Category: Uncategorized

Walking out in early evening,
I glance upward for no reason
and see their mark across the sky,
tracing a miles-long X
somewhere near 30,000 feet.

Just airliners, the normal traffic,
and if I take the time,
I can trace courses, one
south by southeast towards warmth,
the other north by northwest.

Sign, artifact in tiny crystals–
I remember that my father, the chemist,
my elder brother, so gifted,
the engineer, would try to explain
how heat from engines, moisture,
and air pressure all combined.

No use, I always saw language,
crude but effective tracings,
words or fragments of words
from the moving finger of a god,
a demon, an angel even.

Angels, that’s what it’s called
in the gnostic slang of pilots,
back in World War II,
“Bandits at angels 30”
gave altitude and ill intent,
till a smoke-gray shadow
spoke its will to death.

A boy from Kansas, Brooklyn,
or Alabama sweated to ice
in the wind-racked machine,
spilled the scent of fear
across the heavens

While trying to keep a sight
on tiny squares and rectangles,
the mere geometry that once
had stood for civilization,
the Gothic illusions of grace.

And another boy from Bremen
or Hamburg pointed toward heaven
and tried to slice apart
the shadows and wailing voices
with angry prayers of iron and fire.

An old woman or a child
could then consider the faces
the sky could make, the horror
the careless clouds could write,
no testament but mere graffiti.

All along, another sky watched
and waited while bones smoked
their kaddish from the crematories,
and clouds breathed it all as dust,
turned it back as ice and rain.

A century of shadows, not innocence,
where vapors wrote the history–
as a child, I once looked up to see
a metallic sliver and glint of light,
a savior, a demon, a summons

The rules are simple, and simplistic
(but not as much as War).
Each territory holds a name,
descriptive and endearing:

Central America; Ukraine,
Middle East; Siam; Congo;
each has a border with the other,
colored and separate.

The plastic men, with tiny guns,
attack across air, land,
and sea. They disappear when dead,
no bodies to be buried.

Like corporations, players have
no homeland, only armies
to deploy. In this game, there is
no profit, only conquest.

No bodies, no ruin, no loss
no consequence to meet.
The box is closed and put away
when operations cease.

I haven’t played in years,
job, family, life, and such.
But when I played, I played for fun,
and played with little risk.

That night
before your departure,
I begged God
for a drop of your likeness.

Me at home,
you at war,
and him in my womb;
I prayed for your safe return.

That was 15 years ago
and here we are once more
him and me, at home alone
while you are there, at war.

This conflict cannot end
and I, a single parent
while you are away;
can only count the days.

I ache for you without us
as I ache for us without you,
a wife with an abscent husband
and a son without a father.

Please come home.

They put their finger to your lips
And say it isn’t what it is
As the journalist just wins a prize
And the candidate is making speeches
As the military reaches
The borders of the other side
History turns the corner
The stories have grown taller
And our memories are like a passing train
The conductor rides along singing old war songs
And the passengers throw roses in the rain
A letter from a love
The feather of a dove
And a symbol that has yet to come
The devil in the guise of a lamb
Rips out the heart of a land
Where the sacred ancient temples fill with blood
I heard an angel weeping
The woe of man was deepening
Terror was the reason why
And from what I have found
It can be seen on both grounds
That each side is fixing to die
Light a candle at the vigil
For the soldier that was just killed
Put pennies on each of his eyes
Doesn’t matter what the truth is
The facts are just loose ends
That the government can buy

The torn ground
When the town might be
In the sunshine smokey airs came about
The places torn and least meant
In the course of the branches turned about

That we must work and mourn,
for mourning is the work of living
as our loved ones would have lived
and should have lived.

That there is so much to mourn,
the young people who are stolen from us by hatred
and the elders worn down by hatred,
that we must account for all aspects of mourning
and hatred for us to build ourselves up.

That hatred can kill and eat us at any moment.
That it has receptive ears poured into
from voices in all directions. That hatred asks questions
about who queer people are and who femme people are
and they seem respectable and decent
and too many people try to answer them, but hatred
does not care about our answers,
it only asks its questions to speak for itself
and keep our voices, loud though they may be, from being heard.

That hatred uses its body and voice to shut queer people
out, corral us into breathless spaces, and demand us
to stay quiet. That when we don’t, when we take these spaces
and make them our own, hatred kicks the door down
and shoots us, that hatred believes that not even in spaces
we call our own do we deserve to be alive.

That hatred cannot be negotiated with,
coddled, or disenfranchised. That every queer person
is a fighter for themselves and all others, that the fight
is about grabbing hatred from behind,
slamming it to the ground, seizing its firearms,
and smashing them into its face until it’s bloodied
and out of profanities to hurl at us.

That nothing else speaks to queer people better
than a trans woman on the Transgender Day of Remembrance
at a drag show in a queer bar in Trump country
stomping on a bigot’s face with her high heels.

Back pressed to the classroom wall- warm air and cool brick, window into the room filled with
library books.
Fishbowl windows, eyes into the soul- I cannot imagine a world in which I am not struggling to
understand
the notes, the ideas, myself
a way in which I can articulate something without feeling
peckish.
Long conversation on queer representation,
rhetoric class, topics of
debility.
queerness as a political stance,
as a platter of biscuits and gravy,
down home, unrelated, disconnected from southern comfort,
as a thing to be turned over in our hands like a
bug underneath a rock, skittering away but we’re not the one’s looking.
Scratched phone number, scribbled in blue pen on torn out notebook paper,
(soon to be?) deadname on the top because I don’t know how to stop using it-
as a safety blanket, soother, saucepan, space for the part of me that is family-friendly and filled
with
self-hatred.
“I think it’s so important because I’m not out fully to my family”,
even though I’ve known about him for 3 years,
but I’ve known about myself longer.
Queer (not gay) representation, movies described as “egg-cracking”,
cracking the shell that I have built for myself but am
fooling no one.
Omelet with sour cream and chives, chips crumbled on top, perfect crunch,
chicken-shit, courage-less, coughing up words
that will tumble onto the page then become locked away.
Fish-lipped, gutter mouthed, choking on blood but not spitting it out-
a symptom of my bravery (the complete lack thereof).
Cold sweat
tucked away into my shirt,
bottled up and sold as something that you want.

She, the one who holds the gates to heaven,
Beautiful as she is, shining like the sun.
The one who undresses my fears with her tongue,
Sugar that runs freely through my broken veins.

With every sweet glance, she ignites the night,
A spark that dances in the soft moonlight.
Her laughter, a melody that weaves through the air,
Wrapping around me, both tender and rare.

Her touch, a whisper, a sweet caress,
Unraveling secrets, unearthing my excess.
In her embrace, I find rejoice and fire,
A fusion of souls, a burning desire.

Each kiss tastes of honey, rich and divine,
A promise unspoken, our bodies entwine.
Lost in her warmth, I forget the world’s pain,
In the sanctuary of love, we flourish like rain.

So let the stars witness our secret dance,
Two hearts in the twilight, lost in romance.
For in her eyes, I see my true home,
With her, I am fearless; with her, I roam.

The butterfly or the bee,
to whom does the flower owe its promise?
Ah, but bisexuality was not thought an option
for nature is all-purposeful,
while it is us that do the flower arranging in the vase

I walked in the desert for 40 years
Or maybe I didn’t
Maybe I walked into bars for 40 years
Maybe it just felt like a desert
The grit underneath my feet,
A poor man’s sand
Of ash and dirt and broken glass.

I listened to Christ on the Mount of Olives
Or maybe I didn’t
Maybe I listened to a susurration of desperation
Maybe it just sounded like a sermon
The cacophony of conversation
A poor man’s benediction
Of hope and fear and broken hearts.

I nailed Christ to the cross
Or maybe I didn’t
Maybe I nailed a guy with a cross on his chest
Who promised to be my salvation.
The desperate fucking
A poor man’s prayer
Of sweat and shame and broken dreams.

I was bound to hell
Or maybe I wasn’t
Maybe I was bound by grief and regret
Maybe I found my salvation
Not in his body
But in the mirror of myself
In his eyes,
And his warm lips
Kissing away my tears.