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consider a room of newborns:
mere days removed from their mothers’ wombs,
mere days of tasting air in their lungs.

consider the promise of an infant, its coo interrupted by a gurgle,
a tiny throat full of maggots and rot. Consider the promise of an infant, its coo interrupted by a
gurgle, a tiny throat full of maggots and rot. Consider an infant, its coo interrupted, a tiny throat
full of maggots and rot. If a NICU full of decomposed babies ain’t enough, then consider

the cowardice of burning families alive as they sleep. Consider the
cowardice of burning families alive as they sleep. Consider setting three generations ablaze as
they attempt to dream. Consider grandmothers shot out of their grandkids’ hands. Consider the
grandmothers shot dead out of their grandkids’ hands. Consider a mother’s mother
bullet-snatched out of her grandbaby’s grasp.

consider the screams, the cries, the curdled blood, the screams,
the cries, the curdled blood, the pleas, the cries, the blood…curdled, the screams. Close your
eyes, and consider an everlasting moment:

a father, his face a twisted wail, clutching the body of his toddler at arms length,
grief-gaped eyes staring at the ash-thick air looming above his toddler’s shoulders, swirling right
where his baby’s face used to be. A father, his face a twisted wail, clutching the body of his
toddler at arms length, grief-gaped eyes staring at the ash-thick air looming above his toddler’s
shoulders, swirling right where his sweet baby’s face used to be. A father, a twisted wail clutching
his infant’s body, grief-gaped eyes staring at ash-thick air looming above his shoulders swirling
right where his sweet baby’s face should be.

They preach of freedom, bold and loud,
but hypocrites form their crowd.
For a woman’s choice, her right to choose,
they take away, and her freedoms lose.

On love, they say it must conform,
deny the rights that break the norm.
They claim all freedoms should be free,
unless you’re queer, then you can’t be.

For voting rights, they draw the line,
they claim it’s fair, but check the signs;
new laws that limit, that make it tough,
for those they deem have had enough.

They cry for less restraint, less rule,
yet keep the laws on substance cruel.
No choice for those in need of care,
their health ignored, their rights laid bare.

With guns, they say it’s freedom’s call,
while violence rises, and spirits fall.
Public safety pushed aside,
as freedoms clash and lives divide.

For those who seek a safer land,
they shut them out with iron hand.
Freedom’s promised, but not for all,
for some, they raise a border wall.

So here we stand, their freedom’s lie,
a twisted truth they can’t deny.
For freedom’s not what they proclaim;
it’s chains they forge in freedom’s name

Ceci I love you
this can be answered by a quick question to Mr. Meseeks,
from Rick and Morty.

You make my heart beat,
Just a young kid from the burbs like Phineas and Ferb
speaking of beats,
should learn more about seasoning meats
from Grandma.

She truly now’s about cooking.

I was a young blood looking to this knowledge
you can’t find in college as a kid

Grandma desired me to be a preacher
as the tipping point to being a teacher.

Given me her old bible with many tails
that can give way to many trails

Some may call it a fable but I call it a label, of creating
a desire for black american guidance.

In other words the Stripes of everything including the wordage from their very lips for centuries.

However it wasn’t all bad. Nat Turner and Dr. King turned the true meaning of indoctrination into a proclamation.

The struggle of a people to breath this was so difficult they were by their own spirits forcing them to leave,

On the great migration trail along with my Grandma.

She went to New York where she found her true lover and partner, the people who would birth my mother.

He’s name was Percival,
he was quite mercival,
taking care of my mother and his new wife, my grandmother,
having to learn the lingo and way of the gringo.

Great aunt stayed in 50’s South Carolina with her husband and twelve children,
quiet her Job as a maid
to become a stay at home mother.

Great Uncle’s job paid much better, back in the day when American blue working did not equate to economical blues.

Looking for clues
for where the next meal ticket is coming from.
Trying not to become an American bum.

Since the government cares more about sovereign oil
to even care to toil
in the people noticing the lie of the american dream.

But what can one say when the dream is built of the Black
nightmare,
the lack
of aid,
forcing them to engage in catching a fade.

The process of social integration into mainstream white america
allowed for de facto legislation.

A new set of strangling chains in a metaphorical sense,
quite rhetorical,
because neo Jim Crow is in,
even the honorable Dr. MLK Jr. couldn’t have seen
this.

The level the fiend
would go to recapture the people they see as their stepping stones, the ones who built it,
making this country truly lit.

Everyone from 37, triple six 40, 42, 45, 46.

Before these number took might
of white house power a bill
to fill up connections to the burbs with mild wide
highways allowing them to tie to the cities as a guide.

White flight took a hold on the cities,
stripping black neighborhoods.

Tipping
them into abstract poverty,
flipping

stability into chaos.

The mold,
being eminent domain,
to clear the plain for the roads to firmly hold.

Loads of people left along with business.

37 got exposed desiring to connect drugs to blacks and the anti war movement,
Either way he was soon deposed.

Hands
dirtier than we thought with his paws on the highest office in all the lands.

40 gave military grade weapons to the police,
a simple ask and it was laid at there feets,
in order to use it on these redlined streets.

Allowing Contra Crack
The wack
stuff was allowed to trap
another Generation in some more post de jure racial crap.

Before 46 was 46 he was a senator,
his mentor, the last
segregationist,
his head stuck in a reactionary past

Creating bills to disproportionately criminalize the drug
to lug in new free labor.

13th amendment allows slavery
in prison, a new bravery
will have to form
to avoid these cynical American versions of a dorm.

46 also helped with 42,
a new
crime
bill
that was about to spew
arrests at the drop of a dime.

Like baseball, three strike your out.

Huh funny aint it?

State greed
in exchange for a little crack and weed.

Now we get to 45,
he’s what my grandmother would call an open racist,
something she said was different moving forth
to the north.

A man who got the white blue
collared class
glued
to his shoe.

Pointing blame
at everyone in the frame,
like a modern George Wallace,
which is quite lame,
but definitely not tame.

Policies like 42’s NAFTA deal,
took opportunity out the common man’s meal

45 was helped by the democratic establishment.

The tools,
put out clueless fools
like 42’s wife.

She was a goldwater girl, he despised the 64 civil right bill,
as you can see this lady is surrounded by everything ill.

But wait it gets worse,
she called black people super predators.

Well what can be expected by someone trained by a high ranker in the demonic band known as the ku klux klan.

They’re all connected like a spider web
laying down in the same racist fucking bed.

Sorry I got of track getting all political,
But hay the truth can be dark and cynical.

The point is granny had it rough,
history folding
and molding.

Ironically she now lives in the burbs with her family,
where she can be fed
and ask us to get her meds.

History of America,
Isn’t it just a land
full of a consistent grand
plan
for its builders?

Granny’s old and happy,
but she sure can be quite bold
like her sister.

Looking at her cooking as a wild
little child,
will always be nice,
glad she was able to get out of the systemic
vice that tried to give her every kind of lice.

Love is a funny thing it swarms me
like a dove
does to the sky,
as free as the endless blue that surrounds it.
no chains
or lanes in sight.

But check it, let’s get back to the love,
the lingo of this so called poem,
the move
to the grove

Grandma is a rider a true soldier for helping out the family,
god blessed her,
to not make sure her body never become messed up.

Its as if God
came with a mode.

Love is strong.

So as before
I want to lore Ceci into my desire,
I admire,
from what I see of her she is quiet but not a liar.

A sweet brown haired girl pal as a ghost,
but what can I say a rip piece of tail,
to chase until I possibly fail.
But I shall never bail from my goal,
either of em,
the political, family or love,
that I’ll shove
like a soaring dove

On Kehinde Wiley’s Portrait of Barack Obama

The waves of gray hair, forehead shines
over creased brows. Flowers emerge
from green tableau: from chicago,
from Hawaii, from Kenya.

The leaves wrap around the feet
ensnaring
the subject. Greenery yields
no space topiary invades
all visibility, dominant— yet not aggressive.

He sits aloof from the viewer, focused
gaze follows our movements. Listen
to the rustling leaves, telling stories. He’s tense
from holding our attention.

His hair isn’t of a young man. He’s aged.
How tension shows up in bodies.
Hands hug knees, He leans
forward. loosey crossing arms.

There’s no tie, collar left open, free
of such encumbrance.
Regal chair demarks his status, yet
its modern, casual appearance speaks
‘We, the people’.

Isolated, in unreal surroundings
he’s trapped
in Nature, now an otherworldly
space apart from his predecessors,

A brown, skinned man, in a white herd. I see
his intensity, he is seated amongst the flowers,
in his element, a natural. His nature
flowers for all to see.

If this is true, let’s explore what else is
possible. Yes, we can dare to hope, to be
seated apart from a wilderness world
that demands we stand or be eaten.

I am the snowball lord! No one is safe, no prisoners
Allowed on the battlefield—I am stoned on a pond.
There are thirty kids, sorry, young people, provisioners
Of youth; still, I am a cruel god, whipping spheres
Like lightning, betraying the no headshot rules on
Accident. These children are my charge, I have not
Betrayed them, but contrary, given them a fairytale
Fight to remember, me the heel to their heroic plight.
Snow damp seeps through gloves, sweat through inner
Cotton, down jackets down despite the 19-degree chill.
Ensconced in the hearth of struggle, the heroes topple
The villain. Dylan drilled me in the temple—gadoosh—like Goliath,
I fell. I let them facewash, trample, bury me in snow.
The champions helped me up for lunch in joyous glow.

Hope is a concept that exists somewhere outside of Star Wars movies—
Only glowed in my guttural life during the beginnings, like lightsaber crystals bled crimson,
Dead endings. Why put so much stock in an evasive emotion, timid like faeries or God?
Jesus said the meek would inherit the earth, not audacious hopers and hanger-onners
And Sith Lords. Language here is void, avoiding absolutes, so I translate visceral feeling.
Hope: the bubbly potential brimming in the gut, spreading like a star’s warmth on skin. Inside
Empty, a façade without nourishment, lacking the wood dust grits of determination and action.
Hope is wanting the Empire to fall while waiting on Tatooine, a trilogy of imperial rule repeating
Over again, hollow and selfish, containing no effort or motive to blow up Death Stars, sacrifice
Or not. But what about hope and, like Cholula, enhancing every savory dish? Like Chewbacca,
Cholula and grits a staple, hope and grit a garden, a two-pillar sermon serving staples
Like Chewbacca and Solo, two pillars to usher billions of rebels across spacetime and suffering.
If we believe Jyn Erso, a rebellion is built on hope, but a one pillar foundation meets devastation:
So wail your Wookie cry and act! Do. Or do not, Yoda said. There is no try. What a revelation!

I can’t quite seem to keep palms off my stick—
It’s not quite as unpleasant as it seems.
My hand has grown with callous and quite thick,
And yet that palm is yanking all my dreams.
Pornography Champions of Ages:
Brandish your swords, use Reddit if you dare!
Abstinence is some wisdom of sages,
No sutras speak of blowing loads with care!
Impersonal, mechanical act—
I’m thirty and admit I still use socks.
But what will be the price of sins I’ve wracked?
Will I cause my wife to change all the locks?
Away I scroll to my own damnation:
Elation. Cessation. Degradation

Wet walk down the subway line, blue crosstown Manhattan,
Cleaner than you remember last time. Metropolises often smell like
Poop on the platform stairwell, just a massive pile
Of shit, you have never seen more human feces in one place—
A true horse pile, a centaur-made monstrosity capped with orange-strawed Mega Gulp.
Hold your breath, the death-sweet rot breaks through anyways, manure and papaya,
Night soil in the nostrils, gag, tightening diaphragm to core to almost spewing breakfast.
Mouth sweating, salivating, sweat at the brow, spit onto the tracks below, inhale hot air;
Wrong line, not downtown, uptown, back up the stairs, shirt over nose, avert your eyes.
You cry, baseball in the esophagus begging—look, it really is just so much shit, like
You can’t help but wonder if the culprit is alive or if they stuck that Mega Gulp flag in
Their own mountain of self-made madness, a signature of pride for the world to witness
One last endeavor. Down the stairs across the tracks, a poor man paints the wall in piss,
Dodge at a discerning distance and catch the train anyways—oh New York, all hit or miss.

I sing the breath-stained ballad of the world’s leading man
who though he was a dandy had grit, though not true grit

of the purebred humankind awash all over him in brine
and reflected in the scenes on “big screens” of cinema,

yet grit in his eyes and his tail, aye, I the washed-up shrimper
sing his tale, the poop-veined tail of a shrimp.

My boat was small in those days when it scoured the marshes
small and netless, nearly deckless and free, as I rented,

and was paid for my labor, profits divided in three. The day
was special for our shrewd carapace (I won’t call it ‘he’)

when we drew from the swamp bottom our catch, and in it
Brad Grit, his true form mud-caked, small-shelled, stalk-eyed

and stinky. It was the size of your pinky. The day was special
its hero unsung, and we rubbed sweat from our eyes ‘neath

the Louisianan sun. What stared back at us seamen buffoons
was aware and alive, though an inscrutable ruin: strangely fit,

fleshy and pink, under our care or its spell, it cried not one whit,
for in our hands we beheld the beginnings of Grit. Brad Grit,

life’s vicarious fantasy, this extended portrait a trailer for Brad,
looming large, though tiny, like small fries we threw back, bad

though they cheered secret whispers, or so it seemed to us:
‘hip-hip, we are grateful to be here, for this!’ Far from stage fright,

the stage was a cuticle, and acting reacting by oil lamplight,
and no agents were present, nor contracts owed. From crusty shells

and tentacles, goodwill flowed, shown kind glimmers of fortune:
to have evolved like that, the first of its kind, an orphan

unnamed, with a curvature of muscle, and yet a Hollywood spine,
or flare, or bane, as no producers air-dropped in the sea-fed manger,

no probing guild, no kicking mules carried perfumes and wagers
to the blessed Brad Grit, born into an unholy swampland;

nor black lagoon creatures came as paparazzi to spectacle,
for such a model shrimp as he, perched in stainless receptacle,

salt-water anointed and washed in a mudslide, though boards
creaked in awe at the little green sprout for his head, which grew

when it stood upright, on its tail, the leading man struggled
like a mermaid, or merman Popeye, tattooed anchor recoiling blue—

Then what were we? Discovers of Brad Grit, tellers of tall tales,
but you have seen his absences, his longing recklessly off-set,

what yearning to tell the world’s secrets, and if he could speak
you’ve heard the recordings, smuggled no doubt by the drivers

of his car muffled sounds confessed to each lover, part power-
couple, one half his heart (the other reserved for stage):

‘I ov you, really I do, I of you, I ove…’ trails off as she passes
lighting cigars in the sunset, leading lady, next star who sashes

by wondering why do you scoff at the L-word, why do you leave
months on end? Where, for what shoot do you go, what Riviera

or cruise? From which beaches to return each time renewed—
a Brad Grit supple and white, striated muscle glistening bright,

your six-pack swimmerets with always more grit than before,
more darkened dirt yearning with every returning and more,

which salons and therapists and groupies and floozies? Faithfully
the world churns out their movies. But they will tell you one day:

(politicians rush to their stations, fried crustaceans say nothing
to deny previous charges, to admit popular knowledge is wrong)

He returns to the marshes, and must do so to spawn.

Little Havana,
my parents call it
Northeast Coral Gables

My landlord is Cuban
and Jewish
Juban—
which means he has two gold chains
one of them is real
the other is re-al

A single-family home
divided into six units
for the thirty-six
of us

No alarm clock
every morning at 8am
it’s ¡quiquiriquí!
even the roosters speak Spanish

Panoramic views
of all the ventanitas
I can order at the window
through my window

Up all night
thinking of a colada
that I didn’t share

Tossing and turning
on the toilet
and that was without milk
a cafe con leche
might kill me

body am an academic. You can tell from my good grammar and proper punctuation. body am an academic who values his name on awards more than who he is deep down. body am an academic that only writes in complete sentences . Because in the 6th grade body was told by my my writing teacher to never start a sentence with the word “because”, because it is BAD and body do not want to be bad, because body am an academic who values material things like metals and certificates that just become bent and crumpled in the corners of my closet that body am really still hiding inside of with all of my stuffed animals having a tiny little tea party just for as, because that is all (was all) that mattered then, but now is now and there is no changing the now, because body am academic and body value success in the normal way that everyone before me did and everyone after me will.

At dinner body asked somebody to pass the salt and pepper because this meal is bland that body have consumed since childbirth. body am academic and body demand interesting flavors of life, in which body will live to the fullest, learning all. But body guess nobody heard me, or they do not want to share their flavor, so body am still eating, or not eating because it is all the same eventually. Yet, body am an academic and body demand for things to be different for me, because body am special, because body do not fit in those boxes and it probably is not worth even applying in the first place, since we know nothing about you, and your GPA is just slightly lower than what is truly remarkable. And still body am here writing this essay that could never possibly represent me, but body try anyway because body am academic and body value success.

Maybe it would be better if body started with a quote, because academics always start with quotes to make them sound smarter and like they know something beyond themselves, but really it just feels like body know more about other “academics” than body do myself, so body don’t really know. Maybe body should tell a personal anecdote of pain and sorrow because body have plenty of those, but no, because body am an academic and body must highlight what body am worth, not what body have overcome, because there is a difference and body would be pretending if body knew what they wanted to say or even if it mattered what they wanted me to say. “BE STRATEGIC” and never misspel for even a second and then your life as an academic is pardon me but body have grown like a weed, down the disposal with the
eggshells and childhood lies.

body am not just an academic, body am an individual first, and body want to help the world. How can I, as an academic, challenge the system from within its gears [rotating endlessly]. To dislodge frameworks of thought but only partially because we still rely on this system to hold us up. body am an academic not a revolutionist! Thus, body must use big boy words and complex sentence structures such as; follow your heart, and there will be no more debacle.

Yes, um body will have the salad please, but only the lettuce. “Only the lettu”. Yes only the lettuce, please let us feel the icebergs shift in changing temperance and the humble crunch of soulless bodies under my yellow teeth. body am an academic, body demand excellence and body do not mean to be harsh. You are not what body am looking for. We regret to inform you that this is not the proper way to write an essay and it doesn’t make any logical sense even for a creator like yourself.

I’m kept my witts down below
In a sewer of this rat race
Christmas Day trapped me in a porno
Staring at myself in a window
Is this year going to slit my throat
My shadow follows three times
The size of me I fell off the gorilla tree
Sometimes I pound my chest
Then I look around no one
He definitely gets
Sometimes I pound my chest
Like King Kong…
…Scharted My First Time

My friends, thoughtlessly, said they
Dined on steak and mashed potatoes,
Not thinking of the bill or retribution

Afterwards, the owner approached
And said, “But what about the check?”
But Jerome reported that he only laughed

And answered, “After all, old man,
You’ve got a nice business here –
And a famished man has got to eat!”

My friends quickly made their exit
And drove off without a care –
They already had their stomachs full

###