#blackberniematters

a witness to expectations wilted
    weathering under hot sun delays
    the faces of lilies pining for some real shit.
except, what is real shit anyway?
we all live this interpretation colored
with conceits,
    we paper together our meaningless messiah.
    we want answers to prayers but can't listen.
to real shit??
we want bread
    buttered our own way.
multiple masters of ceremonies moan lament kick sand,
we adolesce our supposed intellect.

a black sunshine, pushing through. our
screens we push back butt-hurt. a screaming
    inconvenience spills scalding privilege
all over the fucking utopia place. pissing on the rug we
    yank(ee) out from under our feet
    shod with too many shoes.
        we have first world problems too.

we aren't post-anything. signs say yield
to oncoming traffic. there's a horn blowing.
    who's paying attention?
    rules for this road ain't none.
flippant when this bitch flips
the clown car over. what do we see
in the mirror?
some objects are a lot closer than they appear.

we are drunkards for our own supposed intellect.

progressive politics

in the mist of decay, the midst
of a dream we wake into: futile sleep
walk towards a glitter precipice. we learn?
aside from the "how i get by" canned speech
and explanations of hollow fortitude...
we do believe in smart devices, our
vices to portray silent voices,
and loudly. apoplectic carnival
realism. we are righteously so.

except when we're on the wrong side of history.

the talk the talk. is only. we are
being murdered, slowly, one
by one, we succumb to civilization. politely
we acquiesce the hangman's advance;
after all, who wants to offend
the hideous beauty of silent ignorance?
there it is inside of us,
the insidious blueprint for suicide.
death is no longer beautifully honorable.
it's a matter of statistics.

will the last person left please take note of this?

the wannabe baraka poem

the inside of the head, a thorn
cranium. wistful starlight, gone to town
with daisies for hair. cracks
in the mirror i smile at.
alone with its silent thievery.
i can be lost and alone. that's just the way
it is. churning
through history, i turn
the pages. everything
has a frightening wetness,
heavy breathing hot at the window.
my soul doesn't exist (goddam, i thought
i took care of that last month.)
except for the reflections i hear,
since they make me laugh. things
scratch around causing the dark
to wander about, bumping
into shadows.

when the rain, if, not that i care
but just in case. i'm getting
away from here. fog in mystery
and silence cut in half.
figure that shit out.
they come to you trilling
a flag song and you wind up
brain damaged listening too long.
i'm getting to where i'm getting to,
but damn if i know where.
some spread thigh
for thoughts of romance. it never
sounds right when said out loud.
i don't speak now.

forever. they sell you on that.
now that we know better we better
get on down, no telling
which bogeyman we be
afraid of come tomorrow morning.
a materialist's wet dream. i seen that
koochie waving in the breeze. ain't no change.
we all get here. get lied to.
one by one we all leave.
same thing each time but with a different color
never before seen. did you see it?
flaming wings of grief.
you can dance.

can't you?

the poverty poem

as if, when
    moonlight burns...
      you get the idea.
we can't get any
more. somnolent
    coincidences,
 like scraping air.
       did we care any
more? i said
how i feel about you
in a million ways.
    all you want
        is to hear
four letter words.

god is a bad word, by the way.

the everlasting burden
of the thinking man,
    to believe in poetry.
how lost i must feel.
    to be smart
and unappealing.
poetry is one letter away
        from poverty.

it pays to be mild mannered sometimes.

it gets into the darkness
behind the skin.
frail and lightless,
    weighed down
by curtains. a foreshadowing.
        can you feel?
if i ask, then i don't need to know.
we all want
to be left to our petty vices.
    crack whores
    for cheap affections.

we live in an age of indifference.

i am left to my own meaning.
    as if, moonlight
burns. when it's slow
and ugly.
a cumbersome crawl,
    lazy light getting nowhere.
that's my excuse from now on.
    i forgot my shadow.
    it crept back
into its source. deep
inside, a smolder.
    soon i will sing.
you show me the dance steps.
it can make a difference.

bartender, an epitaph, please.

the puzzle poem

i am in some sad trumpet call. i thought
miles davis was dead!? never mind,
he must be immortal.
after all, it is an ethic i cope with,
being in pieces the way i do.
something like a piano
from some picasso puzzle.
slowly from night
til still mornings.
i live for these feelings.
die because of them too.

it can be this way.
musing. like it really is
some chic thing, because
french is a pretty language.
at least latin is dead.
i digress.
that may be latin too.

certainly it was made this way.
i tried sleeping it off
and then the century turned on me.
you don't really understand,
only because the places i have been
are not like the ones you have here.
you are here, aren't you?

i think maybe you can't know. who i am
is a mystery even to me. do you
shiver when trane speaks? french is pretty,
but jazz is deadly. i mean,
what i mean is, what it means.
empty spaces, we approach,
i touch voids, you find silence,
we still don't meet in between.
flutes carry the meaning we inhabit.

after all, i cope with these things. what
about you?

tell me if this helps.

the pretend poem

this day's light on its last legs, hung
in the sky like a drunk painter.
from my porch, a pestilent thought eclipsing
a smile. a forced poetry. this
might really be, but
is it actually worth it?

the hum-drum every day, one-twos
march march, ground to
a fine powder. a mixture of ugly
and what might be beautiful. an
unachievable height, i sacrifice
myself to it, work labor drink
all up in smoke. i am spoiled.
life is casual.

i look past things, push them away
and stare into shadows. meanings...
should they exist. i mean, should they?
this is where i ask for forgiveness,
warn of pretentiousness.
within or without, my eyes
take on a different
kind of hollowness. sometimes
there is pain. like, what's it like,
this thing that insists on being love?

never mind, it's probably just pretty
and glorified utopic
numbness short of death. i do shit.
cook or clean or sweat or cross paths,
go down up under where
the streets reflect a desperation.
and people wanna run me down,
pin some clause to me, make me
make sense. do i have time for this?
love has six dozen meanings,
i'm still chewing on the spelling.

it's possible. the sky just went home,
painted by a drunkard. maybe i know him.
after all, we have to have a use
for things. i force poems because
there is no use for them. other than
being a nostalgia, a lobotomy of sorts.
kinda like a need.

way words

a world's coldness, estranged mode
of communication. a depth of words
bubbling to a surface gurgle: this is where
the knife slides in. sweet baby jesus,
fuck them.
they paint smiles painted faces
butter honey talk they
act like
they take interest. if i got
time they'll

take it like cheap money,
and money's cheap these days.
so's real friendship.
sometimes it works

but not if they got a thing or two
they need (all i got's
my own volition, and
that's definitely not
up their alley)

sideways and other ways words
otherwise i get lost confused wayward and
i forget

which language do we
agree to use?

dream sketcher

sketch for my pleasure your dreams
as long as you paint them
without rhyming. prove to me
you had a dream
if only because
even you aren't convinced.
take a bite from your heart
and show me those seeds
you hide in your flesh.
teach me about it.
help me know how you plan to plant
some future, whether or not
you possess soil, whether or not
you carry salt in your tears.
i want to understand
why you try
to till the sky, the reason
you build your nest
somewhere in hidden places
the wind cannot carry me to.

the hodge podge snippets poem

as evenings go, this
one is filled with your light.
the moon is lost at sea.
a silence inside your eye,
a silence of deep wells.
you are inside a poem
i wrote into wine's scripture;
claret lips you press upon the glass
pour libations across pages--
    uncork the poem
    to find autumn light
    nestled in the verse
    i cultivate for your mouth alone.

is there music inside your tears?
there are empty rooms inside my heart;
if you aren't there, where
will you sleep?
i swear i heard your voice crying out
over the weeping wind/s/wept tears.
i promise
to meet you someplace
west of the moonlight.

if only i could navigate the night
i would weigh anchor wherever i found you.
don't tell me the rain keeps no secrets,
winter will be here soon enough.
if you find me inside my final death
bury my heart under your pillow,
plant my lips within a cherry
and kiss me forever.
this is why my skin aches:
    beauty breaks my bones
    kisses cause me fever
    dawn light crawls into my closed eyes
    i find you there, but not here.

the only thing i understand is pure fire.
somebody, please, teach me about different heartaches.