I can’t thank you enough for being audience to this process. I can’t thank you enough for being such a supportive community. I can’t thank you enough for your writing. Your participation has helped me get through this.

And i wish we ended on a bigger note. But this is just me having to walk over two bridges in the last week. Oh well. I didn’t plan it– poetry happens.

And here’s my lesson. Poetry does happen. Every day. Whether you catch it or not.

But much love and gigantic thanks to you all. Holla

****

Footbridge Over The Freeway

the expressway
bends
like the elbow of a river

the sound of cars
in flow
harmonizes into the migration

of water myriad
multicolored
cells the arterial coming

and going of strangers
united
by the need to be in transit

to move
and
keep moving

beneath the
smoky
blue shelf of passing clouds

This is so first draft its practically notes. I was thinking about backyards from my childhood and began writing what i remembered. This is me reassembling notes into a ‘poem’, but here it feels very undercooked. Like there’s more to be said and explored. Initially, I began writing just what my memory showed me, but my father is tied into my imagery of the backyard. Maybe he’s what needs to be written about. Yet I’ve been here before and want to avoid rewriting the same poem.

I broke this into halves because it forced its way into two separate directions. Landscape, and my father in the landscape. I’m not sure what this will settle into, but there’s much here. Until I get it together, here’s the raw feed:

****

My father, ordained by gasoline
Kept the backyard an auto morgue.
Its white sand floor would grow nothing, wild:
Pinwheels of oil,
Weeds webbing outward from the broken
Walkway in knit doilies.
Cars would growl ferocious
Upon being jumpstarted back to life
beneath the lightning whip of my father’s wrench
Cumulous ghosts of black and gray
would rise from the cars exhaust
and scream; born again sanctified.
New life comes loud and dirty in the backyard

II.
The backyard, overseen by
a stately walnut tree
becoming tropic and vocal in storms.
The simmering of soil in rain
The drunken dance of trees
in wind; fruit trees at the perimeter
of the vegetable garden: apricot,
cherry, plum. Low arches
in labor with fist sized fruit.
Orchids in clay pots
remaining beautiful despite the contempt
of the water hose.
rose bushes maintaining affairs
with archectural spiders,
snapping flies open like grown men would
beers.

From standing at the Bart station waiting for my bus, I saw her again. Not Her. But a woman I went to school with. the poem tells the rest.

****
For Old Times Sake

I have promised not to know you

To not remember how beautiful you were.
In my yearbook from jr. high
You resembled janet Jackson
Before Nasty, after Good Times

But you approach me now
In loose pajama pants
A jean jacket I’ve known for years
Your eyes made small by blackened mascara
What have you seen
Has made you black your own eyes out?
Hair as thick as it was years ago
Tied into rope and held by bobby pins

You approach me,
I hold your name quiet as a promise

You ask if I have a dollar
And everything I have opens for you

I want to ask: how did you get here
And why are separated
By the coins piled like seeds in my palm

I pour the silver into your hand
It is the closest we’ve been
In 25 years. I want to ask:
Have you seen Her? Have
you run into him

But I have promised
Not to know you.

You take what is offered
Trade the wrinkled receipt
Of a thank you
For the money
and for keeping my memories
To myself

Mouthpiece. I keep thinking about the Puerto Rican cat who used to work at the bakery down the street from my office –who had a body like a rhino and would holla at anybody passing by –and tell me you got to have your mouthpiece in order. I am continually rendered dumb in the presence of beauty. There were two this past weekend where I wish my mouthpiece was in order. For both the sister I ran into Friday whom I struggled to be present for, and I dropped the ball since I never get to play ball… And for the sister I knelt before Sunday, leaving me wondering: how exactly do I do this? Why is my mind just quiet and empty right now? I’m supposed to be a poet, right? I’m supposed to just freestyle at the drop of a mic, right? Oh Shut up, James: get to the poem…

***

how to be reborn under your fingertips

what happens between us
from this mesa depends upon
how much fire you can hold in your hands.
there is light enough for both of us in your fingertips.
watch the sunrise from the violet you planted within my heart.
behind the sheer nightgown of your eyes
there are emotional continents yet unexplored,
depths that remain black and mysterious
yet warm and velvety as a womb.
in oceanic depths two shadows intertwine
seduced by the sugars
beneath the peel
they remain poised together
like a flower drinking light.
i am comforted to know this finding
happens in secret
all the time

Two Things Before You Read Todays’ Poem:

1) On this last mile of 30 poems, 30 days its getting rough. Its like I’ve been clearing out my subconscious all month and now there’s little left.

This morning, I tried writing a prayer. Consider this:

my heart lifts this petition to your mercies divine father.
I have designed my own hell
large enough to fit me.
Bless me to remain present; to no longer deny myself
the peace and love i pray to you daily.
this custom made hell is a prison
yet you are warden and overseer awaiting my decision
to leave. May your angels descend and undress
me of my false identity; my imagined self
May your mercies and love be as a light
leading me from darkness
may your love embrace me

I scribbled that out at breakfast and was like, Ok… Ok… Then I get to the office, but still not feeling it. I consider for a while writing a sonnet but my brain won’t let me easily rhyme and plus I gotta work… hmph.

2) I’ve been getting support from folks and transmitting the disease of poetry to others! A while back, after my experiment with rhyming ‘tion’ words, I got the following email. I’ll leave it anonymous in case the person would be embarrassed, though they shouldn’t be. Consider this submission from, let’s say, Pookie X

Can you work with this? I was playing around with the I words. I didn’t really know where I was going with it:

my image illustrates an inimical illusion
it’s indefinitely involved, yet
inapt or even inferior,
maybe if I’m indifferent I’ll improve
the investments that I imagine…
could they be improvident
Maybe I’ll improvise for infinity and beyond and
with every injury… I’ll
improve those impure intentions
ignore those inadequacies
no longer inherit intimidation
insinuate the inferential
incorporate intelligence, that’s it.
inaugurate inspiration,
and be for life is imperfect.

So Thinking of the prayer and this email, I combed over both. I wanted to make a sonnet, but like I said, I’m starting to wear out…

***

life is imperfect but your love is eternal
my heart lifts this petition to your table of mercy
my illustrated illusion, my inept inferiorities
have helped me custom design my own hell
maybe i’m indifferent to my imagined investments;
in family, in love, in a warm spring that never buds.
I inherited inadequacies for infinity and beyond and with every injury
I heal from the light of your divine love.
improve these impure intentions — inaugurate inspiration
within me. may your angels undress me of my false identity,
my imagined self. Bless me to remain present in your light.

It wasn’t until days later I sat with my brother Steve and he told me some deleted scenes that happened tequila night last week. I was like: Are you serious? I hadn’t really let Ig’nant James out of the box before, but whoomp! there he was in the sunset district representing for the ancestors. When I asked his girlfriend if she could double check her backseat and she came back empty handed I realized exactly what happened to that book.

I’m screwing around a little with the facts, naturally. I mean, she didn’t say that Exactly, but that was the point, you know? And yeah, my grandfather was a baptist preacher, and yeah he would get loose and bring out the handkerchief, but it wasn’t That kind of church, you know. Its just me telling the story. Follow the maxim: tarzan would be a lot different if it was told from the perspective of the lion.

***

Nobody Wants To Hear What God Has To Say About Love

i lost my notebook talking shit
thru the ventriliquism of tequila!!
The bottle lost its virginity
to my anxious, sober fingers
and a right-handed knife
used left-handed causing
folks to run screaming from
the kitchen

Glasses and glasses
More fire than water
especially the round I made.
The worm turned in my subconscious!
I was a puppet to circumstance
my hands poltergeists haunting
women nearest the jukebox
as we stare into its face
awaiting it to tell our future
…hopefully something sticky
and nasty and without The Jonas Bros.
thank you very much.

And there were more shots to be had at the bar
sending my memory into oblivion
and women to shout rainbows into the street.

I thought my notebook
slithered out of my back pocket
while in the backseat of her car.
I was with my brother Stephen and his girl-
friend — whom I still barely know–
when out of nowhere
my baptist preacher grandfather
came back down to earth
to tell these young people about Love
Through Me!! Hail Glory!!
And I began speaking in tongue
like the old days, snake throwing days,
preaching about Love
and how Love was brought down
from the mountaintop! God said:
Let it rain on ‘em!!!
And just when I brought out the white
handkerchief and found my rhythm
the congregation turns to me
from the passenger seat, says:
Would you shut the fuck up!!

But I can’t!!

Having been moved by the spirits
Wave upon wave crashes
until Stephen says:
you wanna take this shit outside
But I’m already outside.
Someone said bring it and its here already!
Night is alive around me like moth wings
I’m first in the ring –and first on the ground
I look up– heaven glows in a license plate
and God is playing the beat
from I Ain’t No Joke on my forehead
until
God’s girlfriend strolls to the back of the car
arms folded momma tight
and she brings it harder!
The Lord’s old woman said:
If both you boys don’t get in the car
right now and promise to shut the hell up
I’mma leave yawl monkey asses
here in the street!

Where did that come from?
She was such a nice girl before…

Steve has a body like a diesel tow truck
and he hauls me off the ground
And it was here where my notebook
fell loose from my pocket…

which was probably for the best.
Nobody would have anything else to say
for the rest of the ride home
So I quietly gave myself an exorcism
grandpaw packed the truck and hauled out.
Nobody wants to hear about Love right now..

There is no poetry today. I left a letter of resignation
on the fridge for my mother; “thanks for the buscuits,

but I won’t be back for your gravy.” I cursed and nearly
started a fight over a game of chess, later fondly recalling

the night I committed suicide on stage and how that night’s band
cleared the room when the vocalist gave himself a haircut

with a cigarette lighter. I saw a reporter standing on the corner
in the dark, silently holding a microphone, waiting for news to find her.

I talked with a woman on Bart who name checked Imitation of Life
and Terminator in nearly in the same sentence.

Imagined my heart pulse an integrated sun and moon
mandala at the gym; noted my iPod offered ‘Laid’ by James

then by ‘You Got What You Wanted’ by Ike and Tina
and was thankful for the optimistic message.

Heard my supervisor use the phrase, ‘tiny little tweakers’
and imagined a tribe of cracked out munchkins

offering blowjobs on a half smoked yellow brick road.
Am looking, searching, seeking, finding… No Poetry Today.

***
If the name Afrika Bambaataa doesn’t mean anything to you, the reference in the last line doesn’t either.

Sigh. And I was doing so well… (though I do like the words at the line breaks…)I tried writing an earth day poem: F*** The Earth! That’s far as i got, it wouldn’t gell. Had an awesome night, though– without any alcohol or, um, anything else. Dare I say, poetry wise, I fared better last Friday when I was slightly hungover. Think I solved the mystery to where that notebook fell.

I’d been wanting to write a sestina but hadn’t found six words. Then, on the video monitor at the deli, I saw this headline: Monkey Protects Pet Kitten From Chicken.

I mean, come on.

I wanted to only use those words, but found it easier to incorporate ‘freedom’ and ‘power’.

***

Re:Evolution

Prove evolution by looking at this monkey.
How tender he is of his small pet.
Clutched between knees he shields his kitten
Who, like all cats, prefers freedom
To chains. But here’s a villainous chicken
Ignorant of sharing, curious, drunk with power.

Chest heaved—feet in goosestep—this chicken
Hasn’t’ the sense to know how to operate a kitten
Is he aroused or just jealous of the monkey?
Maybe this is a struggle for power…
It’s a quandary about slavery vs. freedom
A war in the yard between pets, over pets!!

Have you ever pecked irony, chicken?
Your bossy bird-brain is about power.
Your strut says: Fuck you, Monkey!
I’m prettier than you! I deserve a pet!!
But there’s no opposable thumb to hold your kitten…
Could you even Google the word ‘freedom’?

Who here gives voice to the kitten?
Chained and slave to a monkey…
What arrangement does she have with the chicken?
Has this kitten known a moments peace or freedom?
Or is it only a prison yard pet
Used as currency to insecurities power?

I project shame on the face of the kitten
As should you. No contracts have this monkey.
I don’t care how much was paid by the chicken.
This is about equal rights of all pets
No living thing should be abused by power
Even a sex slave kitten should taste freedom.

Its best for humanity if we free the kitten.
Even if she’s madly in love with the chicken
Cats don’t know love—they know freedom!
They grow fat on their imagined power.
But he must not procreate with that monkey
And we must remind them all they’re just PETS!!

The power drunk chicken approaches. The monkey yanks the kittens’
chain. Everything we know of freedom is now in the hands of our pets.Animals Live In Sin– Film at 11

Its been a long time since I’ve had a dream I’ve carried into consciousness. There were three major set pieces I remembered. In writing it out, I’ve added a couple of things for clarity and to underscore The Point (For myself, perhaps you’ll see something different), but am remaining in the imagery of what the dream gave me.

In a workshop years ago, I was advised to never alert the audience as to the poem being a ‘dream’. It shouldn’t matter. The poem is just the poem, the images and its story. But with the Dirty Thirty Project I’ve chosen to let you in the on the backstory. Just so you know..

***

Bus lines have problematic routes.
I take one which enters a factory
through the narrow doorway
of a cyclone fence
then down a steep hill.

Outside the bus I see
there is no incline
or stairs. It was just
a five foot drop to the ground.

I scream at the driver
pointing to the parked
bus, & scarred wall:
Why are we doing this??
And leave the tour
for a stroll financial
district buildings–
mountains of granite & glass
all mirrored from misting rain

I walk thru the courtyard
with people in suits like mourners.
Back at my house, I’m late for a party.
My best friend is playing my role
having bonded with relatives
even I haven’t met
–and he’s discovered a family secret:
Want me to show you who hates you the most?
And he just stares at me
because we both know who it is.

Uniformed schoolgirls pass by our porch
to gang sell us dolls, badges, melted candy.
The tribe of them, mid-sale, change their minds
and push on. The streets shadow with clouds.
Brick walls grow wild from the ground.
My relatives and the friend playing me
share a secret handshake.
Then he turns to me, says:
I should have packed that bike for you.
Can you ride?
They say you never forget.
He says: I mean a motorcycle.

And the town, the brick, the schoolgirls
fall away into farmland
endless fields growing nothing.
My friend playing me stands
on the porch of the only house here
directing me to start it, telling me
how to ride.

Beneath me the ground
has been stirred.
Tan grasses pose between
soft clumps of brown sugar earth.

Want to know who hates
you more than yourself? He asks
from the doorway.
Nobody.

I ride. Throttle up so fast my chest
collapses. The horizon,
the vacant acres, dissolve
to rough lines
how a cartoonist might sketch
a tornado or thoughts
in confusion.

I sat at the back of the bus yesterday– for old times sake– and, as usual, found it carpeted with sunflower seeds. No sooner than I acknowledged that, I looked up and saw this woman standing in the middle of the street talking on a cellphone. Both of those things combined into one really awesome (and short!!) poem….

which i promptly lost last night somewhere between the bar and the car ride home. Damn that tequila!! I mean, it was good– but damn! I remember having my notebook in my back pocket while holding this filipina sistah’s hair back while she did her thing in the street. But past that… oh I give up, I don’t remember…

So what I tried to do is recreate that piece here. Recreating something lost is always hard because you try to rewrite from memory instead of staying on the imagery that struck you in the first place. During my hazy commute this morning, I thought about her, the sunflower seeds, her gold flip flops and got close, but naturally, this will never be as awesome as the original draft.

***

ghetto siren stands sentry
on an empty street corner
her feet aflame in gold flip flops
one hand on hippo sized hips, elbow akimbo
the other holding a .38 caliber cellphone
to her ear and mouth, barking directions
like she held hostages. flakes of sunflower
seeds drip transcription from her lips in undigested letters
scattering like dead leaves among brazil nut
toes, curled in opposition of orgasm.
Around her, the street pauses, obeys.