'so...you're staying another year'

Up and down
Slowly
Up and down
Her lungs heave
Like a wave her olive skin ripples
That peeling, soft, transparent cage
That's treated her so well with age
It would seem she was forgotten
In the quiet of the dark
In the company of the TV
Voices buzzing in the air
As if skin and bones were there
When only skin and bone-clad spirit
Is upstairs in the leather chair

Look in the doorway, Grandma
There hovers my ghost
She doesn't say a word
She doesn't speak with those
She speaks a language spoken with
Her head, her hands, her toes
She'll crawl up on your mossy bed
It won't matter who's alive or dead
She loves you, that spirit
I love you, I said!

And I hope you grow more alive with age
As you die to yourself
As you abandon the world
As your skin turns eternal
And your spirit meets mine
And you're never alone
For the Holy Fire
Burns
In your dark

(sub)urban panic

A city life in a small town street
Too fast a rythm for a steady beat
That looks inside windows
And sees behind doors
And gossips as the cobblestones
Brush whispers 'cross the floors

It feels a bit like biting
It feels a bit insane
The cities are for hiding
But here they know my name
And they speak it with their foreign sounds
And they chase me like a pack of hounds

crawl back

I feel like crawling back into her womb
Where I was wrapped in dark unconsciousness
Where I was only my Maker's

But I only know how to leave my homes
Except my skin and its aging restlessness
Until He calls me back

I'm a hider
I need shelter
I need covering
Cocoon

Wrap me gently
Resurrect me
From my dark
And lonely tomb

almost a mother

And every day my skin is dry, I am lost by touch under roaming skies

When in she walks still sleeping, cookie crumbs upon her face

Pillow lines from her car dreams slowly vanish from their place

And at that moment my arms become a strong and welcoming nest

She cuddles in like a soft black cat, she surrenders to the rest

I’ll hold her there through all the storms until my skin stops peeling

Til both our needs are satisfied and time has done its healing

And when the clouds part how the sun pours in!

It pierces the windows of our hearts

And my precious little bird awakes, ready for her day to start

I kiss her dimples, kiss her head, a halo for the waking dead

And all her laughter is a song

And all the right now covers wrong

I almost feel a mother now

These little hands around my neck

This is the way God kisses me

I can’t forget, I can’t forget.

colors

I am black
Paint me red
Tattoo my body with the colors of the dead
The one I took with my first breath
The mother I followed and the mother I left
Body in the sand
Spirit in God's hand
And I am too black too black for this new land

I have only one father
But he might as well be you
He might as well be green
He might as well be blue
For the color of my mind
As I contrast all my worlds
Looking for passion
As I bury lie on lie hoping that it will be the last one

And when I love
I love
But I've never loved like this
I would empty my veins of all their blood
That blood--it's red like yours
Your sanguine lava rushing on my shores
And that blood makes me white as snow
White like a polar bear
White like my history of fear