To Skate On Sun

“Ours is one continued struggle against degradation sought to be inflicted upon us by the European, who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw Kaffir, whose occupation is hunting and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with, and then pass his life in indolence and nakedness.” - Ghandi

Bombay, Sept. 26 1896

(Note: “Kaffir” is a derogatory name for blacks/africans - similar to “nigger”.)

Did you know?

I was once a small moon, as well -

a harlot in the palms of constant robbery.

They told me to kneel in the sour

soil, to cover my mouth with vines and

lay along the brick.

Did you know?

I listened to them.

I am years behind my old

wind. I let them flush me -

a rain cloud.

Did you know?

It wasn’t worth it.

I have been worthy

since.

[A prompt from @caitsmessner  - “Write a love or lost-love poem without using any victim language, any anger/blame or any self-villianizing/chastising,”]

and so i was brought to you/

a graveyard invitation/

I thought

maybe the current

had misread its destination/

and followed me to the wrong/

shore, where you stand/

a safari of lungs/ the stiffness

to be wrestled out of me/

I say, first, that I am not

an obligation/ you say/

solstice/ I hold the night/

like an autocrat.

Rooster wide mouths the morning from between the shed stilts,
the moaning of wake slips into the least of worries like a newborn

each crest is an example of who the king could fail to be so he
summons the seer for a new one and stands beneath the guillotine

of proof. The city sleeps on the far side of the moat where a dead
spirit finds an entrance to impale. Another boy with the illusion

of distinction pledges to frighten the ghost with his bare chest,
his shirt split at its core like a lowered flag. In a generation he

will own a goblet of chords that cannot be sold even to the flush
of the loneliest instrument, but he will seek to waste at god for

forgetting to give him the gift of voice while he holds an
entire nation at its throat.

Be careful that you are not Of the same make of the others - Bitten and Brie, sourdough. He says “be happy”, a task as simple As walking the dog - its sorry tail limping behind it in neat obedience. I’m starting to think that I might not be made for this; The surgery, the pull and prod The forgetting of what it means to Fold alone, to bare the dark like an old cross, to function. Before, I was alone but at least compact. I knew which mouth the ‘not enough’ would come from; I knew better than to believe it. In a glass house, all windows serve the same function - They are all prospects of view, of perspective. In a glass house, you can see the blood from the yard Or the sky laughing above you - a watchman too with busy crafting his own story.