WRITTEN WORK

Taraxacum (2021)

Taraxacum

stem and stem

unbeknown to my lurking eyes.

Taraxacum bring me better

stroll

kneel

and run

far twoards the pond where you show.

Taraxacum won't be funny when I leave home

brother knows I forget my way back.

But I'll find peace in the cracks

of the sidewalk in the summer

where taraxacum once would grow.

Stroll

Kneel

Run.

Contained/Not Contained (2021)

Eventually,

with time,

I’ll run out of space

at the center of me.

Eventually,

it’ll all have to go

rather than eat itself alive.

Eventually,

I’ll let loose 

of all my iterations

and pet thoughts.

If you hold your breath

you can hear it-

a quite roar from within.

Heat blasting,

organs singing,

blood boiling and popping

under this veil of skin.

The day I see it through

I’ll crawl on all fours like man was made to do.

Finally, I’m a dancer. 

My body will move

before I know where I’m heading,

and I’ll lay my head in the grass

and thank the earth for all I know.

Bring me a stem (2021)

Bring me a stem,

and in the dirt I'll write my name

with my fingers

I can dig

a shallow hole for my thoughts 

to keep them safe and out of reach.

And for a second I will pray

for the flow of each sound

to capture us running

with no end.

Reach (2021)

On a good day now

the plant is taller than I.

And the rotten tomatoes,

those eye soars,

make no place in the fridge inside.

But the dead ones were uprooted

on a sunday, of all days.

Now, just scattered on concrete,

droughted mulch dots the stoop

with no life to cling to any longer.

So if I put a new plant

in the hole left behind,

would it grow to see me leave

and return?

Would it know nothing but a slow climb to the sun?

Like me

never quite reaching.

Chrysanthemum! (2021)

Oh chrysanthemum,

sweetness!

Chrysanthemum

has my belly full

and fingers sticky.

Leaving me wanting more

with it all dissolved at the bottom of my cup.

More

steaming on my tired face.

More

swirling around,

a vortex that brings me home.

Then,

eyes shut 

pressed closely

into the warm spot of my elbow.

I can feel it-

life!

Pumping through my veins

against my eyelids.

More

I can feel more under my skin

and more with my eyes

than ever before.

Chrysanthemum!

Where did you go and hide.

Dissolved, again

like you did in my cup.

Flipping My Way (2021)

I am big enough now

to consume the noises I couldn't before.

I am tall enough now

to look over the things I made before.

I am strong enough now

to dance in the grass,

barefoot and reckless.

I am loud enough now

to scream and to sing

in that voice of mine

that sparks

as does it die.

I Can Have Fun (2021)

I don't write in earnest.

I hide behind obscurities

that I make of myself,

the ones in which I shrug behind

and toy with

like a scientist with too many ideas.

If I could speak

I'm afraid it'd be dribble.

If I could walk

I'm afriad it'd just end in a crawl.

So at night

I tune in-

to the earth and to my organs,

and I make peace

in the only skin I'll ever have.

I channel the obscurities

into the noise in my mind,

the quite white hum

that I breathe in and eventually out.

But I can have fun

when no one is talking.

No one is talking.

I can have fun

when no one is listening.

No one is listening.

I can have fun

when I'm screaming

when I'm grinding

when I'm fighting.

River Tower (2021)

I can build little towers in the rain

and in the heat,

when my hands smell of dirt

and I'm in water ankle deep.

I like to build them up high

and protect them from crashing down.

My towers are me-

stacked percariously 'till they're drowned.

I can skip a rock

or two,

as long as the sun keeps beaming.

I can throw them up high

and watch them drop easy.

I'll memorize the beat

they make when they land,

and keep it in my phone

where I can play it for a friend off hand.