WISDOM TOOTH GROWING, OR AGAINST THE NATURE OF EMPIRES

I find it unnatural, cruel even,

that the tooth must break

the gum to crown,

as if for the sake of glory

something must bleed,

must break.

Little white soldier

in that troop of the mouth;

enameled ruin

of the little red plain,

you appear with your trademark

ache from that horizon of the body

where the rot of the empire throbs

in collision with light.

Your bayonet breaks

through defenseless flesh;

your empire crests

like a wave.

And in that critical edge, slowly,

you grow

into your "wisdom".

The tongue, like a pope, must continue

its work of diplomacy

oscillating between teeth and gum

though the damage is as linear as a blade

of grass that breaks the earth for light.

The ruin of the soil is collateral

in the plants’ policy of living.

In every place I have found beauty,

I have found, also,

something in search of glory,

shedding its compassion like a coat—

like Congo, its cobalt mines tainted

with the empire's capital curse;

like the Middle Eastern lands

with their oil wells raped into blood.

I am looking away from nature,

its sacrilege of blood on ice,

from that essence of man

which concerns itself with conquest,

towards heaven where,

at least, my pain is mine.

To inherit heaven, I killed no man,

I cheated no brother of mine;

I forfeited, instead, my living

for a life of ink and paper;

lived as a poem in defiance

of ruin. In the time of genocide,

I existed as a petition for peace.

CRISIS

As a child, small and sick

and sad and quiet, my mother

doted over me in fear—

Achilles dipped into nothing

but the crook of his mother's arms;

child of promise, held to breast

even as my father, one midnight,

stormed out of the house in anger

at my mother who wouldn't

put me down to bed, the night bleeding

long into a sorry song of vengeance.

God knew already

that I wouldn't die as a child.

In my little loaded heart, I did too.

But who wouldn't want

a story like mine? To be

the bone of contention lodged

in the fleshy meat of marriage.

I mean, don't you dream

of something greater than love—

an apothecary potent in its delight;

walking into a room and seeing

someone storm out, leaf-eyed

and green with envy? O body,

battered and dying, I say nothing 

about that animal called regret.

But it's been years

since the child in you was held.

Faithful in your cruel work, you tally

the absence like clockwork.

How could I not look at you,

how my father, that night, must have,

before the storm that gathered

and broke, to see all the love

that should have been mine

held hostage in a sickle cell?

The truth is not far from the wound.

The only times I have been poured

a decent measure of love

has been with my body folded over

in crisis.

SOMEDAY, MOON, LIKE YOU, I, TOO,

will steal the sun's glow and shine—

gold on melanin like a saint's halo.

But tonight, let's pretend neither

of us is here. It's a moonless night;

a blatant eclipse, though the world

is oblivious as always. Like us,

two rebel-lovers are hiding

in the earth’s shadow like moles.

There is a story about lovers and

tunnels. I forget now how it goes.

All I know are stories of loss.

Like now, whispering: Do not stray

in this dark, Light. Still-warm lamp,

hold me close to you in wanting.

The truth is: I want your bright

face close to mine as a reminder

that soon, two callused hands will bend,

and fill me up with goodness, and

I, too, will glow so brightly in the dark.

Someday, moon, I too will demand

what you demand of the tides;

of the poets. A man will say beautiful,

and then I will come into the light.

BRIGHT RED WORLD

My father says he has no son

who would run from a fight,

no bastard here without,

at least, my iron heart in him.

He doesn't know me. Born

with no wrist bone, my punches

are as useless as chunks

of meat ramming hard 

against the charcuterie's knife.

In my stubbornness,

I have hurt the bright red world

inside of me, more than I

have hurt the world. My fingers,

folded as a fist, are only good

around microphones

in programs where I tell the story

of my loss over and over

to a bleeding audience.

Stand back and answer this,

faithful folks: Who here

has made a whorehouse

of their pain? Who here has made

the pomegranate jealous

at how much red he can make?

I know what I'm capable of. Once,

I sang and a bird died with the joy

that its grief will never know mine.

In a motivational speech at a school

for people likely to graduate

into failures, I told the story of

my life, and they sat crying, in wait

for the good ending. But there

is none. I ruin hearts for a living.

I take the heartstrings of kings

who have known nothing other

than joy, and fold it warped

around my hand.   In return,

they thank me for my service

which is nothing worthy of thanks.

When my father said he had no

son who would run from a fight,

he didn't specify which fight.

I have been at loggerheads

with the world, long before I lived.

There is no love that can save me,

save the love of country and bone.

Like a patient dog, I lie in wait

for the fattest love I can get, the world

moving around me its teeth and tail.

Sorry to be vulgar, but this world

with live coal for eyes,

half the time I have no idea

if it wants to fuck me or fuck me up.

ELEGY FOR MY JAUNDICED HEART

You have to be consistent

with your madness, the failed

alchemist wrote, to make mirth

or meaning from it. I follow

this creed of transformation, though

what I have yet made from mine

is only a love worsted yellow

with time.

*******

I held my country

by her two ruddy cheeks

and planted a rose on her lips.

Unrequited, the rose fell

to blisters.

*******

O Charon,

deliver to what died in me

this missive I wrote in bile—elegy

for my jaundiced heart. I keep running

after the dream of a good life,

even as my feet burns, even

as the pain wells up bottled in me. 

There, on the horizon, my joy, and there,

too, the words of my father:

It is not enough that you want a thing;

you have to ache for it. Your feet

are only your feet until you're dead.

And then, it's the world's. But your life,

that stays with you.

My life and I, caught in this bobblehead body,

run etcetera towards joy.

IT’S BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE GOD

It's been a long time since God,

or gumption. We have stayed

complacent in our twisted desires. No stranger

to the postures of heaven,    like everyone,

I too have kept my prettiest face to the light.

I mean, don't you love me? Book burning black

from its lettered core, I have held aloft

a shiny front. I find no need for quintessence

or praise. I hold no desire for divine machinations.

I am a citizen of every country of the body; coward

to the question of myself.  Again and again, God

touches the rotten fruit of my body and nothing blooms.

Isn't it sad? For the longest time, I dreamt

in cursive—of angels and wings and light.

I shot forward into time wearing nothing

but my father's exquisite gowns.

And then suddenly, the risk grew too large,

the block letter of my body arrived, and stood

against itself. In the center of a garden, a tree

weary with fruits—but not forbidden;

just forgotten. The ship of a body docks

in bad tide at the port of heaven

and finds its anchor cannot hold.

What, O Lord, have we made of our

mooring; of that blessed tether of the head

that now won't drop in worship?

SISYPHUS

Having journeyed here from lust,

I arrived with my baggage

of crushes. (The little critters

stacked up to the helm of heaven.)

Broken-legged, limping, Desire's

brutish animals jumping from me

in droves, I walked

into Cupid county with my burden,

and found I had none for you.

The rusty vault of my heart

in that ventral home had given way

for the passage of time and reason.

The iron rock of my blood, molten,

had pushed upwards to mind

and memory—intellect's blade

reforged in a new fire, while below,

in the valley, the organ of sex

starved; could not play its wild

melody. I like this version of the myth

where Sisyphus's rock cared

for ascension, and raced him

to the top, where Sisyphus,

sat atop the boulder at the summit,

could thank the gods for grace;

where, trauma bonded, they live

as they're meant to—into eternity,

a man inseparable from his rock.

In the light of this, I leave behind

my years of foolishness, and

look forward in love's objective lens.

Let me find meaning, dear life,

before that mockery of the flesh.

Let love's lighted thread pass

through me like a needle,

and whatever I make in wild

merriment be stitched with its color.

NOTE: The italicized phrase is borrowed from a poem by Joseph Fasano. The closing lines of this poem are influenced by W.S Merwin's “Separation.”