Mujer Angel
Angel Woman, what makes you spread your arms like wings as if you could fly?
Has no one told you hope is forbidden in these skies?
Angel Woman, I know why your veil refuses to be white
Why you hide your ankles like little sisters
Your face like a sinner
An identity like a killer
Your boom-box-heartbeat muted
By the valley’s cancerous cessation of time
Angel Woman, tell me who have you wronged?
Was it the people that told you that to survive was to be strong?
But being an Angel, Woman, is pretty hard
When all you try to do is keep your knees together
And all the world does is try to force them apart
Why the greatest fight is to drown the tumor in your throat that rises
Because red eyes mean blood
And blood means humanity and mortality
And you’ll be damned to admit you’re only human
Oh, Angel Woman blessed art thou among women
-but a blessing from the damned is like trying to carry water in your hand
it escapes faster than you can drink it
and leaves you with damp palms that are useful only to say
I remember once…
I remember…
but the desert forgets the ocean
Oh, Angel Woman, blessed is the fruit of your womb
But mine will rot
Like so many who the camera forgot
Jesus hasn’t done a thing for me.
Jazz: The City
I’m crazy about this city
Dream tall and feel in on things
Here comes the new.
There goes:
The sad stuff
The bad stuff
The things-nobody-could-help stuff
The space between two poems
Falls out of the sky.
It makes a pretty picture on its way down
May never expect to catch the eye of the city
The trick of shapes and light and movement
Forget and miss it
What happened to the stars?
Irrelevant
Oh mama! Oh mama!
The first time, the first time!
Eased the pain Flesh with pleasure
Rogue, You Surrender
Look where you are.
Look.
Now.
Love Is
Love is being naked
And being made felt brave.
Love is knocking down your own castle
And still feeling saved.
Love is knowing that the moon doesn’t really shine from their eyes,
But caring all the same when they go red and she cries.
Love is all the goodbyes and the until next time’s
Where space and time don’t apply.
Love isn’t holding hands, or sex in bed
It’s wanting to.
Love is silence and love blindness
Where your senses, to your lover are chained.
Love is a name we give to the things we do that we can’t explain
Love is cold and without shame
Love is what keeps you awake, keeping you insane and yet out.
Love is fleeing and love will stay.
Love is the only thing no one can take,
Love is everything and love is nothing
And still for all love is, love is undefined.
