The House We Once Lived In

…they were raised to believe they could only trust words. words were a place to stand… [1]
…the trap of reason binds us in the net of time… [2]
…by the reach of your hybris, shall your house be known…[3]

A foreclosure sign went up today outside the τόπος κοινός;
the words couldn’t pay the rent.

in the final pass-through before departure 
syntax wept
laden with memories on the precipice of dissolution 

a lone rhetorical trope buried 
in a backyard paint-can-time-capsule

that stain under the sink 
where the emergency stash of grammar leaked through 
its container

the nail hole on the wall in the bedroom 
larger than it should be and not enough time 
to fill it in the haste of departure 
(the frame that hung up the sentence 
was too heavy) 

a faded, half-finished landscape drawing on the wall
where punctuation had tried her hand 
at curating a museum exhibition in the staircase;
thwarted, mid-vision, she blustered and pouted all evening
(already so sure of her artistic worth)

she used sharpie
and the acrid scent of incipient structure lingered 
for centuries 

this house of spent phrases and broken syllogisms 
will be on the market tomorrow;
a τόπος uncommon breaches the perimeter 
in the arcane hours before dawn opens her doors
feeling grasping easing gasping 
towards an occupancy of spirit.

***

Quotations:
[1] Alexis Pauline Gumbs, M Archive: After The End Of The World
[2] M. NourbeSe Philip, Zong!
[3] Sylvie Kandé, The Neverending Quest for the Other Shore

The Jellyfish

The jellyfish is feeling especially electric today.

Threads of voltaic grace have been threatening
to break off from her center,
diluting her gossamer rage and
pulsing her exposed to the vagaries 
of the waterworld passing through her.

The fact that the jellyfish has different metaphors
should give pause

should rankle the hegemony of the upright ground-bound body 
(the one that has to work so hard to swim or fly
the one that can’t decide if the future we see up ahead 
is really behind)

should awaken epistemologies of atmosphere
(that don’t rely on one foot in front of the other
that don’t need the arc of time to sweat out our discrete lives 
in droplets)

and yet we carry on wandering the flat earth 
as though we know it
unable to reckon with its demanding roundness

we are thirsty but afraid 
to let free the water
(for fear of losing it to the horizon’s edge)

so we cup our hands and dip them into a puddle of mirage
to drink the desert-soured juice of our myths.

***

The Color Of Water

Iridescent hues claim the arc of the wave right before it crests
into light
the sun and my eye and my anchored stance create these colors
together

at the moment of tumble, a wall of mirrors appears
the taut wave at point of collapse 
refracting the light into me

(or is it a ruse
to keep me from looking through her?)

the spectrum assimilates, spilling into a churn of surf
offspring of the undulating liquid abyss

a foam-white carpet of air 
(the white that contains multitudes)
reaches beyond the boundary of shore

tomorrow, more gently, the lapsed blue
(is it the same as your blue?)
settles into sandy bay containers
drops of a maybe-the-same ocean
but tempered now, in glass silence

the angles of iridescence lost in transfiguration
(having sloughed off their sharp tint and violent beginnings)
crystalline shadows still lodged in the space between my eyes
and the sun

***

El Fénix

Entre el incendio y las cenizas
hay un solo momento en que el fénix debe decidir
si quiere vivir otra vez
si quiere empezar al ilimitado principio la próxima iteración 

En este momento
la crisálida que viene
habita en fragmentación
en lágrimas negras que caen de ojos que todavía no existen 

Estas gotas oscuras, lluvia del alma inconclusa aún infinita
transportan todas las posibilidades de ser
encajada y encerrada
al borde del abismo

En la frontera
el aliento de vida 
queda suspendido en suspiro cautivo 
y el fénix baila fuera del ritmo
considerando las opciones 
de permanecer o de morirse en final 

Al igual que en momentitos de nuestros propios renacimientos
la decisión de emerger
viene con llanto resbaladizo y viscoso
y nos presentamos mojados, demasiado agotados 
al crudo principio nuevo

Los mitos nos esperan allí 
enloquecidos de anticipación 
aguardando que tenemos la fuerza necesaria 
para arrastrarlos con nosotros hacia la vida

***

I Pledge Allegiance

[A poem for a precarious, incongruous, slippery holiday….]

I pledge allegiance

To the better angels of my nature, 
divided within me, around me, above me.
To the deep disruption of their binaries,
in star-spangled, kaleidoscopic jubilee.

And to a republic unbound
which does not stand; it overflows.
Dismembered states shimmer on cave walls
known only in fragments and backlit shadows.

One of many nations, 
under dark stars and blistering sunsets
in search and service of becoming
craving truth and beauty, wisdom and justice.

I pledge allegiance

To revolutions not televised
To the nine-pound hammers of ill-fated coups
To the offspring of barbarous ancestors
To bread, and roses too.

To the mischief that mollifies factions
To the buried hearts at Wounded Knee
To the tired, poor, and huddling masses
To the mystic chords of memory.

To sacred corn and purple mountains
Majesty not yet debased
To stalwart salmon running 
Legacies not yet erased. 

To the pursuit of something more than happiness
In these times that might be changing
To wrath and grapes and hard won solace
In these times that won’t stop raging. 

I pledge allegiance

To the fire next time 
To the seventh generation
To the dreams we still have
To the ramparts of creation.

***

Of Blood and Gourds

I sit, knees to chin 
contemplating my customs reentry card 
wondering whether to check the boxes that might betray 
my time among livestock and jungle shrubs.

These boxes ward against small organic stowaways 
that, if released, would recolonize the landscape.
(The irony endures.)
There is no box to check to ward against the ethereal stowaways I am harboring
stowaways of inception
that have already begun to colonize the flora of my spirit.

Maybe it’s best not to admit
this calabash gourd I’m carrying
the deepest resonator of a village gyil
was just doused with chicken blood last week
for a purification attended by baby goats and other wandering mammals, 
a purification meant to carry it all the way across the friendly skies 
and hallowed oceans 
(of a darker passage), 
a purification meant to prepare it 
for the accidental assaults 
of one who might try to use it to learn anew
how to listen. 

While the brains and the hands brokered a reluctant and troubled partnership,
the gyil burrowed hard into my humid skin.
A liminal tuning
An enjambment 
that claimed space in some of my deeper interstices. 

Akwaaba, obroni, back to the desert. 

As each buzzing whispering murmuring jangling calabash 
fills with cactus dust,
tiny ghosts of good intentions settle into the cracks. 
The hot fog of the Gold Coast 
abandons the gourds,
ascending elsewhere upon final descent.

***

Chiasmus

I take a swallow of infinity
And creep into the maze.

My memories are in heat.

They breed in the fingers
The solar plexus
The breath of symphonies
The taste of mist

The sound of sandalwood
The scent of song
The neural atlas
They brood in leaden skies.

Sometimes, they lie.

I crawl out of the void
And infinity takes a swallow of me.

***

Minarets

Sabah. (Dawn)

Wake up!
The adhan is impatient,
nudging the faithful out of another slumber
and into the brazen light of a new day. 
The dawn zephyr teases,
swirling from dome to dome,
writing calligraphy in the sky,
ghosting the margins of melodies
that hold something more than music. 

Rast. (Midday)

The tree of life climbs off of the carpet
and out of the carpet shop.
Roots snake their way through the earthy fibers,
creeping home, toward Konya,
lighting the path of pilgrimage
for mystics.
I drink apple tea
And trace the sefirot
With my fingers. 

Hicaz. (Afternoon)

Chestnuts roast on street corners,
lending a burnt, wintery contour
to the sultry summer breeze.
Holy cities and holy flight
beckon.

Segah.  (Sunset)

The late afternoon sulks, languid and slippery.
Crunchy fog seethes in the catacombs, 
while the adhan swirls through the subterranean channels 
in wisps.
The sun tips behind the bulbous ancient skyline
illuminating sebaceous straits
And fabled crossroads.

Ussak. (Last Light)

The cats of Üsküdar think they are auditioning for a sequel.
They wind their way through the benches littering the shoreline,
persistent creatures of shadow and mirth, vice and vanity.
Across the water, the Maiden’s Tower shimmers in the dying light.
The asp hides in the fruit,
waiting.

***

Wind Acknowledgement

The land acknowledgement enkindles
-for a moment- 
the soft grief and sharp cliches
of one more field, defiled.

Slippery earth, 
welcomed at last into self-actualization 
-for a moment- 
as a belated primary witness to her many grievances.

 But what of the air?

These winds have circled that earth
Defying entrapment. 
Denying debasement.
Delighting in suspended animation. 

I borrowed some of them 
-for a moment-
a catch-and-release metamorphosis.

Meanwhile,
Aeolus picked up a hitchhiking miroloi 
and scattered her about 
when he blew the winds back around again.

***