Slay Me

Love slays me. The sound of my baby girl saying “Daddy” slays me. Hate, ignorance, and racism slay me. Bill Hicks, bell hooks, and Booker T. Washington slay me. Ditto with violence and the soulful sounds of violins. John Bonham’s drums and the relentless beatbox of time marching forward. Rosa Parks and Joan of Arc. 3D-printable guns and the orange-skinned terrorist-in-chief that’s the real Agent Orange. MLK’s strength and dreams slay me. Those who dream of a dreamless future slay me. George Zimmerman and Robert Zimmerman. “Candle in the Wind”, “The Wind Cries Mary”, and winds that sound like the soft breathing of my true love when she sleeps slay me.

My City’s Angels

My city’s angels, all working-class sweat and millionaire smiles. Asphalt halos, wings as strong as barrio souls. A blood of excitation and impending doom runs through their tectonic-plate veins. They’re free-spirited and freeway-spined. Forged from the bloodied and beautified earth of Hollywood Hills and Chavez Ravine. My city’s angels walk across fire, across water. Speak the language of hustlers and heroes, saints and serial killers. By day, my city’s angels bear crucifixes. By night, they wield rosaries of bones and roses as they float high above a city whose twinkling lights resemble illuminated tombstones in a graveyard of the absolutely alive.

The Other Global Warming

Why can’t there be a global warming that melts chains of enslavement, warms the hearts of cold-eyed criminals, tans and darkens whites enough so they know what it’s like to live in the skin of another. Why can’t there be a global warming that evaporates hate, burns ignorance to a crisp. A global warming whose sun always looks on the bright side, acts as a mighty spotlight on the stage of life. A global warming that’s a freedom fighter, a love igniter, and self-aware enough to know that when the heat is on, I mean really on, it’s time to cool down.

Collect Call From Eternity

Don’t think of my heart as an old typewriter that hasn’t written a word in years. I’m just sitting here quietly waiting for Eternity to call. Lately, it’s been ringing me collect, expecting me to have all of life’s answers. I’ve only been able to tell it things like how if you wanna teach your misery to play music, start by chiseling your inner tombstones into trombones. Or how you shouldn’t store your most prized possessions in the cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Or how being drunk with love and drunk while pursuing love are two very different things. Don’t think of my heart as an old typewriter that hasn’t written a word in years. I’m just sitting here quietly waiting for Eternity to call.

The Moon in You

As I hold you in my arms you point to the summer night sky and repeat a word you recently learned from a bedtime story. “Moon,” you say. I give you a bubbly bounce. “That’s right. That is the moon.” You repeat the word. It sounds like a one-syllable prayer, a sweet celestial music harmonizing with the spinning of the spheres. Just then, you become lighter, brighter, like you could rise out of my arms and become one with the evening sky. Night’s clock sighs as it strikes the next moment. I feel us all getting a little older. I hold you a little more securely. As long as possible before the baby that is you grows beyond my reach and you become your own storybook moon.

For Melyda Corado and all the Others That Left Us Far Too Soon

The news headlines are bleeding as still another gunman brandishes wide-awake nightmares. Bullet songs cut the air, steal blood and breath from the innocent. So many lives lost from all this senseless violence. We count the body bags backwards from infinity. Yet again we’re shown how love’s alphabet is fragile, can be so easily scattered. Once you manage to pick up the stray letters, sometimes the only word left: heartbreak. The trick is to swallow the sorrow, yet somehow extract beauty and meaning. Today a kiss, tomorrow a tombstone.

When Addressing the Demander-In-Thief

The deep red dirt of my earth belly stepped on. My jukebox heart bashed in. We are measured for lynching rope neckties. Our bones made kindling for your bonfire furies. We are bullied, berated, families separated. You grab pussies, mock the disabled and marginalized. We are rubbed out by your tiki torch-wielding, sick-ass sycophants. Still, the starlight electricity in our eyes grows fiercer by the hour. Our resolve lights up the night. Your misery may have its way with us, but you’ll never kill our spirit.

What I Meant to Say

When I said it was a sunny day, what I meant to say was, it’s raining frogs. When I said it was quiet outside, what I meant to say was, isn’t that the sound of Nero’s fiddle? When I said, well, people are entitled to their opinions, what I meant to say was, in the Dictionary of Idiots I bet their names are the first ones mentioned. When I said everything will be OK, what I meant to say was, it looks like history is practicing its blindfolded, knife-throwing act again. When I said I do my best to look on the bright side of life, what I meant to say was, there are many times when my inner child should be named Dostoyevsky.

Graveyard in Your Heart

There’ll be days when politics will get you down. When climate change will frazzle you. When your job will undazzle you. Days when you keep rolling snake eyes on the metaphysical dice. When sinister and shadowy beings will lurk through the alleyways of your unconscious thoughts. When family, friends, and pets won’t even recognize you. When you swear you can feel the Grim Reaper’s cold breath on the back of your neck. But even if it feels like your days are weighed down by coffins, know the heaviness will lift. Don’t build a permanent graveyard in your heart.

When Eternity Speaks of These Days

What will she say about Democracy’s broken windows and battered walls? What will she say of its fashion choices; black, like every day was its own execution? Four wars and seven fears ago our abhorred gorefathers brought forth a declaration proclaiming the decimation of compassion, equality, and common sense. Every day, Doomdom knocks at the door of our conscience, wondering how we’ll respond. In times like these, may benevolence serve us well. May our strength of character prove mightier than lies. Silence, too, is an option. When in the face of loathsome acts we do or say nothing, our inactions can be as loud and obliterating as bombs.