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Spew
the world is spinning too fast
i get motion sick too easy
seeking something solid
i grabbed your hips bones
hoping to anchor myself
eventually they started shifting
then they moved to china
rolling and thrusting
bucking and chucking
i was tossed off,
i ran to the toilet to spew
i missed
you
^TOP^
Branches
you suggested that we could
put you on the soles of our feet
and walk where we know peace to be.
or else just let you hang from a branch
leave you for the birds to pick at, for the wind and rain to wash away
erase any trace of your body
it was chosen that you get burned up
returned to this earth as ash and dust
Now I can cup you in my weeping hands
all powdery bones and iron will
the sum of you doesn't equal much
you used to appear largely at random
but since you became this small,
you are everywhere, showing up as everything, anything
shapeshifting with ease from a mountain to a tree
a gull drifting in the starboard breeze
since the day breath ceased
silence started talking
she sounds a whole lot like you
pages and pages of truth
maybe I just wasn't listening closely before.
maybe my door was closed to the thought of you
becoming only thought.
is it too late to say that
i think of you a lot.
i think of you a lot.
^TOP^
Sway
I watched a storm pile up and blow in off the sea
It bent and twisted even the strongest trees
Love is meant to be a bit this way
Sometimes bend, sometimes break
But baby all it’s meant to do this time is
Sway
We’re only meant to sway
Please just sway with me
Stay
Cuz oh my, my
Oh girl my, my
You’re an endless, endless sky
Oh girl my, my
I saw two birds chasing one moth today
And it ducked and dove then got away
Fear can set us running this way
Pushing through and bolting past
Everything we thought was meant to last
And this is meant to last.
We built this thing to last
You are my first
Won’t you last
Cuz Oh my, my
Oh girl my, my
You’re an endless, endless sky
Oh girl my, my
^TOP^
One Of You
One of you is planting trees
Looking up from bludgeoned land towards distant forests
Reaching into the satchel and delivering one more tree back to its blood source
One of you is cycling to work across the sleeping city
A day of fixing cars and misogynist attitudes and tires and tired stereotypes
To change oil and impressions of what women are.
One of you is 84 years old and laughs with 3000 watt eyes
Tells me that even at 84 years old
A woman still knows desire.
One of you is a poet
Pronounces and announces and denounces with potency and articulate fury
I watch as your words turn on the shut down, inspire the deflated and plaster the cracked.
One of you is a painter
Transforming thoughts into images onto canvas, onto walls, into eyes
And back to thoughts that will form the fabric of the next books because
One of you is a storyteller that has seen these paintings
And now takes us to the marrow of words
Makes us part of the ink that was buried in the pen, found its way to paper and now
Tap tap taps on our ears.
One of you is a dancer that puts words and laughter on your limbs
As simply and exact
As dew puts itself on early morning earth
One of you is a midwife that stands beside birth and sometimes death
Walks us through pain and delivers hope
And mediates new beginnings
One of you is living off the land
Growing things I don’t know how to pronounce
Building hay bale houses, rising and setting with birdsong
Charming gardener snakes and me with your playful, peaceful grin.
One of you is an activist
Built from the feet to the skull of convictions
Driven by a definition of justice and equality
There you stand on the front lines
Absolute in your hope for change.
One of you is a lover
Intense and tense and willing and wondering and wanting
Able to push as hard as you can pull, pulling for truth and honesty
Settling for nothing less
I’d rather run a marathon on a pogo stick
I would rather become a republican
I would rather lose the spell of music
Than lose one tile of you
That create the mosaic that is my life.
^TOP^
Tisk Tisk
The thing that scares me most about me is me.
I've come from a long lineage of shame
No matter how I slice it, or if I dice it in squares
The truth still remains the same.
Different shapes all with the same bitter taste
The taste of me doubting myself
The taste of want about to burst
Like untold truth in my mouth.
The thing that turns me on most about you is you.
I've fallen right in the mood for grinning.
You inhale truth like a storm swallows the sky.
Then toss back laugher till the bottle is dry
Oh my lord, god damn and a sigh...what a party
And there's no way to tell what we might do
if they left us alone in a room unencumbered
If danger didn't show up and spoil the mood.
If chaos weren’t such a spiteful ruler.
You know we could be trouble, you and I
we could set the whole town talking
we could be the
tisk
tisk
tisk
on the tip the tongues that surround us.
We could be a lot of things but
The thing I fear most about us, is us never knowing
How we might click, low and tight around the hips
How we might linger and smile the kind of smile
That leaves no room for not knowing
^TOP^
Unlearn
All life requires is a desire to live it
then she will show you the time of your life
All I require is the notion that I’m worth it
and my heart opens up like a springtime bud
When my heart is open, even grime is beauty
art is visible in everything
Creation the teacher and hope the pupil,
my eyes are open to a history
That lies far beneath the foundations on queen street
and was born before coins were exchanged.
It dates back to a time before dates were imposed
Before commerce dictated thing.
Back to a time when the seasons were rulers,
there were no kings or queens.
Back through the archives of semblance and order,
back to the nature of things.
Back to the garden where growing and dying
is just part of a cycle and we were aware
That the sun, the sand, the sky, the sea,
is just part and parcel of our purpose here.
Take only what we need and contribute all we can.
Realize we are just temporary.
Like the sun rises and sets, the tide comes and goes,
we learn then are trained to forget.
That we’re not removed from all of this movement,
in fact we are a part of the earth
and the further we build away from the dirt,
the more we have to unlearn.
^TOP^
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