Staff Meeting...A Study in Brown

Time to be awesome
Having an awesome time
Awesome co-workers
Nothing is not awesome
Kind of awesomely

Yes, this is awesome
One awesome
Utilizing awesomeness
                                       
                                       --Sierra B. Maxwell

Why I am not a hugger....

they say that true love
   alters not, though
             alteration finds
and you may seek it like
           a star
that guides a wandering
       ship, o
they're goddam right sometimes,
         from the day you lose your
                  fkkn mind
   and your friends think you started
              smoking crack
     doesn't ever take a drive
and not come back,
       that it stays and sleeps
     on your couch
        makes a smell you can't
            track down in
   your closet.
         True love, that worrisome
thing, itching like a cast
      on your broken arm,
turning it weak and white and skinny
      It's a wingman that farts
              in a crowded bar
   blaming it on you
             I'll name it Chet or Chase
                      or Halston    
                    because those are douchebag names
that always has to have the last laugh.
     Oh true love, you
        blind drunk bastard,
             lead me around,
      scrawling idiotic titles and
           penises on my face with
               your sharpie
      vaguely sticky to the touch
           naked and reeking of tequila
  in the most embarrassing of places
              True love, I want to stop being your
                     bitch
   because i always end up being
          the one who has
                  to eat the soggy cracker,
but a bro is a bro
           and your hot  promise whispers of success end up
                      with someone else getting laid
              in a way they can be proud of, and
                            me hoping for a
                                reacharound at least.
             

bachata

..and we go as we go
    stumble down and try to say "i meant to do that"
we're clueless, but nod
    "i know..i know"
from bad to worse
   to bearable to
      better
this game is best played
 in a universe of
     suitably handicapped friends

and when you find someone who
  feels right in the palm
   of your scrubbed hands
      and smell the flower of her
        graceful neck sway
to music that is too cheap and rough
      for present company,
perhaps there
     is and should be
       the unheard roar
            of an invisible crowd,
indecipherable numbers
     lighting up the board..

and perhaps there
   is and should be
     a higher basket of points
     more than stars
       or all the grains of sand
when you almost fall
 and say,
     "i meant to do that" and
she smiles her lustrous smile and says
        " i know, i know"
     

7.65

Oh Lord of Heavenly Jokes,
    I came here to get my hands dirty and my conscience clean
        and  you ,of all...nouns, know what that means
            defend us in battle
         protect us from the snares of the devil
         whiten my smile
yeah, though I growed up saying bitch
 or muhfuckah every other word,
       I will bow my head and hold
           my tongue in the
            groove of
               godly truth
humble in the presence of
    of..of...of
              because a kiss looks ridiculous if
      you never been kissed
              and tears seem like a waste of time unless
                      soft hands have held your face
  and wiped them away
        There's slowness for you,
There's the un-effable ineffable truth.
   And do, o lord of heavenly hosts
        issue me lucky talismans
            made of cloth so they
              don't get blown into my
       earthly guts,lungs,or windpipe
              uglystupiduglystupiduglystupid
                      amen

lavanderia

The days are not the same size,

  no.

      Some have been a staccato, no

real rest in between,

     necessity beating on a drum

       bending everything into sharp corners

so tight you could bounce a dime

         bag off them.

Another set of days, are

   folded elegantly, white and

unbroken on stainless steel waiting

      to be worked over in

dignified progression

       Then there are the days,no

 sun can hasten,

      stale rumpled sheets, of 

unbelievable span, 

         flung out on the floor

of a long, 

      low, and dirty room

the ones i spend    

         waiting
for the rain
   of
   your
    kiss

dusty

Inside the shabby little car,
  alone in the paper thin wings of 

 thought I see....

   

watching the colored lights flash bounce off
 puddles of rainwater
slicking
the streets
reminding him
of jellybeans
and flying saucers,
    clouds of friends
come and visit in  
   a conga line
       stepping up
to his third eye and giving
    hugs,
breath like cloves and simple flowers
    the polka on the radio
       the drunken chorus,
dance and drink
             for in heaven there is no beer
"..in himmel gibst kein bier"
            His grey lump of a head
like a ball it bounces
     and drives on
          brightening
 a dull universe
      when the red turns to green,

           ..a lesson in how to    
                     be wise.

kiss, time,fire,lover

The first time we kissed

there was fire just like the last

lover, let/s burn bright

sadly, I missed it

that time I should have stumbled

and fallen in love

I couldn't resist

making love to a time bomb

fire stumbles falling 

pater familias

let me be the one
 who kills the spiders
 who ambush you,
     screaming with a terror
both funny and alarming
   your hand over your
       mouth, finally,
knuckles like pink
   candies.

       I am the one who
checks the locks,
 lights the candles,
       whispers in the red glow
        of St. Michael the Archangel
   

       And other things besides,
           who dispatches lingering possums,
after the dog has lost interest,
   sending them to a perfect realm,
       a heaven really, with no inept
               coon hounds, or young boys, or BB guns.


Let me be he
   who kisses your cheek
        while you bathe in
 the blue light
        of your phone,
tapping to the corners of the world,
               my nose against
 your perfect seashell
        of an ear,
and pretending
     that i really am

Recipe

( wrote this on the overhead to teach the students about rhyming schemes and similes)


Stir  your heart gently, gliding with a silver spoon
 drape your worries  to dry in the sun  on a string
Throw your cares across the silver sleeping moon,
and warm them slowly, until winter turns to spring
   then make time stand still, like a bird on a wire
  and live your life for love like a house on fire.

Mission Statement

I don't need no AK47, don't need no 203
When it comes to wrecking evil
Godzilla ain't got nothing on me
  Nothing on me
we gonna carpet bomb the darkness with a burning light
and put all the rabid ignorant to a blinded, fearful flight
 Now, don't think about no shiny savior
who's going to take you to the promised land
 because that's all a bunch of bullshit
meant to keep you from making a stand
Right here on earth we stay connected
   fighting evil with the ordinaryordinance
    of feed the hungry
       protect the weak
          limit the strong
No give communion, give food
No give bible, give clean water instructions
    No give heaven, give revolution
                How you like me now, reverend?

Love poem for the runners-up

 Where are you going busy bee

  that you have no more time for me?

There are blossoms to explore, 

   pools to contemplate with heavy 

        leaves that meditate,

             like quiet verdant monks.

How you flit and fold your wings

  and give no thought to the barbed stings

that your hurried travels bring

  to the oafish stumbling fool

   who thought he could hold you in his hand.

   Well, there are the passing tides

         and time all greatness hides

beneath her heavy robes of grey,

but when the heart has lost  its' race

   the loser sees your lovely face, 

 and that  is prize enough

      when Summer turns to fall.

Penelope.

      We used to stand on the hot concrete
        at the city swimming pool
we did our conga, sloooow motion,
  First one foot, theeen the other,
            let one get hot,
then switch.
   Our backs and bellies bronze
         and red,
respectively.
     Standing in a line on the hot plate,
waiting to buy raspas and
      dried salted plums,
calling them Chinese candy.
   I remember the strong, grown up taste,
         was like a busted lip.

             Later, when we
found out you were leaving,
       we carried on as children
 will do, seeing weeks stretched out like years....
         That last day, we rode
              our bikes home,
     
          I kissed you my first kiss
                on your porch, through your
                            tears and mine,
                  that grown up taste
                            mixing with the roses
                                   of your freckles.
                     
    

Walking in Winter

        1.
black triangle
 heavy on a silver pond just
skimming the the top
 an inverted darkness
 ripples out
 to lap against the
blighted grass.
  On a hill,
             windows stare
  from a dirty
gray house
 the charred hands of winter
trees trying to pull shreds
of sky down to the
  hard,scratchy ground
              2.
 Blackbirds and shadows
  of other birds play with their
reflections on a shiny dish of
      water,
 little waves become smaller still
   dancing among the stilts that hold
             the chalky lace of
   webs up high.

              3.
Is it so strange, then, his dark hand
  against the lilly of her skin,
     drinking in the touch and taste
 of her? They might breathe together
          for a while,
   Leaping from his dream,
       a stone skips across this moment
          leaves him awake
               and lost.
     
   

Your most precious fidelity , beloved.

 Far off, there are flowers that will open once a year
 Under the whispering light of a golden moon.
 Cherished blooms that are more precious than saintly tears
 Know then, that I would hold that gift as ashes or sand compared to
     You.

Companion

You think you got some kind of
         boon companion, that lights your
path and makes you skip and fly over
       the heavy road.
looking at her, you see a pretty sunrise when
     it's a forest fire coming
         to turn you into ash and grinning teeth
Or how about  a cherry red, shiny-dream-vacation
         throttle open,
            facing the wind,
      stroking the road
                   her hands around you
              right into a
brick wall covered in busted glass
     she    
makes your feelings jump like bullets in
              a furnace.
       This feeling, my friend?
              it's the ugly cousin of Love....

  It's a wriggling pink
           demon that
    will bring you down.

you gotta throw it in a iron
   cage and stab it through
     the bars, smash it against the doorway
            kick it down the stairs and
        into traffic.
 then, drag it to the  river
        ,throw it in so
          it gets shit out
                      into the ocean
         so this pretty little disaster
                  gets crushed into the darkness
                             and eaten by a cold black squid.