A rumbling pop rattles my windows;
it makes my heart drop down to my toes.
“When will you stop being scared?”
He asks with a true, concerning stare.
“When he is gone, and his wheels turn no more;
when his motor doesn’t run, and he is on the floor!”
A fist, a fight; a flash of memory,
my body exceeds my height, slowly and quickly.
Every day, there is something, running me into replay;
every day at least one thing of him, ruining my day.
A rumbling pop shakes my soul,
Until the news drops,
He has been dragged to the “down below.”
Dear Young Joi,
Your body is not an apology…
Stop giving it away to anyone who tells you or tells you to feel sorry for or about yourself…
Your body is not a toy…
Stop allowing people to play with it as children do, without instruction or care until it is a broken thing, of no further interest to be tossed aside.
Your body is not a piece of furniture…
Don’t let just anyone or thing move you off your ground. Or let anyone recklessly toss their unambiguous laundry on top of you until they have time to deal with the mess they created… or your OCD forces you to clean it up on their behalf.. You are no one’s maid.
Your body is not taboo…
Don’t be afraid of it. Let yourself explore every inch of it’s terrain. Map it with your mind until it’s committed to muscle memory before you offer access to outsiders. Remember: THIS IS SPARTA!
Your body is not a sin…
Don’t let them shame you bout how much, how little you use it; whether it be used for your pleasure or purpose is your choice! And your right! Use it [or not] as you damn well please….
Your body is not a side dish [read sidepiece]….
Don’t let them overlook you as if you do or can not meet their needs, when they are malnourished. You are a main course, meant to be fawned over, appreciated and applauded for all the work it took to create your luscious beauty. Your deserve honor & gratitude for nourishment your provide.
Your body is not a secret…
Again, the choice to share it with others is yours and yours alone. Don’t allow them to silence your voice into a whisper, never to be heard. Don’t allow their words or actions to make you fold, be shrunken small enough to fit into a box and hidden away into a corner unknown…
In a world where you were meant to be known..
Where you were meant to shine
Where you were meant to exist
And all you gotta do to impress [or intimidate] is exist.
Air from Terra Rising
Quivering in the Mountains
Rocks Rumble Beneath Earth, & One’s Feet
Wind Blares Down on All of Us
Nature Plays Tambourines – Touching Each of Our Ears
Terrene Mother Drums her Hands’ Down on the Planet’s Crust
Manmade Iron Rails Roll their Human Cargo through Scenic Landscapes
Man – in their Fibbing Imaginations’ Believe that they Overcome the Mountain’s Rocks &
Horns
Sights Behold, & Sights Lost in Time
A World Without Flesh Arrives with Urbanization
Voices Born & Silenced through Oppression
Mothers Can’t Pay for Milk,
Feet Thump on the Aggregate – Pasted Over the Once Fertile Ground
Steps on the Concrete of Our Grandparents’
Skyscrapers Block Out the Open Sky
They Lord Over the Sight of Homes Lost to the Next Generations
Parks Become Sinkholes in the Modern Age
Beats from the Boomboxes of Youth
Converting themselves into Car Radios
Words Walk By
but their Unheard by Invisible Bodies,
Gibberish Blends in the Air
Whispering Echoes of Past Lives – Lost Within the Smog
The Sun Sets on the Densely Driven Divides.
somewhere in my travels i had taken the wrong turn
i can’t inform my path to there for i have yet to learn
i don’t know how it happened, how hell i stumbled into
journey aside, i found the devil’s lair without a clue
amidst flames i met a woman – a kind old soul in life
her piety led me to ask–what guide’s the devil’s knife?
she replied, i thought i stayed devout to faith when living
when i passed god revealed my sins, and he was not forgiving
i’ve agonized for centuries, unable to escape the facts
i have murdered many in my time–34 to be exact
when i could have born a child but i chose a different path
god had tracked one cardinal sin for every year that passed
it started when i was in poverty and could have born 5 kids
they were not conceived; they were murdered before they lived
when 3 ate at my table i could have birthed 10 more
i did not so those 3 would thrive – with god this struck a chord
when i was nearing 45, due to danger i removed a child
i chose to save my own life, but choosing is not god’s style
i decided to live a mother to 3 than leave a motherless 4
i did not foresee this decision was one that my god would abhor
this is why i was struck down into this infernal realm
i have murdered more than 30 souls–for that i burn in hell
but even now the devil knows i’d repeat every choice
despite what god revealed to me, i would do it for my boys
mark my words she stood there in agony looking proud
i had to turn away from her since she would not back down
i sometimes wonder what brought me there to the depths of hell
if only just to meet a woman and bring back her story to tell
I don’t remember ever being beautiful.
Must have been, at some point.
Kindergarten maybe?
All I know is, by third grade,
My tummy was a tad too
Big to be beautiful.
But don’t worry. This isn’t a poem
About hating my body. Actually,
I’ve always quite liked her
Despite, despite. She was always
So strong. Utilitarian. Through every
reinvention, she always looked
Like me. Reason enough.
I have longed to be beautiful though.
Nothing to do with appearance.
I’ve longed to be beautiful because
Beautiful things are loved for
No reason but
existing.
Don’t worry. I’ve had my share
Of love. But, off. Always felt so,
Utilitarian. I used to love
Being loved
For a reason. My intelligence,
Often, reason enough.
Until I lost my reason. And love
Never had much to do
With reason anyway.
A horoscope said that
I had a talent for making things
Beautiful. It’s true.
I surround myself
With beautiful things. And
They say beauty is in the eye
Of the beholder, and I have an eye
to behold beautiful things.
It’s true, I have strong reason,
So utilitarian. Reason enough. But
Better yet there is beauty
In my eye. I’m the off-white
Just right shade to bring
Beauty into focus when others
Don’t see. And I think that’s
Beautiful, and reason enough,
To be loved without reason.
Look at the big, beautiful Moon tonight.
See the little red spot that is called Mars.
See the almighty Elon Musk take flight.
Launched from the earth through its cosmos and stars.
But lo, it’s only his robot doppelganger
on a mission to plant the American flag.
Oh wait, that’s not our wonderful doppelbanner.
Do you really believe we had it in the bag?
Just because he bought his way into credence
and has an office in the ivory tower,
just because he used his wealth to gain power,
over our flag he’s held sway, not allegiance.
Look closer, you’ll not see any blue or white stars
just an “X” marks the little red spot that is Mars.
Color of rain and sounds of moss and
glitter of flower song falling all about me,
once I was a dewdrop in leaf-tip tremolo.
Evanescence coalesced; my footsteps
trod the forest, tried the highway,
took the byways made them mine and back.
Tumbling water laughs aloud
though silent clouds rejoice.
Sun and shade and cold and heat and
cold again and now.
Silences placed like crystal
against the spoken notes,
fields a bluegreen promise,
I sink down and low and further.
Decumbent liminality
across and bridging world to world,
greening reaches portal through.
Eyes lucent in the ringing dawn,
my self flows clear and
back into the drenching source,
spangling in clean waterlight,
dissolving aqua in the air.
Every day we survive to live to escape
to trail on the same path, to methodise
the code of narrative to stop believing in change
and believe in the status quo, believe in no change
start believing the tales, in the news,
that the cause of inflation lies in my body
that it is not temperature change rather it’s my body
that what’s learned can be unlearned at the same school
that ideas can be erased through provocative articles
that nothing is happening, nothing, nothing
that the truth is visible from the podium
till we learn what is said is right and wrong is what we think
right and wrong exist like peace and violence
like freedom and slavery, like power and politics
till we learn the new language,
till we worship the new incarnations like
Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Lenin, Mao, Idi….
My friend, you’ll see the shore where the blue sky
pours its buckets of glaring sunlight; nearby ridges beckon
with wings of fresh green foliage.
A chilly wind often wafts in from the Pacific; this is San Francisco.
When you arrive,
you’ll find the Golden Gate Bridge, like cherry blossoms, linking north
and south.
We could lounge on Baker Beach,
and at Fisherman’s Wharf, savor the coastline. At Pier 23 Cafe, we’ll
drink and dance.
We could set our chairs facing the waves,
gazing at a myriad of stars in the brilliant night sky.
With the fatigue of life’s long journey behind us, we see a crowd,
a host of yellow daffodils,
fluttering and dancing along the beach like the women we might meet.
