I Am Michael Brown

Unarmed, going home.
Unarmed, reaching for the sky, like
every youth, dreaming.
Arms not now for hugs,
never again for greetings. Unarmed
heart that stops. Arms not now
for art nor sport, neither
climbing nor reaching. Merely
the end of the road. Of life.
Arms now for violence.
Arms for fear, for strangling
this stillborn world, struggling
to be born peacefully.
Arms for embracing, never again.
Arms that kill. That kill.
Arms that kill and kill
unarmed generations.
Armed to the teeth this police
state of confusion. Arms
wrestle with lies inside a squad car.
Finger squeezes trigger
squeezes lifeless nigger
unarmed. Again.
Pistol pointed, poised to execute
justice at arm's length.
Again. Goddamnit!
Not again!!

Music To Go Home To

For Julie Marston, in memoriam

Tears, moving.
Deep muddy rivers flow
through many histories
borne of love's nurture.
Some distant futures
unfold upon open
outstretched palms
like pearls in the world's
oyster. Earth is an altar
and children are candles.
Learning lights
their way. The way home
lined with smiles,
linked with hands clapped,
clasping this unbroken circle.
Music to go home to, when
burdens are laid down.
Music to go home to, when
tears flow away on jazzed notes
blowing away. Joyful sadness
as one more saint goes marching
in. To our hearts
inward. Outward in word
and deed. This is music
to go home to: all of us
singing in her name. Music for her
to go home to.
Finally.
In grace.
Gracias.

except

your moon soft glow of my sleep
deprived dreams, this haunted
absence. a creeping silence you uninhabit,
not arriving. your name is not. my name.
your body is not. my body. no scents
to splendor this hollow.
you can't exist.
except

the minutes pass the hours. pass
daynights one long continue
empty trains through fog, misty
forgotten that which yet appearsn't.
there is distance, none. only
the infinite span. be
tween this agony foreverever now
your uncertainty.
except

i wait i wither
i look i linger
even as i search i see
age exponentiating.
will you come for me
my final death?
bring home me. comfort
able.
except

thought touch

see hear:  this
thought touch impenetrable
as if watery stones, waves
that I live farewell
these uncertain window curtains
to the soul such as eye
lids on the sun’s ramble. under
stand? my grief is far. entrench
habits well worn, cumber
some words meaning
less. afflictions are arithmetic.
equations that require balance.
pay homage to entropy.

happiness in drag. weather
or not whether, it rains. upside down,
the moon is a lie. life is not
prone to your beliefs.
because of this
I insert silence into space
surrounding the ambients, or.
its ambience. to possess
lingual finitude. an end
less will begin again.
cyclical pair-o-docks i am
moored to. more to this, add
infinitum.

dexterity. it is written
in tongue, ink well worn badges
of honor. tattooed to abstrusion.
i am an example of this.

back words

of distracted desires and deadly dreams
i carry this cloak of heavy humidity,
where in raiment melancholic
is found ingredients for some stretch
of fraudulent seas. this pallor. colorless
as hues of confusion, crystal clear,
as tears joyfully remainder, or
remind a heart's echoes beating.

where in meaning is found
? this place of birth, my misplaced
worth stretched across worried furrow
lines streaked upon sullen cheeks ?
mad hatter of matter...what's the ?...?
answer, this response. a question
of beauty, of what's real, or real.
of what? 's worth my time running
out of. before it was granted. taken
for a ride on these wingless despairs.
something i've done before, oh yes.
backwards.

get back,
words. give back
these words of wonder.

laziness

self anarchy: an arcane
anecdote antedates this
anachronistic chronicle
of a death foretold. four fold
wings flock frivolous triviality
really not reality.
relatively, inactivity lively
thrives in riveting river
droplets of time flying
through this hourglass eye
of the needle. stitches seem
tailored to precise incisions
knifed in surgical steps, or
increments crept upon. sneaky.
like surprises. packaged presents
here now. after
thought. as in life. an
afterthought.

happenings

i guess this is how it happens:
you meet, you grow,
into each other with
deepening roots. you
sing and cut through silence.
your blood flows in the wine.

we are always made for each other.
allofus. two hands knead one bread. we
speak in turn laughing together.
common fire and endless
oceans, skies in your
eyes. my lips,
whispers.

it happens. it goes unnoticed
until your heart wants to know.
the meaning of this vacancy,
the limits of nights.
sunless dawns. wanting to know
when you will return,
flying. it is as if you never were
yet suddenly were my every life, my
sole purpose.

and so things seem normal in this way.
you pass through your curtain
of tears, looking for the hammer
and saw of your redemption.
and i grow toward your light, you grow within
me. we go on with the day,
outlasting sun and moon, digging roots,
whistling over the sand,
sinking in dreams.