Tag Archives: Lament

This Place Bleeding

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really…REALLY?

we are here, this place bleeding out arterially
black blood cells fused from antique plants
and dainty dinosaurs and precious people
deemed damned

and all we care about is our artesan chocolates
and our tan designer bedrooms that match
our pocketbooks in fashion and depth
damned dumbtumblr_mzfwomsiDA1rxgoj1o1_1280wearing our fedoras, sporting our beards (of every kind)
and dreaming a whole country gentrified by Bushwick
the coolest of the hip and the hepcats’ litterbox
dumbed down

as it gets hotter goalposts shift and redefine
sauna and authenticity to fit profiles across all media
except streets bleeding violent red screams of dying ‘saurs
down dregsImage 003we snort privelege like cocaine and serenade
our drunken oiled selves with bad karoke to past themes
of Happy Days and Good Times and Holiday Road
dregs drunk

we reek of our carousing self-colonization spirit-displacement
we dizzy ourselves with ironic nods and imitation-perfection
that obscures the fracture…THE FRACTURE
drunk dashedtumblr_m5a7doL6nI1rxebiio1_500running thru it all no sense of self
disinherited by us and our need of approval
manufactured in cell phones and selfies
dashed dim

we are here, this place of escaping
necessary work to heal the deepest wound.
we are here to resurrect our capacity to care
dim deadtumblr_mmtqs48l7P1rrdu8mo1_1280to tend each other…each other’s space and culture
history and place…and own our own self-loathing
and heal our deepest wounds and griefs
dead dealing

we are here in opportunity to recover finally
from all our shame and triumphs, renounce our history
and live authentic life of no unlawful gain
dealing diamonds

we are here…now
and as to tomorrow
we are…?tumblr_n62lycv2ho1r3ypqpo1_1280

oh america

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oh america, alas for me
once blind but now, alas!
I see…what I could not see before
safely ensconced behind my placid doortumblr_nlzzm3QWBV1sq9drqo1_1280of hallels, proverbs, judgements
assumed and (not) asked and answered
while Perry Mason spoke for me
Paul Drake got me off
Della Street hid me safe.

oh america, you hid from me
your bloody dungeons, grisly gore
your carrion teeth hungry for more
I weep in agony, I never saw that side
of you, rapacious, avarice-infected, ravenous

alas for you
alas for metumblr_ns93u6y7WJ1qllucco1_500oh america, alas for me
once deaf but now, alas!
I hear…not pop songs, jingles
and bubble gum ditties
but klaxxons and outrage
and death-dirges arising in cities

writhing in flaming hatred and strife
sirens screaming and bullconner bullhorns
in the tramping of jackboots and protests for freedom
I hear the desperate pleading for life and liberty
their chains rattle like thunder
but america, you hear only dice
rolling on your green table
of gambling and greed and
just be oh so nicetumblr_miy2lmQQy11qb5cdqo1_500I wish I could just rip myself
straight outta me, tear that
born and bred into ease
from my arteries, and my
narcissistic “I’m so vain”
from my veins and be fresh

be free…oh america…alas for you and me
as I watch our best, our brightest
still chained in our simpering
lobs of “be nice, calm down, be polite”
lobotomized and safe in facebook internments
prisoners in consumer kraalstumblr_noeogvQoQI1qas1mto5_1280and poetic deftness flees me
abandons me in this hour of my need
oh grace deliver me from selfish greed!
oh Mama let me run to truth so clean with godspeed
I lose mastery in the horror of this hour

alas, oh america, I lament for me
alas…I lament for thee
and do not know if you will find the courage
to face yourself in the mirror of your victims
the ones you killed and ate and burped
and called it good.

oh america, oh america
God have mercy on thee
and trip you up and toss you down
and take from you that gory crown
of racism, racism racism racism
from sea to shining sea and in betweentumblr_npxxyrZeCO1r38hk2o1_1280may God remove that hood that blinds
you to brotherhood, to good, to kind
give you eyes to see (oh god let me see)
give you ears to hear (oh god let me hear)
give you a heart at last and courage
to look at what you’ve done and left undone

oh america
oh america
oh america
oh america
oh america528483-Depression-1364630455-842-640x480

“I am torn in two but
I will conquer myself.
I will dig up the pride…I will take a crowbar
and pry out the broken
pieces…”
— Anne Sexton – from The Civil War

Homecoming

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If you are a skeptic be careful
when you stroll by the sea.
So much in this world
hints at so much more to be,

We are intricately bound
to this world of woven wonder
and its all-encompassing gain
bled thru the all-encompassing loss.

I am caught there,
snagged on the loom
of poetry, and poems of mourning,
poems of profound lament.

They chronicle abrupt realities
and tales of exile in this realm
under the sun, and never new
and they go silent, choked on vanity.tumblr_niwavp4zff1qllucco3_1280

You see, I am skeptical of happiness and yet
I am also skeptical of sorrow, that mere
A to Z acrostic of grief and loss expressed,
because it has its built in default limit.

These our exiled lives in disarray,
spirits torn out of our homes
and singing songs of misery
much deeper than we can endure?

These our exiled lives of aching mystery?
This pert uncertainty?
This frank finality?
This haunting history?Image 001

It ends with bleeding blossoming,
our longing for that shining home
that waits across the water
and that notion, bright as noontime.

and that foggy haunting certainty,
that aching homely homesickness
that sings a deeper song unceasing…
All that tells us home is there

and waiting our return.tumblr_neiigsKwTx1rktvico1_1280