braggin’ writes

ok, so 
this is ’bout to be just ’bout 
da best poem 
you ever did see
, 

soon as i get me muse awaked. 
soon as I get these fingers shaked 
just right, soon as the light slants 
on the page, soon as i get these 
wars all waged, these battles bouts 
and byways gone. soon 

as I spoon up something sweet
and sour my lips enough to slake 
this thirst for words. soon, i’ll 
scribble the greatest line of all 
time and phrase my fears just so 
and raise a toast to those who 

know what time the moon might
rise. then we’ll all just dip our 
feathers in and fly across this 
ivory skin and fall and fall and 
fall again until we’re back at square
one, where the best has just begun. 

::

written for poetic asides November chapbook challenge.

to fall in love with the world again

, 
you must engage 
a flower in full 
conversation. 

you must allow 
a tree to tell 
you secrets. 

you must find 
yourself in this 
ridiculous sky. 

to fall in love 
with this world 
{a gain}
, 

you must hold 
hands with hope
and contemplate clouds. 

you must bare 
your soul your feet 
your heart 

and laugh out loud 
at that full fat moon; 
you must dream 

in fragments of 
fragility and foolish 
trust. you must

run your hands 
through grass and 
high-five stars. 

to fall in love 
with anything again, you 
must give it another chance. 

::

written for poetic aside November chapbook challenge.

she of feathers

 

we uncage her
, 
engage her in song. 

the world’s a sky
of 
branches and blue,

a humming-hope promise
of 
wing and wind.  

written for poetic asides November chapbook challenge.

how then shall we scale this sky?

if you bend low, 
i can stand on your should
-ers and stretch up up up 
on my tiptoes to reach 
Orion’s belt 
                    and fly. 

::
written for poetic asides November chapbook challenge.

tell me again about the dragons

and their embered breath 
, scales scar-scraping the 

sky. tell me of their kind
-ling songs, the twisted 

wrongs of talon, tongue. 
whisper me their battle

-blazed cry, the sacred 
why of tinder hearts. sigh

me the cindered center 
of their flame, that i might 

name them each in turn. 
loose me wild between their

tattered wings to soar the 
treetops, watch them burn. 

::
written for poetic asides November chapbook challenge.

bull, i

this poem is a moving tar
-get, sludged-smudge scribble 
of a scrabbled star. she’s too far 

off center to make her point, dart
-ing about in the dark without 
a true mark. she’s got one dang

-ling thought caught on a line
but she’s quite sure she won’t 
catch it. at least, not in time. 

::

written for poetic asides November chapbook challenge.

bless me farther

than my last confusion,
the last profession of this secret 
sky. farther than this raging 
sea, higher than these unquiet 
stars. it’s been too long since 
i’ve been on my knees, listening
to all you’ve laid before me: grace
genuflected in crescent scars. 

::
written for poetic asides November chapbook challenge.

if you had 8 arms, you’d understand

(i think)
,
why i must go with the flow 
of the ocean and all that 
  

                                             ink. 

::

written for poetic asides November chapbook challenge.

there’ll be nothing but coal in the tiny stockings of these iambic feet

this poem is more naughty 
than nice, spicy syllables 
laced with ghost 

-pepper, ancho 
and 
then 
carelessly 
t o s s e d 

in a mean serrano poblano moon sauce. 

::

written for poetic asides November chapbook challenge.

This is Just to Stay

(in response to William Carlos Williams) 

I have beaten 
the hums 
of my hungry 
tum by 

the witch
-craft of probably 
leaving 
and fasting 

Forgive me
I am delirious 
so slow
and so old

::

written for poetic asides November chapbook challenge.