Paying the taxes that kill the masses 

Where did I get that quote from?

Tres Mujeres

1)  a delicious smelling presence 

causes my eyes to wander

 up thin      smooth     lifts,     to

jean shorts, tucked in 

Rocker-shirt, pulled tight. 

Like her determined cheekbones.

2) this smile is as wide

as shared sunsets,

and more freely given,

         nothing hidden

in her face, but

her arms are sheltering

    her

        Vicinity.

3) eyebrows sterned 

And watching,

Feet braced for jumps,

     leaning in

to show her attention,

to the three niñas 

sharing her cappuccino,

each a Spoonful

     at a time.  

So Many Hills

The mutilations must continue,

39 revolutions just isn't enough,

-call him a soldier, hero 

Or visionary leader,

He's willing and eager

For another flagellation

You've  sentineled the doorway to keep the stumbling  moving,

I've donned my home with a fresh crown of thorns,

Well paint the streets red in victorious celebration,

We've prepared the martyr for a new monument.

In harmonious strained voices sing praise and for wisdom, our prayers have been answered, as the candles are lit.

A hill isn't sanctified without a cross and a sacrifice, 

God Must Be with us, our blood has been spilt. 

 

In walks the well-worn face of a man. A bearded father, with arms full of baby. 

Long arms sun painted and sturdy, wrapping so warmly, a blond haired boy, just woken from a nap. 

And the blue eyes are asking, and the face is contorting, and the shriek is born of a trembling mouth. 

And the Father looks stoically

And the mother looks reluctantly

And the boy cries openly for milk

An exchange without words, for nurturance of a different sort, before back in the brown arms, the white baby goes. 

Roles

The school children scream and 

run around the corner,

They hide behind the rusting car, 

Only to steel their nerves and make their move again,

The scream awakens neighbors,

The laughter that follows, settles scores.

Down the street a man is doing repair work,

Dirty blue jeans pulled tight with a cord string, he shuffles from foot to foot like the one hurts and the other's no good,

He places the brick, square in its place with his only hand, then stands up again to retrieve another from the wheel barrow.

He doesn't stop for the screams and laughter, just hobbles his work day away.

The kids point, uniform behavior in uniforms. Establishing rank through bullying more common than books and folders. Jokes are muddled, nudges forwards as  if a shove of a foot or two could nullify the distance.

As if burn scars could spread through the air, as if missing limbs could be replaced by a child's misstep. 

The neighbors do nothing,  Watch the children making fun of a lonely man. Perhaps they are more familiar with his story, perhaps they've created the myths that provide laughter. Myriad possibilities, not one reconsidered, 

so we all become the hangman. 

Maddie told me to write a haiku about bananas

Yuckers, mucky ick

As sludge of sweet surrounds my

Teeth, and gags me, blegh

1 Month

When you finally find a quiet place,
its too quiet. The audacity of your own thoughts,
too clear, unsympathetic, all racing, all proclaiming
"ME! LISTEN TO ME!"                        and the jumble of them,
all so child like, all so immature, like the
7th graders that fill your day, needy, impatient,
and you end up trying to soften, to redirect,
to scold or discipline them rather than
listen. Rather than hear, investigate, dissect, negotiate.
Rather than warm them with your
own heart, you write them off as
just more traffic noices, engines unmuffled,
honks and whistles ,
more blaring jazz and peoples' voices
straining, screeching, yelling
over the raucus.

Tempered chaos is still chaos, muffled
or not the roar is enraging, a constant
tickle, a need to squint, a clenched
jaw, always crane-lifted shoulders.

I spend my opened eyed hours tensly
debating, the best use of a moment, the best
plan for the next. Its a straining choke-hold
of the present. So that nothing is clear,
all tunnel vision, all confined and echoey
as darkness surrounds me. 

Concretely I grade essays, tests and
worksheets. I ask for refinement, definition,
rearrangements and clarification.
I reach into the jumble of alien words
that are meant to be English, and clutch at significance
whenever I can reach it.

I preach clarity of thought through mumbles
 and gasps and mistakes and breaches,
preach clarity of action while trembling
on murky footpaths, through the dark on creaky bridges.

I hear the river, its spoken of only in
warnings, the "You should know...s" the
"Be aware...s" the storied victims.

Ever present scanning, imagining, holding
stern, always planning, a need for an escape,
a resting place, a way out, a back up
just in case...
                 And holding this back pack,
                 stops us short, from truly getting
                 acquainted... "I'm here NOW,
                 Listen! I've had a messy thought...."
                 Says the uniformed vagrant.