Adventures in Poetry

Eucharist: or what to say to your mother to let you save her life
we are the same color
a bittersweet kind of caramel that groans mahogany in the summer
flash of sunset beneath the skin
we both sing like Savannah
5 foot 4 with small hands
wide feet
and bad knees
pound for pound
we have the same body
my mother
hurricane of a woman
spun sugar and rice into Sunday meals
after giving her last in an offering plate
so god would not go hungry
asked permission to carry communion wafers
gone stale from service to service
home to serve us as Monday supper
she said we were blessed
with an honor like this
"it is his body"
she'd say
"broken for us
and as always we give him thanks
you always remember you carry his name
don't ever forget you wear my face"
side by side we look like sisters
for a moment
until subtle differences take shape
the gray in her locks
the hollow in her throat
the shadow in her eye that does darken with age
she's seen a lot now
done a few things perhaps as a child she swore she wouldn't
perhaps even more she couldn't have known would ever warrant such a promise
most of those
in the name of our father
who was in denial about most things
she hid his needles
hid his anger
taught his children not to hate him
love like hers is made in the quiet space of being rocked away to sleep
by arms so frail
one tear might cause the weighed snap of bone through dreams
it's battle scarred
and iron tipped
beaten bloody more times than we'd like to remember
her body a patchwork quilt reminder of every time stood up for her children
each scar a story more severe then the next
a bruise will tell you what the beating meant
and these days there is something
not unlike midnight trying to snatch the sunlight from beneath her skin
it is her body
turned in on itself
like some kind of flesh to bone civil war
beaten back with pills
and prayer
and second opinions that all seem to say the same thing
seem to say that the pain she kept tucked in the pit of her belly is finally trying to break free
a current of poison that courses through veins
that river her wrists much like my own
you cannot tell her not to be a hero
she does not understand what that means
nor understand my stance on being the one to give her the donations she needs
"it is my body"
i say
"broken for you
my way of giving thanks
a new testament in bone ground to the dust
for the honor of wearing your face
it is no sacrifice
it's what you would do
and i still carry your name
one hurricane woman to another
to satisfy
your cry for rain"

---
Peace Be

Adventures in NapoWriMo

I am...falling tragically behind on all of my napowrimo writings....at best all i have is the beginnings of poems....but i'm kind of ok with that. i'd like to say that one day i'll be amazing enough to sit down and crank out thrity great poems in a day...or at least forgiving enough of myself to let the stuff i know is bad sit long enough to be edited. (for those that are confused...before, i refused to recognize the crap, now i don't even allow myself to write it down)

in any case, i asked my sister to write me a po-em and she did, and so here is the beginning of the one she's getting in return. don't know if you guys will get to see the finished version, but we shall see.

---
it is no easy thing
the strength it takes to hear someone say 'i love you'
no magic bullet
the courage it takes to trust it is no lie

if you are reading this
it's an act of will i have learned not to take for granted

i know what it is to deserve congratulations for crawling out of bed
to comfort yourself with only things you know will someday kill you
and pray that no one else will try to read beyond the lie
i hope this poem finds you well
less about survival stories
more about surviving
more about forgetting the struggle to survive

Adventures in Katrinatown

Katrinatown 2010

1.
He is a torn denim jacket and dusty black boots with no laces that have never fit him
Dry lips that would smile if they remembered the steps
And a stomach kissed hard to the backbone
He carries in pocket a notebook of poems and a pencil on its last breath
This is day 7 of temperatures flung near freezing
Day 2 that he can’t feel his fingers
And he asks me where I think God is.

2.
Tent city is nothing to smell at high noon after weeks of rain
There is not light enough to make this pretty
Not hope enough to make it clean
I wonder
Why the suicide rate is so low
The answer:
No one here can afford a rope

3.
He asks if I believe in mercy killings

4.
I believe guns can kill people
It’s just hearts usually get to first
We lock our words in the chambers of our heart
And spin with the swelling of our lungs
I tell you
"I love you"
Is nothing to Russian roulette with
Good intentions are worse

5.
Did you intend to send help someday?
Are your intentions still in the mail?
Did you know good intentions promise just as much as the promise of reparations?
We will cash your good intentions as soon as my grandmother gets 40 acres
We will compile those good intentions to build houses on our land

6.
I have already seen the blueprints
Of a bigger and better city
A Cajun fried tourist trap of a town with riverboats down on the bayou plans to buy out every laundromat selling po’ boys and cleaners with the secret to gumbo
We will French Creole sprinkle hoodoo around a café named Lower 9th
And the rest will be just a memory

7.
Do you remember?
1965
And her name was Bessie
And they made no secret
Brought dynamite to make tinker toys of the levees for her to play with
She made angel dolls of men to give as hand me downs to her children
Like “Look Katrina
See what Mommy can do
Now see if you can do it bigger”

8.
There is a fine line between administrative mistake and
Government sanctioned genocide

9.
He has never been a thief
Won the class spelling bee in first grade
Was the only one to remember the capital ‘A’ in America
Now left fiending for aid in America
Because he can’t claim enough capital
He’s just collateral damage in a call from the Capitol
Saying, “Get those body bags ready”
We are years removed from the eye of the storm and still as blind as ever
I want to tell him God his present
But look at his shelter and get confused

10.
If the people of New Orleans still cant’ rest
My God
What is Haiti going to do?

--
Also - congrats to Eurydice, Renaissance, and Krosswords, I can't wait to see what's going to happen.

Peace Be