Instructions Not Written on Any Medicine Bottle

Chew your pride before swallowing.

Maintain a highly tuned  sense of awe, even when operating heavy machinery.

Enlightenment should only be taken on an empty ego.

Kind thoughts are not to be expressed through oral use only; they can also be shared through actions and body language.

Ingesting hate may lead to undesirable effects for you and/or another party.

Open-mindedness and acceptance may cause discoloration of your racial biases.

To minimize the corrosive properties of self-doubt, recite a few positive affirmations to coat the lining of your psyche.

A healthy dose of courage should be taken in the morning, a healthy dose of faith in the evening

Momalopolis

This one goes out to all the moms—

proud moms, loud moms, looks good in ruby shoes and combat boots moms.

Gay and straight moms, single and singing moms.

The artists and Uber drivers, the rockers and prison lifers.

Those surviving on welfare and those holding things together in war-torn areas.

Pet moms, plant moms, book-writing, and hang-gliding moms.

Ones struggling with addictions and mental illness, ones gifted at kung fu and mental jiu-jitsu.

Painting moms, pain-ridden moms.

Moms no longer with us, moms who’ve lost children.

Om’ing and home-sweet-homing moms, content to be in a room of their own moms.

The elderly and infirm, the teachers and leaders.

Bookworms and baristas, wallflowers and sunflowers,

those that tripped with Timothy Leary, and those that continue to trip the light fantastic.

To all you moms, Happy Mother’s Day.

Optimism On the Rocks

In 2022, a survey found 70% of American men and women optimistic about their future.

In 2023, another poll found more Americans pessimistic than optimistic.

Now, in 2024, I can’t ever remember an America that wasn’t a loathsome bully in some way—

a gun-toting, flag-waving capitalist shouting racial epithets, then stomping off to sulk because its luxury flight to creature comforts was delayed.

Still, there are those nights when Optimism and I go out for drinks.

It whispers in my ear, can you blame me if I refuse to peddle those fear-mongering, raw-meat headlines to rouse the savage beast in you?

When the world finally burns, optimism tells me, it’ll be roasting marshmallows on the fire.

The Machine in the Ghost

Because voices can sharpen themselves into knives;

because the coffin is a cough that can get stuck in the throat;

because the stairway to heaven is only made from toothpicks and Elmer’s glue;

because the burning guitar refuses to warm our hearts;

because the radio cries the blues gun gun instead of da doo ron ron;

because the exit wound in night does not lead to morning—

I have learned that life’s passing train is the machine in the ghost, the ghost in the machine, the machine that is the ghost in me one day leaving. 

Another Poem Ached by a Blue Cloud

My father is my father through a lineage of hard-traveled roads.

My mother is the light that makes every shadow look like home.

As a child, I found my true eyes while searching for leaving trains.

Since then, I could read the fine print on raindrops, realized each one had a name, a date of birth and rebirth.

I sometimes forget myself when left out in a storm too long;

I become an alphabet of drenched prayers, a sad song ached by a bruised cloud.

My father once told me the dead far outnumber the living.

My mother said heaven must be a heavy cross to bear. 

If/Then

If not arrogant, then ignorant. If not ignorant, then egotistical. If not egotistical, then racist. If not racist, then a sociopath. If not a sociopath, then a gag-order violator, a bellicose-veined traitor to democracy, an evil seed growing into an unfit tree of idolatry—see how he sleeps, see how he thieves while justice lays cold comfort at our feet. 

Mona Lisa’s Blue Eyes

admire Justin Timberlake’s blue eyes.

Justin Timberlake’s blue eyes croon to the spirit of Marvin Gaye.

The bullet in Marvin Gaye weeps heavy tears because it still doesn’t understand why the father shot the son.

Sylvia Plath’s depression runs its fingers through Walt Whitman‘s beard.

Wanda Coleman‘s rage dances on a dull day job’s grave.

Langston Hughes’ subtle stache drops acid with Dali’s long lip hair.

Amelia Earhart’s grey eyes start a punk band.

The band goes on tour and never comes home.

The band sings wings instead of worry, sings wings instead of stones, sings wings instead of weariness.

It is time for brave voices to soar. 

Beyond the Lines of Yes and No

I got some wind chimes caught in my throat. Now people only hear from me on breezy days.

The only mixtape I have left from my high school days suddenly lost its growl, lounges around in sweatpants, and eats all the food in my fridge.

Life can be like that.

Once you start coloring outside the lines of simple yes and no questions, anything can happen.

I sometimes mistake purgatory for paradise.

Once wore a colored contact in my third eye, believing I’d see the world in a new light.

At least all the remaining skeletons in my closet have been created equal.

They no longer shiver excessively at the thought of being left out too long in the light. 

What is the counterpoint to sorrow-torn tears?

A radio song in the key of uplift is a good place to start.

Or a flash mob of fireflies on a summer night.

A reveille of reverie ain’t bad.

Even better, better homes and gardens of happy hormones.

Gimme gimmes of sweet-love shimmy.

A Monday hello in its Sunday best.

A long-tressed sky with rainbow highlights.

When balled fists fire off right-ons instead of fights.

When the pursuit of happiness flips the script and runs after you.

When lush new romantics offer good riddance to old heartbreaks shaken, stirred, and poured over a future of optimistic ice. 

Enumeration

On any given day, I count the stairs I repeatedly climb at work, the number of billboards along Sunset Boulevard, and the number of bus benches on the east side of Western Boulevard.

I enumerate the counterfeit auras I’ve witnessed at highbrow Hollywood parties.

All the sleek red cars knifing in and out of traffic lanes on the 101.

I number the clouds reminding me of the faces of all the drunk college guys that have yelled for some bar band to play Free Bird.

I count the days we’ve ducked and weaved between raindrops of holy water and napalm.

All the times my love has held my heart like a lucky penny in her cupped hands, whispered a wish of forever happily-ever-afters before casting it into a fountain reflecting a moon that has lost count of all the times the romantic and the lost, the worriers and warriors have asked for the answer to a glittering wish to be placed upon their tongue.

Praise the taste of dreams come true.