12/30 Miche

I don't let it show
not on my face
I hold it there just out of sight
in plain view
no one can see
what I don't want to show
they do anyway

this poetry thing
gets under your skin sometimes
an odd rash of rhyme and rhythm
coughing up a residue of words
people like that sometimes
it is a healing by tearing away
a stripping naked thing that never sleeps
it eats away and nourishes at the same time
it is a noisy lover and has no chill
it talks about everything and never blushes
points out the bruises calls them beautiful
a trophy of scars hanging on the walls
it comes too fast sometimes
and rarely wears protection
says it is clean even when it  is nasty

I have had so many babies I named poems
swaddled them in books that hang out in libraries
and she is always there lurking
assuring me I am never alone

26/30 Veridical

if we are to believe that the things we

hear are truer than the things we see

we have not evolved in all the ways we think

my eyes are my truest barometers they detect

the truth in seeing is believing

but this world has lost sight of vision

we are now to see and not believe the truth it's toungue

in our mouths begging for validation

if only there was such a thing as opend mouthed

honesty, just say what the thing is

own the bullets and the beatings

strike your chest say it was what you intended

say you are afraid 

say, you can't imagine a people so beat down

would never respond the same way you do

say, you don't trust that if they had the chance

they wouldn't sell you away from you family

wouldn't serve you blankets full of disease

wouldn't shoot you in the back

wouldn't starve your people, walk them off cliffs

say, you don't believe they wouldn't take

the land you stole back

mark you immigrant

demand you show your papers

demand you take your lady liberty and leave

say, you don't believe in middle passage promises

say, you don't believe they won't retaliate

your fear isn't really the people you stole from

in the form of land, life and freedom

your fear is that they are as inherently evil as you

have always been

and you can't imagine that they wouldn't 

do the same to you

10/30 Brume

the air is heavy today

so full of contidictions

and disconnected thought

I try my best to rise from it

to refuse the fog desperate to conceal 

the things we wish we could unsee

knowing the danger in that

we sit rooted to the spot

watching our right to life

dwindle with every trigger pull

if the air was more brume

maybe we wouldn't see the blue line

they cross as they claim victory

legal thug runners holding 

starter pistols aimed

not at the sky but at the

invisible visible targets painted

on our chests

our backs

our heads

I remember a time when 

officer friendly was more clear 

when he showed up in class

for career day taking a bite out

of crime these days he is more

officer questionable

like do I call when I need help

only to be chalk outline after you arrive

I knew a black boy once

who when asked what 

he wanted to be when he grew up

stood tall and proud said

officer of the law standing at attention

these days, though he never

thought it would be his career 

all he wants to be when he grows up

and the fog lifts

is alive