5 Poems

Angels

If you were going to read a poem

What would you want it to be?

Calm like a ray of light

An epic of destiny?

There is a light that glides

Across a wooden floor

A cosmic messenger

Translating stars

Through dust

Astronauts know

A new age has begun

It doesn’t move, this light, but for the world

Spinning slowly

At my feet

A new age has begun

Though

There is darkness still in the wood

Its curves are like ribs

Curled into knots

Flat

Time was it was a tree

A nipple, a leaf

If you were going to live a life

What would you want it to be?

A passage through your time

A shifting of the sea?

Into the night it glides

The shuttle soars

A cosmic messenger

Rocketing us

Among the stars

The explosion will ring out for years

Angels in the sunlight, outside my window play

Their world has been turning

All this time

Declaration

The motion of my child

The breathing of time

Light at angles comes

Over her shoulder

There is a penetrating glance

Her eyes can see

Years ahead she can’t define

But for a shape in darkness

Curve the hourglass, infinity

Curve the horizon

Mountains, glazing sky

Opening a new direction

This motion of her breathing

Is the motion of the sea

The turning of her glance

Is the focusing of a lens

She says her soul is a waterfall

She says it’s time that we take it all

So the drumline comes

Higher

The mind of my child

Is no one’s property

Her eyes

Will see

If you are nailed by her glance

You were some kind of demon

But no more

You are now awakened

Knives of grass, of the sun

Swords of light, with angels come

Her world has been turning

All this time

The Window

There is a glass wall in my prison

Through which the sunlight comes

Red and blonde

Blushing sky

Do anything you will to me

Torture me

Dehumanize

And I will have but one reply

Thank you for the window

I don’t speak to my captors

They are not alive

They have no ears

They have no eyes

I speak only to the sky

I see only this window

Though my body is encaged

My love a parting dream

And the world a child’s toy

I fly

With the bauble of the sun my soul will rise

Reaching In

I open my eyes and it is like the sun

This hand

Fingers rays

Reaching in like there’s a hole in my chest

Light passes right through me

Or how do you explain my shadow?

We usually cannot see

The entirety of the line

Circles, we see blades of grass

This hand

Fingers rays

Touching upon my heart

Or how do you explain this warming?

There are things between

The two sides of a line

Infinity, we see blades of grass

I open my eyes and you are like the one

This girl

Eyeballs blaze

Coming in she burns a hole in the east

Her coat is open clouds

Or how do you explain the color?

We are so often blinded by

Things too large to understand

Idolatry, we’re just blades of grass

This girl

Eyeballs blaze

Threading right back to the start

Across the sky she comes

This hand

Right through the veil she comes

Reaching into me

I watch, then blink

Waking with the sun

Promises

A covenant made between the seed and tree

Is a bridge that links

Activists and change

Godfathers and today

Baton and knee

Blood and stone

Youth and recklessness

Innocent to innocent

Toes and knee

Thigh and eye

Imagination and fortune

A vow kissed by the day

Never fades

We can walk like men on earth

Plow fields, give birth

Live in peace, cosmonauts

Love in peace, astronauts

Leaves bent, resilient

Bark strong, on a long limb

Give heifers to indigenous

People

The promise made by the leaf to the bird

Is a bridge

It carries the pain of distance

The confusion of home

Distraction of dreams

Abstraction

Of the palpable

Thick blood

The promise made by the wing to the day

Is that we are here

Silhouetted in the light

It’s the word given by the preacher

To the lie

The politician to the grave

Scientist to anarchist

Child to policeman

Blood and stone

Innocent and innocent

Toes and knee

Thigh and eye

Bruised soul

A vow kissed by the day

Never fades

And we are here

So like the seed to the heavens

We are made and so will rise