
Category: festivities

she kept her honor

so he took her like an animal
but my father’s ghost wept
so she went to the men
like a good American
good people don’t want to believe
in visionaries good or bad
especially when you have red clay mud
starved stabbed scabbed over and over
on your grandmother’s dress from being raped just like her
from ft. Sumter to Wounded Knee
he’d never seen that color red come out of a living fertility statue
my veil is torn
the dog is dead
the natives have resumed their drumbeat
Ha!! Me, too…
Poof* Take MY water

this 30th of May
even the fireworks
sound tired
sunlit green leaves flicker over
a cincinnati restaurant patio
sunday brunch amongst contemporaries
a skyline mural
of an astronaut
looking to the stars
above our heads
downtown buildings
turning toward the sun
glistening libations
sweatily klinking together
a toast made to the ending war
fully vaccinated folks
introducing themselves as such
shaking hands
faces aglow with possibility
shoulders swaying
to kettle drum music
masks off gently
seeing smiles
for the first time in a year
our festive nature quickening
heartbeats once acoustic
have gone electric
the gentleman at the table beside us explaining
upon reserving his table
he’d requested a framed picture of Bill Murray and a congratulations card for “Jeff”
to await his party upon arrival at their table
there is no Jeff of course
restaurants who agree to accommodate his request
are how he chooses where to dine
when traveling out of town
our laughter turning on
theatre marquee lights
no one interested in food
it’s spring
the whole city has tickets to a Redlegs game
we have survived the plague
everyone is tired of eating
tired of fearing
tired of dying
yet everyone
seems ready to fuck
ATM
They
will sell you
candy cigarettes,
insulin,
Camel Wides,
chemotherapy,
God,
nicotine patches,
life insurance,
and a bronze casket
all
in one lifetime.
in death
our ribs remain skyward
like hands
cast to heaven
in prayer
last night
shots rang out
slicing August’s midnight miasma
a quivering queen city listened
as Cherokee bells
echoed over cobblestones
black swan feathers topping lost hopes
filling horse-drawn funeral carriages
eighteen shot
four dead
blood pooling at the base
seven screaming hills
four shootings in Cincinnati
ninety fatal minutes
national news coverage
backlit red images
of our violent infection
suffer do we
these slings & arrows
whispering sacred prayers
to a god unlistening
please make
every bullet fired
explode into a spray
of evening primroses