Thor's Day in the batey (for Francisco)

i watched you work
in dark skin
under a warmer sun

they may never hear
your voice brother
in those frosty veins

so many days passed
in short breaths
back facing south winds

but i swear,

i saw your heart
in your eyes
under hurried good byes

los robles (the oaks) casting shadows
on the hillside
as a watch man

you waved to me
with calloused hands
i cannot forget it

the cane burning fast
like the moment
when we heard Him

speaking with us.


(This poem has incredible personal significance and meaning to me.  I spent the last 8 days with friends in the southwest region of the Dominican Republic. If you have never been to or heard of a batey (Creole for 'village') you may not quite understand it. I encourage you to make an attempt to know. The only way to live is to grow.)

My Pillow Pulls My Hair

My pillow pulls my hair.
“I have to go to work.”
As soon as I say it, he firms up his grip.

He knows what’s waiting for me.
“Room for cream."
“Double cup it.”
“A large with skim milk and non-fat whip.”
He’s trying to protect me.

Big and fat and white.
He could be running the company.

Why does he have to remind me
That I have two college degrees?
“I know that. Don’t you think I know that?”
Don’t tell me that I could do better.
“I know that.”

So why don’t I?
Because I make decent money?
Because we're moving soon anyway?
Because I’m focusing on other things in life right now?
Getting my legs under this new marriage.
Figuring out what I really want to do.
Finding my narrative voice.

With daily interruptions by my Sugar Daddy
Who hurts me.
Weakens me.
Keeps me living in fear.
Keeps me hating my life
For 40 hours every week.

My heart sinks into my mattress.
I guess I’ll just have to go to work without it.
And without my hair, too.
I pull hard to get away.
He takes a little more every time,
It’s starting to show.

“Sorry dear.” My alarm woke her up.
It’s 2:35am.
Assholes need coffee.

5 Winter Haiku

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Winter forces us

Into holes, blankets wrapt ‘round

Translucent snow skin

Hope fires the sky red

The sun mocks us like friends with

Postcards from the beach

You said it was too

Cold to lick the metal pole

I gueth you were righth

If you turn the heat

All the way up we can shrug

Off heat bills till spring

Peeing your name is

Easy... You know what’s hard? Yep.

…near impossible…

work

this place is dark
and i have to leave early
to arrive early

to stay late

Johns aren't Joes

In the mirror you're one of a kind

An ace of spades

Silence the deck when it whispers

Speaking in tongues

Inquire first with the joker

You are a bouquet

But you see a flower

And so the gardener plucks

The wolf's season is over

Hold his breath a little longer

Just another wolf

Just another meal

Mouths remain red

At a table set for a TV dinner

This is breathing, second nature

So many before

Too many after

RIP dreams

Guilty eyes

RIP heart

Never see you

RIP beauty

It's the mundane that drove

And let us out

to view dreams, heart, beauty

love isn't found with torn seems

or dangling from teeth like a cigarette

american dream

american spirit

american nightmare

The wolf's season is over

Hold his breath a little longer

Hold it for him, and it will all be over

We’ll meet in the sunset

And flee to the sunrise

f#m

The shape of these four fingers
takes me there, to the beach house
by the sand and green waters.

Cool cement floors under bare foot
sweat and questions
a piano untuned by the hearth.

This shape has been
many other moments, but
this is the one that rises up

Like green weeds covering
the still waters of Lake Winona.

Kenny.

Kenny kept his emotions all bottled up.