Where the Deer & the Antelope Play

all the cool boys

Tonight, the cool three convene
in a dark corner of the scene,
all exclusive, handsome, and husky,
their smarmy velvet voices shaded
with hints of bitter freeze,
cold just so, that all the meek
stay away from their pride,
far off the party line,
over here under the Exit sign,
standing right beside me,
an adult suddenly transformed
into a gawky, awkward teen
wearing ginormous, shiny metal braces
covering anxiously crowding inadequacies.

With wordless, waning wallweeds,
I stand watching inconspicuously
this ever so captivating trilogy
wearing tight, toned skin
and through sexy, slanted grins
whisper somethings among the guys
below sly, snickering eyes
before pointing their unified
mirrorball glare condescendingly
over at – oh please, I pray not at me,
who even if in a bright green, silk-screened T
and side-cocked, black, tall trucker cap
could never hope to look as cool as that,
so the self-esteem of my internal teen empties
only to refill to the brim with envy.

Yes, I realize that I should come to my senses
knowing we’re all self-conscious adult adolescents
when utterly stripped of all our pretenses
under last-call’s harsh bright fluorescents,
but sometimes like tonight I just can’t help it
that the insecure me feels like a big misfit
and becomes a dejected killjoy
annoyed by all the cool boys.



~09/24/09

01/09/2012

“Y’all ready to settle down and get with this? You know, settle into this feeling? Cause you know there’s a lot of LOVE here! Love, love, love.” ~ Miss Jill Scott

First day of the second half of Divinity School today. Funny how I continue to learn that, even with all our theological constructions, fundamentally it’s always really all about Love. Love, love.

resolution

write more
personally
speak more
openly
live life
outloud

Alliteragony

Strange how sadness sneaks up swiftly,
Yet tears are slow to swallow my sight.
Holidays are hardest,
Your absence abysmal.

the new american

Shadows of wings
of missile-clad, military aircraft
fly across the wet reflections
of my human
on the shower floor.

I sigh at what they’re there for.

Black box static
in rich american technicolor:
“deTHpiKable acts, no mercy”
segregates me
from my planet, Earth.

I mourn for Sylvester’s bird.

Shower drops fall
with tears of empathy for my brothers:
friend, partner, kinfolk, lover who
jumped like lab rats
from the guillotine.

I repent my brother’s sin.

My Soul cries out
in pain for humanity, the end near.
My terrified child, bound and gagged,
wriggles escape.
He stands and preaches.

I listen to his teachings:

“Break from shower
shadows! Flush the black box and dry away
your woes! Take from me your wings. To
them give new life.
Set our angel free;

Be strong, feel love, show mercy!”

~ Screams to my blood-thirsty nation late-September 2001

Pondering Academics

Lonely scarecrow, skipping and tripping along the yellow brick road, cannot help but ponder the tinmen seemingly halted by their scrutiny of the constitution of the mortar between the bricks below.

thirsty

summer some are the days when loneliness yanks at my hand longing to go sprinting out into the hot wilderness towards solitude, when all i want to do is stay in bed, pull the cool covers over my head, and take five more minutes inside my mind dreaming of the garden where you and i tenderly embrace togetherness.

ice clinks

sweet tea ice clinks
while my head rests in my hands
spinning thoughts
upon crazy worries and dark images
like the thick, brown syrup
tangling a sunken, frozen cube
upon the sweating bottom
of a glass half-empty,
and i tearfully wonder
if this is the madness she suffered
if this is the mania he endured
or if i am simply imagining
being saturated by gloom
in some feeble attempt
to stir time backwards
so i can embrace them again
in honeyed, sugar kisses,
and stick them to me
permanently, forever.

Resolutely Against Chorus d’Negative

y resolution for the New Year is to stop thinking so much, to simply live and just *be*, divorced from the analyzing, worried chorus that sneakily jumps out from behind trash bins or pops up in my car’s back seat to offer a depressing sonnet always just when I am on the verge of smiling.  Like this morning, for instance, at a couple of turtledoves roosting in the bright sunshine on the walk behind my apartment, my warm cheeks began pulling my lips upwards, when suddenly the gloomy thought of all those birds falling from the sky in Arkansas descended upon my head like the red-winged blackbirds themselves.  The sweet moment was startled, and my smile was killed instantly.  As I proceeded down the walk, a little black cloud expanding above my head, I declared in a somewhat dramatic, Scarlett O’Hara clinched fist raised skyward fashion, that as God is my witness, this will be the year I will let go of useless, negative thought and thus its power over my mood.  The plan of action?  Well, it involves meditation, grace, forgiveness, and petitioning for a restraining order against that sly little chorus.  If you see them, please give them warning.