Kinetic

you have some sort of 
ill-placed faith
that i will rise again for you


you have some sort of 
viral belief
that the true me's locked within


you have some sort of
aspiration
that i'll make you what you weren't


you have some sort of
misled fiction
playing out that you've not created this


i have some sort of 
painful wish
that you will be proud of your child


i have some sort of 
malnourished dream
of being valued for who i am


i have some sort of
pibroch song
playing for all you warned me against


i have some sort of 
you within me
keeping me trapped in "potential."


when all i want is kinetic...

within

small eyes, fragile limbs
bright smile, curls of burnished gold
skin like snowy china
twirling, radiant happiness
black and white world of color
she makes it
silence that sings like a child
to me across time
the mother who has always been there
dancing, singing, smiling 
within

Justice

tarot cards come out

and the leaves sink slowly

in the blood stained water

a scent of ethereal potential mists through

imploring divinations i sat 

as i felt the cold metal

wrap seeming tighter

the inscription a brand full of doubt

all the books in my bookcase

and my glasses on the table

all the machines around me

and not a candle in the house

the king of swords, the fool,

the ten of wands, and Ruin

and floating the hanged man

never have i longed so for death

all the books in my bookcase

and my glasses on the night stand

all the laptops, televisions, the phones

and not a piece of chalk or bone

it all depends on him, she said

with hazy eyes and foggy voice

and i lost hope because you are

the reason i came to her

late nights at work

streaked with inception of questions

darker than the liquor in the cup,

leaves screaming broken rings and lies

all my studies kept me from the truth

and without the glasses, your honest face

all the distractions you use to escape

and it took a sideshow stranger

to show me the proof i held

princess of pentacles ill-dignified,

i paid her with the ring

Missing

I'm sitting here wondering where the time went. Not recent time but holy time; the type of time that you sit up and take notice of as you experience it.  The type of time that you know you'll regret inevitably saying good-bye to and the type of time that no other time can seem to match.  It's the time filled with friends, new relationships, confidantes, realities you had never glimpsed before now laid out before you, shiny, new and promising.  It's the time of drama, theatricality, the rush of blood to the cheeks for countless reasons.  It's the time of loss and gain, of realization and grudging setting aside.  It's the time of falling in love because you knew you could fall and be caught by something other than vanity or pride.  It's the time of kisses, breath, confessionals and sins repented and revisited.


I'm sitting here wondering where that time is now. The current is rushing past me but I am static, working hard to remember enough to will that time to rise again, to hold me, caress my skin, look deep into my eyes and reassure me it's still there, always will be, beside and together and one with me. 


I'm sitting here in absentia, and that time is moving on without me, carving wakes in the waters of my hope, a horizon beyond mocking me and my longing for a time I had you with me, making moments of our own.


Besos,
Inicia

Dissent

A study in the paths
That have brought me up to now:
Sign posts of funerary use;
Of mourning for what was


Solitary exposition
Writings in the sands
Memory of fading "maybes"
Smoking up the mirrors


The tale to tell is one of "soon"
Of "later", "once", "eventual"--
The lee of all my hopes diverged
The yellowed dear investments


My step falls light on heavy times
No longer wishing to move forward
All the journey by your guidebook
And here I stand: I've failed


Creeping on this weathered page
My story of doing as told
I turn to see a precipice
And dare to think descent


From all the well-trod, failing paths
From all the misspent currency
Of youth never repaid with interest
Potential was waste realized


If I am writer, sage and author
Of my own details,
Let it be said I deviated
To savor every page


That you could never read.

Ghosts

Tranquil memory floats, writhes
Exhales a name lost
Sinful songs a mere aside
Echoes of the meaning linger
And sharp are the bruises
Of ghosts in the soul.

Vox Populi

silken it moves through my thoughts
a gentle assault on Stoic logic
vibrant and strong in the shadows
out of sight in the mind of my eye
creeping in shadows of acceptance
visions of cadence engulf me
cascades decrying my soul
plays my innermost sensual selfishness
on the whisper of all that i could-should have been
and the passion of what if infects me once more
as the promise of withering normal cedes
in the twilight of loss i am found again
uncovered in all disarray
dashed upon the jagged rocks of dead dreams
bruised by the youth as it bleeds from me fast
swollen with ideas damned in infancy
unbelievably crushed by opportunities' absence
worked to starving by education that taught me too well
tricked to wander 9 to 5 already-ever worn
exhausted by hoping for freedom, raison d'etre
yet this sound echoes loud in the still
and i focus the rising of my shallow breath
determined to finally sing loud, to sing me
a swirl of what i am in spite of this
near-pornographic hypocrisy and pretense,
waxing again my restless, ripened thoughts
as my lips part in finality of all yet realized
the history of my world in a voice
my raw impassioned cry of betrayal:

choking silence.

Langston, Walt, I, too, sing America
And the song is the substance of itself.

fortresses

fortresses are meant for protection:
my own affords me none.
a fine architect, as fine a citizen,
cloistered in the rooms of memory
i sulk and wait for day
to repeat the walling up
of all unseemly truths
i wish to keep to myself,
but the eyes will see the brick, the mortar.
secrets do not need to be known,
clenched tightly to your soul
beneath the flesh of stone you've housed them in,
to be revealed.
their keeping is their undoing
and our own.

morning

green stretches over
warm and soft
to hold me, secured
the moss vivid
slowly caresses away
the fantasy of night
steel eyes somehow warmer
in their ice and distance
they, however, saw
what the mossy green of yours
conceals
but i gave all to them, his.
good night, love.
good morning again.

delicate

small and untaught
sprite in haze of childhood
an innocent spirit dances
in the soul

naivete glistens
in eyes without the jade
of a hundred disillusioned days
of abandonment

promises arriving
slow, agonizingly slow,
just before the hopeless lives
the ever hopeful

night is dreaming
quiet self-awareness of the maya
and you whatever you wish
is satisfaction

burn the candle bright
dance long and forever feel
think with the mind of innocence
delicate one

steel yourself