soluble I want to
fizz, bubble, spin
no longer my disc golden be
mass more sea than no
tide fighting instead rotating
air bubbles seeping tumbling
ceilings to I am like rising
rising electric guitar atmospherics Petit Sekou
to and my rise spindle until my belly
face up to sun disk, like offering, I tide
tide salient dissolve to sky
whole god I reflect I cry
golden sunset on this
no more man than
sea no one see
my weight
in tears my primordials
birthed in me, that lover
caged me
After RB
Every part of this glorious city
were brooding monuments
rusted over with scathing eyes,
gargoyles chop-licking in
view of my flesh, collapsing
then folding down on me, every block
felt like a razor slit, the heat like a ton pressing
down on top of me, how every beautiful thing:
its faces, its new lips and charming smiles
thoughts about divulging in them
a betrayal, these porticoes and columns,
These brilliant corners web of hand, hill of palm,
Almond of eye, round of nose, dug into me, even
its awesome sunset over Templo Debod
was a pool of agony and now, a wine glass
of radical honesty to flush out the sty
of ego and I’ve taken back me,
Now this city is a vibrant flower
In bloom, a new day after a good rest,
The caress of someone new on my jawline,
It’s a sweet hello, the soft kiss of spring fulfilling its
life waking up around
you is a glorious gift.
A cherry red balloon
to celebrate an end
big and bulbous a window of light
curves around the belly; the golden-oak
luminescence of whiskey
of it the joy in this period
grief insatiable, its neck-
mouth are mine
it juices smoky brown sugar;
tonight, I will reminisce like Icarus
into a bed
of goose down
Stuck in the middle of this perfect
Case with many faces, I hold the light,
I manipulate it to my pleasure, my body
How it glistens and gleams and sparkles
How it lifts the room, a person’s mood,
A person’s confidence, I have become the
Perfect accessory, how they drape me
Over their wrists, I became a fixture
for marriage bonds in a religion
that was forced on me, they found me
In the earth, said to have given me life
Said I had no language no birth rite
They desire and worship my body
Some appropriate my look,
They touch me whenever they get the chance
I don’t desire to be objectified, lightened my skin,
tried to conceal my curves or accentuate
them more to fulfill a fantasy mysterious
imbedded in fear and fetish, they put down
money and like to call me “sold”
I was good, I was raw, I was uncut,
Until they uprooted my whole existence
In value of net-worth, by my color
My weight, my luster, my shine, sold
To the highest bidder, they like to call me
“asset” the way I dance
And entertain at a ball, the way I turn a
Neck into a dancehall, made to shuck-n-jive
For some blue-eyes. Said life would be better,
Cut down to meet the “civilized” expectations,
A thing to be conquered, a frontier, a continent
To be called, “mine” from a people
who had nothing but the color
Of their skin.
Came from that tree was lightning struck
Split right down the middle into two &
After years of trying to find answers in the sky
a father’s mouth can be a beautiful vista that looks
Out over the pacific, it can also be a crater, the release of
those explosions from his magma chamber in defense
It will drive you to bitterness and even to the point of hate,
Hate for self, bared from seeing self-worth due to the fallout.
And a mother’s hands can be honey and dusk-light, they can also be
A labyrinth of thorns and emotional pitfalls that will keep you
Spinning for years not knowing if you can fully be you.
A family is defined by its cycles:
What’s kept, what’s discarded, and how it healed
(or hasn’t).
After Nujabes
You flowerI held you in this vase of house-finch eggs
I started to build around you splinter, blood, silence, wasn’t enough
You rainbow mausoleum now, down with sledge
hammer the marble that was set, pools of
rain water record the work of dismantling
memories I’ve only began breaking surface;
you phoned and it was all
too raw; You river my eternal
reflective, the prism of a stream slow
sap echoing through space
A light is lit
On old cobblestone street, the gas
Shushes, I stand there, the amber of,
I am drawn, I am unraveled, loafer heels sucks it’s teeth—
“that’s not real flame,
its only your thoughts, and that feeling
from the glow is bullshit, and don’t be unraveled or
drawn to something that can burn you,
what you should do is replace your fire with hers,
Yours isn’t as important”—alone again, amberish-red
Flame flickers as my heart murmurs an irregular bap,
A strange bip, I climb the body of
the street lamp like an arachnid feverish,
I press my forehead to the hot glass, rolling
side to side.
Mother’s Day mug takes up
so much space liquid takes on
the shape its container not by
son’s choice, the husbandry of
unhealed trauma, how he judges
his own life
Rainy night drizzle
empty sidewalk, wet
fully bloomed pink poui tree, cups of
pink flowers at the ends of branch fingers
street light it’s side makes few flowers orange-pink
shy a yard away—the lamp and this trunk a concert of
branches coiling slow, tungsten wavelengths
sparkles the black army-green scales of
this long-tail boa of anxiety pops out a new cup, a tremble
and churn she; a brief moment, when
breath becomes silence, heart stills, in the dark
between branch and flower, a shot of yellow
eye pauses
Will he? Will he only want me for?
His past? He lashed out at me, is he lighting-gas?
Before, he; will he again? But what if?
The choke of IF.
After Bobby Caldwell
The empty train of it
And the bare and clean of it
The silence of it
The short rides of it
Every lover was a country
a city, a town,
now
hollow I can see, every car to a dot
The eternal journey of it &
the many unavailables
Through the windows the palette this earth offers
You can only see out, but a faint reflection of self
What you won’t do for it…
You turn and a presence, who looks identical
a faint smirk and wave no one else on the train
That cold ice spider climbs up the rungs of
Every vertebrate on your spine, first reaction—run
But you sit there as he slowly approaches you
…but stop
Charles Snyder 