boston marathon haiku #3 (18/30)

the pressure cookers
gone from shelves;'food not bombs' sounds
harsh at fear's table

new gun god haiku (17/30)

tell Jesus to leave;
our love to kill, a new hymn
sung in mothers' wails

kaleidoscope krylon voices (16/30)

there is the search
to love you past adjectives
at bent angles in pauses pregnant
that we fight
from coming to full term
with small talk and coffee.
a need that lives
to see the morning
you stop using social glyphs
to hide what you want to say to me
and the hurt
you still cradle
gifted by past lovers.
we get up
like tags on walls
kaleidoscope krylon voices
but never put our feelings
for one another on display
waiting for walls bigger
than unspoken fears.

boston marathon haiku #2 (15/30)

Hollywood execs
tune into shots of Cambridge;
no brown villains here

boston marathon haiku #1 (14/30)

this city was birthed
by bombs and grit;heart wills flesh
to run past madness

music break: James Blake

it's been a while since we had a music break, so here's a new tune
by James Blake that i happen to dig a lot. enjoy!

tangled iron garden (13/30)

arthritis forms
as shackles around ankles
spotted with years,
and her muslin coat
matches the arms of the Hudson
two blocks ahead.

her hair is now daylight's cotton
framing a face once besotted with smiles
this is how one walks
when goodbye is the final word,
but she still comes here
amidst car horns and traffic.

this place,
this tangled iron garden
that resembles what time has made
of her heart
is where she goes for peace
and a lunch with the sun.

she sits among gladiolas
lets gold seep into the lines her skin bears
stretches her arms, palms outward
and with a laugh
lets time she's lost come back to take rust
away from her in this tangled iron garden.

before the illusion of drowning (12/30)

don't be amazed
if those who fear drowning
at the water's edge
before wading in
claw at your shoulders,

put their unfinished stone carvings
of golems and haunts
in your pockets
and try to trade eyes streaked with fear
like schoolyard marbles with you,

those moments
before the illusion of drowning
you find out that you can swim with weight
and that others
slip down bottom with no depth.

cold stones in passing. (11/30)

you
have left me cold stones
still laden
with two in the morning tears,
asking me to dine with you
without noting
my mind's teeth are still sore
from the kick unseen.

this silence
must be the last days
a pair of broken shears
meant to cut away your misery must feel,
the reluctant crackle
one finds in campfires
and corner store cigarettes
that sudden snap between us.

bittersweet
is the merlot of minutes
made of seedless grapes
and stolen kisses,
yet nothing else
will help me deliver these stones
i only hope old happiness renewed
becomes the aftertaste.

haiku 3.3.13 (10/30)

like a store ribbon
tied to flesh, her love always
meant carefree bondage

crumbled conversation from off the Grand Concourse (9/30)

next time a poverty pimp says
'power to the people!',
ask them how much their light bill is.
inquire if
they've ever had to walk 2 miles
to a supermarket,
or play other hunger games like
'do i eat or do my children eat?'
when one of them says
'power to the people!'
ask them about computers
being sent overseas
but very few found in schools
once you get past Whitlock Avenue.
ask them why
they cut their check
on the broken bones
and broken bonds of your blocks,
covering your eyes with slogans
so you can't see those poor souls
who truly are there to help.
when a poverty pimp
who cares more about their tab
and how fly they look protesting
in designer jeans tells you,
'power to the people'...

ask them, 'what's your motivation for taking it?'

ruined palaces of the heart (8/30)

there are those
bearing within them
palaces of the mind
besotted with grit and disrepair
walls rubbed raw
shrinking back
because the afternoon sunlight of others
can be cruel
as it is kind

they run memories
on injured projection screens
but fear melts them
like flames and celluloid
so all that is left is a maddening whirr
that translates into ordinary pain
that makes everyone villains
who look to enter their spirit
and find a seat to stay

the price of admission
is knowing how to collect their broken windowpanes
and piece them together
it is letting your words and deeds
add lasting coats to cover the bruises
of their pageantry soiled by those who left
the price of admission
to these ruined palaces of the heart someone owns
is of course, love.

haiku 4.5.13 (7/30)

for safe happy hours
maybe Ray Kelly should just
stop and frisk his son

dusk and cinnamon (6/30)

*for sagal*

i marvel
at how well midnight cirrus
serves to help me never to forget
how your curls greeted my face
when our hearts traded space,

your hands must still
be sweet gingersnaps that clutch
as a sparrow would lap at fresh water
shy but steady
their imprint still colors mine...

i'm certain that the corners
where your smile rises and sets
contain calls to prayer
alongside lilac scented melodies
your voice hides in those silken brown pockets,

dusk and cinnamon
is how nighttime and my mind paint you.

tanka 4.4.13 (5/30)

my father's own fears
nurse my hands with cold tumblers
and cognac's swift bite;

the pain in my jaw draws lights
to chase them down blank pages

haiku 4.3.13 (4/30)

i left sunset there
last time we kissed; we walk off
like hurt gunslingers

your Sunday love (3/30)

if you're lucky
your Sunday love
might float beside you

she might take her coffee
as they do in Barranquilla
or off Wyckoff

your Sunday love
may weep at celluloid tapestries
of struggles you both bear in your skin

or she may be inclined
to hear more about past years
you've kept in a shoebox with old rap tapes

see, your Sunday love
needs to cut a blazing arrow across the sky
so you can find fire in the color of blue

so that when you take her hand
of simmered nutmeg and agave syrup
you can show her with your eyes

how much she makes the other days not matter
once she smiles

haiku for a crime scene off guy brewer blvd. (2/30)

painful city nights
give way to dawn;not before
their neon screams fade

wastebasket requiem (1/30)

barrel chested
iron spirit wrought by force
born of both blunt trauma and subtle crimping.
sitting at corners
where thoughts, dreams and nightmares
blend like rainwater, piss and used barley
watching others swim by.
and i?
i find neglect by others
those who speak with me in gold
but lay their leaden burdens with me
like so much trash
claiming love for my strength
while despising the fact
there is no more room for their dirt
left among ruined pores.
and as the sky shifts
i think of souls becoming wastebaskets
by force and by choice.

no one litters without a reason
and i am burning all trash and their owners