem,
not wanting to leave, even when
the season has come to end.
My family,
we choose
the long goodbye
to close the distance
between us,
hug, and hug, and hug,
kiss, and kiss, and kiss,
yes, I will miss, miss, miss
all the parts about this, this, this.
My loves, my dears, the sweet names
I need to hear, that I need to see—
My family,
we all choose
the long goodbye
to make our beginnings
shorter, I’m sure of it.

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April 9, 2016

8/30: Fourth Grade on a Friday

It’s Fourth grade on a Friday.
Walking to my class, I stop
at the sight before me:
two birds chase each other
like a soft rhyme, their wings
seizing the same air running
through my thick black as new moon hair,
the same April air that kissed my face
when I finally decided to misplace
the sour flowers planted in the
deep soil of my unnamed hurt.
Walking to my class, I stop
at the sight before me:
Two boys chase a squirrel
The squirrel chases the world
Both move with no thought,
no belief in exhaustion,
no need to falter.
What you want will always run
Against what you have.

Can this moment last?

The other day, a black butterfly
cuts across the backdrop of green
in my backyard, the pink flowers,
the white crane, the bluest jay,
the wild worthwhile smile of the sun
is the sum of all I’ve lost and gained.

It’s Fourth Grade on a Friday.
I tell Jack in class,
If you turn anywhere in the dictionary,
you can find a new word with old meaning,
meaning,
you story is unfinished,
meaning,
your story is yours,
meaning,
life is alive in the light of a word.
He calls out to me, shows me
the word he chose out of the rows
of definitions, the possibility of
knowing something new,
redoing the unknown,
until known,
and
I know nothing
other than nothing is more
important than the moment
where, he says,
Look, look what I found.

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April 9, 2016

6/30: IF YOU CHANGE ONE LETTER

If you change one letter,
lonely becomes lovely.
When I say cast a spell,
I want you to misspell
the ugliest word
you have called yourself.
Misremember its parts,
take power by the syllable
Grab a letter by its throat.
Every word ever spoken
stays invisible unless written.
Name the shadows in the dark.
Pick your tongue up like an ax.
No, your tongue is an ax.
No, your tongue is a tongue.
Sling the word you have reshaped.
If you change one letter,
wanting becomes waiting.
If you add one letter,
heart becomes hearth.
If you add one letter,
star becomes start.

The beginning is always like this,
metamorphosis through addition,

Listen, each word nothing more
than invention, invocation, invitation.

Again, again, again, my tongue spins
a sentence, a spool of creation,

Silkworm imitation.

Yes, your tongue is silk with blood
Alive with the words you’ve drug
through the mud of love, erasure
is a patient process.

A word, like any earthly body,
must erode, if only to grow again,

Must end in flames, if only to begin.

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April 6, 2016

5/30: LALOOSELALOSELALUZ, OR ELEGY TO THE DARK

Lighter lighter lighter,
I want to light the dark
with a lighter, light
my two hands, look
at the light between
my two hands, a dark
history is on fire, light
my palms with prayer,
toss light words
up in the air,
light balloon of truth,
lost light of my youth,
the dark is far and near,
I peel the light from my skin,
like a bruised banana peeling
itself to look for
light at both ends, I
whisper in silence,
follow
the light,
make it
wake up the world
with the fast break of
light, lighting the unseen
Light for the lightheaded,
Light for the dread
Light for the white lies
Light for the night readers
Lighter, Lighter, Lighter
Make my head lighter too
We eat light foods to confuse
the heavy bodies
of darkness we feed, but what
if we lost the mood to be hollow?
instead,
what if we
swallow light? lighten, feel
lighter than light, flick the light
off, on, walk out the dark,
march like a match strikes
sudden light forged into flame,
struck in a straight line, like
the quick light surge
at the end of super verb,
a pervasive verse, a light tongue
persuasive as heat
held inside
the light.

Will someone
light my black hair
in this blacker than
light night?
All the moon and stars
are gone, and so who
is left to
catch the light,
but me
with
my light bright
hands,
palms alight like
the first
light bulbs, light
hovering above
our lighter heads,
shedding light,
the darker the better,
when I say
look at my
new skin
made of light
my light head
lit with radiance
light as patience
it is
another way to
say,
the light
does not lose
a spark begins
a flame spread
behold,
the light is loose,
the dark is dead.

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April 30, 2015

28/30: AND ONE FINE MORNING—

In front of me is a poster of Gatsby’s silhouette,
reaching for love’s green light lost across the bay,
and this image is made with every word
from his most famous novel,
and I can feel the
length of my own famous longing curl with my spine
each morning I rise, tomorrow is already
showing in the way my ribs do after I
turn to the other side of myself, after I
breathe deeply, the way April does with the rain.
It’s funny how every motion forward takes me
both further and closer to what I am.
Listen,
love’s green light across my own stormy bay,
the moment you see my outstretched arms,
know,
it will not last.

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April 30, 2015

27/30: SUNLIGHT IS MY FILTER

Here is my body.
The heart inside my chest
is not a hypothetical, but non-fiction
like when walk into Half-Price Books
and buy a book at-half price.
From the window next to me,
the horizon is under-construction
each morning, the downtown sky begins anew,
another crane creates a new sky
line to look above, while beneath,
so much is going on. Look, to your left,
a man sleeps beneath Texas 527-Spur.
In front of you, your law school,
a building of privilege set in stone,
you walk out the doors and your head
is heavier with something new, what’s with reason
all of a sudden? Has this always been the standard?
I say law student
When I mean trial by fire
The amount of smoke lost in my chest
makes me want to replace my lungs like engines.
Intellectual curiosity
has ten syllables between the two bodies, and I find
comfort in the pieces needed to make a thing whole.
This day is a mouthful until I know I am not alone. Look, to your right,
Another man lays his body out on the sidewalk as if
he were only a shadow dozing off into the cement,
His eyes finally closed beneath the weight of all he has
lost in the slumber of improvement, in the name of
new buildings growing up just tall enough to block out the sun,
as if their bodies were meant to absorb negative space—the lightest form
of darkness.

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April 27, 2015

25/30: RIGHT SIDE OF THE DIRT

What’s really unbelievable is that
Chinese alchemists, who in all historical likeliness,
were men,  had to draw a brainstorming map once,
write a to-do list, had breakfast meetings,
together, in a room, and ultimately,
Gave themselves directions
on how find and brew and intermingle
all the elements necessary to create
the elixir for immortality, which they
probably intended to drink, obviously.
Had a plan to outmaneuver death!
To stay on the right side of the dirt!
They say it was supposed to be the great last trick of the alchemist!
Then, the sparks began to flower.
They discovered gunpowder.

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April 25, 2015

22/30: EXPORTING EMPORTMENT

Please tell me how to never fall apart.

I think the birds coo
in their bird language
along with me
in mine
to the post-storm sky
that grounded the
both of us for days.
Truthfully, I am alone
and the air is sweeter this way.
The best part of my day is
being unsurprised
at the number of new flowers
now belonging to me.
I tell myself,
don’t forget
renewal
is all
about remembering
If timing is everything,
the exception is love.
Ugh.
Right?
Love is human like me
because like me, love is both
precocious and stuck in traffic.
If I check the record, no one’s
ever been on time with
a haunted heart.
Embrace the meantime, then.
Meanwhile, the mass of what
I miss can corrupt
anyone’s favorite color.
The point of life is to
spite disappointment.
Believe in the spectrum of disruption.
The precision of loss
is a fallacy.
The second serving
means you thought
you needed more
and you did.
Falling apart is stupid but
inevitable.

If you believe in anything
wholeheartedly
then fractions don’t apply,
being less than
is the epitome of fiction
Because you said so
Because self-assurance
manifests, nonetheless.

The gorgeous yawp of the soul
goes right pass the lips.
Say,
you know what an
osculary is?

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April 22, 2015

20/30: THE FRAGRANCE INSIDE MY CHEST

I hear you say things before you say it

Translation:

I can make voices in my head.

Translation:

There are voices inside my head.

Translation:

Get out.

Translation:

You left me, why do
you refuse to give
back the key, which
doesn’t actually fit
to my heart, but that’s
not the point, the point
is what you break each
time you enter without
telling without asking
without every lasting
why don’t you ever last
why do I ask questions
I know the answer to
why am I writing a poem
with you as the only character
why have I broken the
fourth wall if there is a fourth wall

Translation:

Yesterday I broke
the wall in my head
when I walked past
a wall of flowers
all called Jasmine
and Jasmine is mine
and Jasmine is a
house-guest who
smells like forgiveness

Translation:

So that’s what the
fragrance inside
my chest is called

Translation:

I have to lie down
if I think about
the weight of what
goes unsaid in my head

Translation:

Doubt endangers salvation.

Translation:

Self-Renewal
is the second name
of Spring.

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April 20, 2015

19/30: THIS IS A POEM

This is a poem about the heart.

Alight
Aflutter

This is a poem about the lover.

Tender
Together

This poem about the mouth.

Effervescent
Exit

This is a poem about laughter

Grasping
Glory

This is a poem about the truth.

Unconditional
Unforgotten

This is a poem about the poet.

Searching
Surreptitious

This is a poem about forgiveness.

Cautious
Calamitous

This is a poem about anger.

Work-brittle
Workable.

This is a poem about failure

Required
Rejectamenta

This is a poem about sex.

Hello
Honesty

This is a poem about debt.

Silently
Swallowing

This is a poem about death.

Vulnerable
Violent

This is a poem about loss.

Quickly
Quivering

This is a poem about brutality.

Institutional
Indifference

This is a poem about solitude.

Mysteriously
Mine

This is a poem about belief.

Yelling
Yearn

This is a poem about touch.

Narrating
Nearness

This is a poem about doubt.

Persistently
Present

This is a poem about strength.

Baffling
Benevolence

This is a poem about listening.

Orgasmic
Osculation

This is a poem about joy.

Furthering
Formidability

This is a poem about commitment.

Joined
Joy

This is a poem about accountability.

Divest
Dejection

This is a poem about loneliness.

La Luz
Longing

This is a poem about patience.

Zodiac
Zinging

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