poem of the month February

I stumbled through the screen door,
My mind went between the real world and a world of my imaginary possibilities.

I had lost another job.

7:30 P.M.

I moped into the kitchen,
My wife was at the stove.

“Hey baby.”
I didn’t respond

I looked at the paper,
Another bombing,
I threw it back down on the table in anger.

I slumped down at the table,
My head laid on my arms.

“What’s wrong?”
My mind failed to comprehend,
It could only wander.

I raised my head slightly as my wife walked over to the record player,
She turned on some Armstrong.

As I sat there, the trumpet played quick jazz beats,
The record player burst out note after note,
The bass harmonizing in the background,

But I barely listened.

Some hot chicken was suddenly laid in front of me
I only glanced at it.

“You don’t look so good.”

Finally I broke from the trance,
“Lost another job,” I said quietly.

“Oh baby, I’m sure you can find another one”

Suddenly, I leaned back and stared up at the ceiling,
The popcorn texture looked like hundreds of little faces,
Staring back at me,
Telling me I couldn’t,
Do it.

“Well I’m gonna go wash up,”
I didn’t even look over as she left.

30 minutes passed by,
Thoughts,
Jumbled,
Nothing was going well these days.

Finally I got up,
I lumbered my way over to the kitchen drawers.

As I opened it, a thick layer of dust huffed up towards me,
I coughed, my hand swiping away the cloud,
It was only a reminder of our poverty.

The plastic wrap was covered in dust as well.
As I pulled it out, I brushed it off,
But dust still remained,

I didn’t notice.

The next drawer over,
The rubber bands,
Only three left,
I took one,
It only shrank the already small pile.

Finally the fridge,
I pulled out the unbranded white tub,
You wouldn’t have even known that it was,

Yogurt.

I walked back towards the bedroom,
I scanned the walls,
They were peeling, and dirty,
Some might call my house,

Trashy.

But those walls were filled with memories,
Of a fight never forgotten,
Of a young boy always looking for a bigger fish,
Of a life rough and rocky.

As I moped in, my wife was sitting on the bed,
I collapsed down next to her.

“You're tired aren’t you?” she said.
“Tired of everything in this world.”
“Tired of how our lives just don’t seem to ever get any better.”

She put her arms around me, and got close to me,
“I’m tired of it too,” she said.

“You’re always here for me,” I said.
“Without me you’d be lost,” she said.

We both chuckled at that,
We both knew it was true.

“You know what I could really use some of right now,” I said.
“What’s that,” she said.

I pulled over the items from the kitchen,
She immediately knew.

We shed our uniforms,
Our old ragged clothes,
The ones we wore everyday as a constant reminder,
A reminder of our,

Place.

I tore out a sheet of the plastic,
The sound was nostalgic for me,
A reminder of times past.

Times as a little boy,
When we all sat around the table,
Laughing, Talking.

And afterward, the plastic had a use,
We could wrap up the,

Extra.

I took a small square,
I wrapped it around my penis,
And put over the rubber band.

It was still rough,

But when you’re so poor, lubricant is hard to find,
So I got out the yogurt, and started to grind.

One might wonder,
Why one would resort to such activities,
Why not work for something,

Better.

Work to find a better job,
A better home,
A better future,
Anything,
Better.

To that, I say,
When you are at your lowest of lows,
When you feel like the whole world is against you,
You take what God has given you,
And you embrace it.

You enjoy it,
You rejoice that God has not taken away your one and only guarantee,
The thing that will keep your generations going,
The thing that will make your grandkids and their kids.

You think about their future,
You think about them,
You want them to be alright,
But you’re just not sure.

When your black,
Nothing is,
Certain.

You don’t know what will happen to your children,
What will happen in this cruel,
White run world.

One were your child could be shot and killed and thrown in a river,
By cruel men, whose existence is stuck in the past,
Who never got over what happened one hundred years ago.

The thing that changed the lives of millions of people forever,
The thing that told a young black man or a young black woman,
That life was more than just labor,
That life was more than just sleep, work, repeat.

It gave them hope for their children,
That they could have a brighter future,
One filled with hope and,

Possibility.

They were given hope,
That they could all have,

A dream.

a splat
on the white wall
a tiny splash of red
alongside squashed up innards
surprisingly
that dark grey matter
will be there
longer
and darker
than your own blood
which the insect
had just taken

a violent
but by no means
silent death







.

Her strong legs lifted me into a spacecraft. The controls were sticky with a grainy syrup. We were doomed. But honestly, we had been doomed since long before this ship had even rolled off the assembly line.
Some sick fuck dreamed of experimenting on people like us. (My wet legs slip into her body). His name was Igor Lott. He was a scientist for the Imperialist Party. (Tongues intertwining like a DNA strand). He planned to conquer death in the name of the Greatest People. We were stepping stones to that end. (Her cocktail dress and jewels burned and burrowed into my thick layers of hide).
(Pages of our sacred history soaked in secret pastes and smoothed out onto our bare tissues and flashing lights). “Citizens #26 and #28, step forward onto the grating, please. I’m going to have to ask you to remove your faceplates.” (I shivered free of her tentacles and erotic orders and took my place for the fuck, her eyelids like wet goosedown).

To be continued...

Plastic toy soldiers  
marching through the garden  
clear away the insect trespassers  
 
The last copy in existence  
of ‘The book of life’
used to wipe our arse
 
Aboriginal dreams of freedom  
drowned in whiskey  
and the need to make some coin  
 
Wilfully ignorant progress
one step forward  
no way back  
 
A bacterial infections  
moral persuasion  
sold as living light
 
Convenient fresh fruit  
rot the questions  
comfortably ignored  
 
Cross the ocean  
to see the same idea  
and eat McDonald’s  
 
All you need is love
and air to breathe  
but what do you want?
 
What do you really want ?

Life doesn’t seem to matter
and neither really do I,
For it seems we have no purpose,
but to wither and to die.

Like the fading light
from a setting sun,
A few more ticks of the clock
and the day is finally done.

Bathe me in darkness
and silence and peace,
Striving no more
in a world that’s diseased.

Time has no beginning
and struggle has no end
Till the tired heart is still’d
and the soul flies home again.

It leaves the night
like a dusted crime scene
yet so pristine
with its white crystals

A light coating
of powdered sugar
to sweeten up
this most bitter winter

Glistening in the moon
longing for a spoon
to help me measure

the melting moment