read my original poetry

This poetry is written and owned by myself and may not be reposted or printed without my permission.

Collaborators (October 2023)

They lied on our ancestors, they lied on us, they lie to our children.

They instruct us to earn our keep. Keep watch over what is yours, even though nothing (that they find worth in) is yours.

We are sold the indentured life, with hidden fees, packaged in the thin veil of the promise and pride of freedom. 

You never consented. And your vote is not your consent, but obedience. Sometimes the only choice you have is to die. Sometimes your only choice is to hope that someone’s descendants, if not yours, will be birthed into—birth themselves into—a different world. Where sharecrop contracts of consent are not valued by rotting constitutions.

We pray for this. Pray it into being.

We are being. Still, somehow, as we are used and destroyed.

So keep on.

Create stories of comfort and legend that will be lost to everyone but those who are listening.

With patience, teach your young to listen,

and implore your elders to follow the dreams of the young.

They have been here before, too.

Look back, and look around, and look forward, and be it ruins or rich soil,

plant your feet on solid ground.

Soothe your soles in calm lapping waters.

Whisper until it is our time to stomp.

We build tsunami waves with the movements of our lips, until we create the shaking.

Until the lies crumble and collapse

under the weight of their own poison;

which strengthened us,

even as it halved our flock.

Move our hands together and pull brothers caught under from the rubble.

Drink in the thick air.

Now we are liberated.

Now, we can create anything. Lies will destroy us no more.

Where they collude, we collaborate.

So lay down and rest.

The work is done.

The working has just begun.

Journal at Sunset (July 2024)

My most stable and sacred ritual is to watch her go

every evening from my third-floor bedroom window

my neighborhood watchtower,

my Desert Recesses, my spirit-haunted cave, my precious treehouse-castle.

In that transition the sun smells and tastes sweet

Orange like you want to swallow, pink like made to blush

Dips sure below the palm tree sentinels 

Dresses the mountains in purple for this royal occasion

Illuminates the spikes on the saguaros, the spokes on the crowns

Makes way for the stars beyond the smog

Oh, it’s so divine, the interchanging of heaven

Gifted to us every day for us to marvel.

I am flummoxed and saddened

That every day humanity does not stop to witness and join

For however many minutes of the second solar ceremony

To together admire, ooh, ah, and attempt to capture, or rather, release, this solar burst of freedom

Of this sacred going.

Somehow, there are better things for their attention,

Somehow, the mind wanders elsewhere as the night marches in on time.

I hope then, at least

Every one of humans’ dreams is just as brilliant as that painting

Let them sip a facsimile of the sunset

That everyone our hearts draw in.

Oh, now she’s peach, now she’s maroon

And I feel the sparkle dew on my eyelashes

Wordlessly she promises to meet me tomorrow 

Same coordinates, same hour

(this is my mediation.)

poems that sink (8-22-24)

poetry is writing riddles to make sense of the senseless

conjuring form from the limitless churn of violence

and identifying a start and an end

to divine routes for the passageways we’ll need to dig with our own hands

to sacrifice that which we cannot survive without,

forging lifeboats from splinters to carry our ashes

send them across the waterways inimmune to the harms of time..send them home.

the ripples will be etched by the words

the concentric circles will bypass, envelope, and fill the gaps between

what we managed to carve on feeble stones

that sunk with our peaceful dreams tied.

The Sacred Well (Spring 2024)

In Sardegna, there is a place called by today’s folk The Sacred Well. It is an uncanny three thousand-year-old, flawlessly constructed triangular staircase into the Earth, within which a well sits at the bottom.

It is believed to have had religious purposes–a site of community gathering and discussion and spiritual ritual, and likely much more.

Wandering there after purchasing my tourist ticket, I descended these stairs twice, determined–despite us needing to leave soon to conserve daylight and drive on the left side of the road to the next archeological site–to figure out how to truly appreciate this divine construction left to us to explore several millennia later.

The second time I descended, no longer fearful, but lured and intrigued, I sat on the bottom step and deigned to stare into the dark waters.

Very soon, I realized that through the top of the well, a mere pinhole captured the blue sky above, and revealed white clouds rapidly passing over. With sudden thrill, there and then I knew that I had seen something special, and that I needed to save an imprint of what I saw with all my mental power. I would need to leave, but I wanted to take every atom of observation–seen and felt–with me.

My interpretation of the hypnotic mirrored cloudscape was something like this, that this well is a tool to focus on the divine beauty of the heavens in day,

just as one basks in the majesty of the Stars at night.

I imagined people ritually descending those stair steps, sitting at the bottom just as I did, gazing in deeply. Maybe many people sat on the steps at once–there was plenty of room on the unblemished slabs of primordial rock.

Touching the water and drawing fingers across their face to be blessed with it, just as did I.

Maybe they took mind-enhancing drugs, as anthropologists are wont to theorize, to open their vision and imaginations even wider. Perhaps descending those steps is what they looked forward to most in their days. Perhaps on nights afterwards, they dreamt of love or sailing in the Sky and leaping off the Clouds to travel the Stars.

Just nearby the well is a likewise stone meeting circle. Did they discuss and dance there to share what they saw in the Water and in the Sky?

This little settlement of thousands of generations was a fairytale wonderland to me. Sogreen and wet with sparkling dew, with randomly abundant prickly pear cacti amongst the vivid trees and grass, as if to represent a piece of home to me, and show me that this place was home for me too. Everywhere and everything – all of it alive with primeval energy – was welcoming. Every ancient doorway was open, ready for this curious traveler. 

Did those ancestor inhabitants think of young curious tourists when they built these stone homes and monuments for themselves? Probably not. Who knows! Did they imagine that their magnificent megaliths would stand for eternities, many generations beyond their people’s own inhabitance, before they themselves were absorbed by other cultures and conquering powers? I can’t say.

But now can I squeeze my eyes shut to see the racing clouds stretch into an infinite portal in the water. And I was able to bring this spectacle with me, which I shall hold as a holy treasure for all my years. This we share, a vision of three thousand years, a simply transcendent reflection of the beautiful divine.

Thank you to the ancestors. Thank you for crafting wondrous playgrounds and intricate effigies to leave for me, and all who will come after.

What Happens, Will

what happens, will, what happens, will.

what happens, will –  in fate these words I do instill

within me and without me, and after me and before me, 

unleash the nightless divine

those ancestors who’ve yet to be born, the descendants yet to have died

they, children of waters and I,

riding the scythe-wheel of time

what happens, will succeed.

until the end, the beginning when seas recede

sooner still and ever again, drown shadows as you grow

as rainbows drip into cosmos over cliffs and falls,

once blown like ash, matter flows,

climb in circles, and sail gently to unseen climes

breach the dam, and let memory drift

recover maroons; receive and answer the messages encoded

in you to build anew, and write sequels to my stories

it is you — bring our dreams to life.

Sky Full of Gods (October 2024)

above us, the sky full of gods

laid eyes on the Milky Way

there is a reason our ancestors saw this

there is a reason we should see this every night

Grandmother moon reminds us

there are so many more of her kind

so many other children under so many other guardians

arrangements and patterns and stories of stars 

If you look humbly, if you open your heart and your spirit

you will be invited and immersed

so sink forward

dare to seek for what is ever beyond.