urbansonnets

The soft contour of light lifts the sheer curtain

That rests behind the closed window, begging for release;

Likewise, the new moon, sits obscure beneath the clouds –

Hidden from view but plenipotent in its expanse:

I walked around the block a thousand times,

Looking for my moon, so fresh and renewed,

And though I never found it, I still reviewed

The contours of my mind for something grand:

And I found it, I think, in the cold expanse

Of wintry air as it undoes itself for this cycle –

Hibernal forces retreat, and with them the message

Of a cryptic, cold life-force, swept beneath the rug:

Oh, my measured voice, and my floppy tongue

Combine to reassure me of my presence of mind!

Of my presence of voice, as style and power!

Of my presence of present, in the life of my kind:

From America to America, I scan and span;

I release and unleash, I am and I ain’t;

The very thought of surprise catches me off-guard

I am what I am, though you sing when I can’t:

What does that mean: that I am lesser?

Somehow your movement seems to reflect mine

Even as it rejects it – Is that by design?

Or are you just a fury in the form of a mind?

Mine is a calliopean project – I speak for those masses

Unmassed and unrefined, constricted and conscripted

To a bleary, bleak-eyed survival spent

In watch for an image never depicted.

I declaim with that scene on the tip of my tongue

–please give me the vision to lace words together,

To piece together the puzzle, string out the darts

Into artilleries of lights, a cavalry of letters:

Pollen redounds and re-infects the air,

As annoying thoughts repinge in my sight:

I can hear them, it seems, without respite,

And I’ll describe them out of hope that someone else can see them:

I see a level playing field between the two mountainous

Spaces, and I’m lying in the dirt so fertile

As a nymph or a muse or a dime approaches

And tells me the news, my news, our future,

As I project onto her all my fantasies:

Her eyes are wondrous, the color I can’t say

Her skin so creamy, the complexion perplexing

Her hair natural-like, though the texture eludes me

Her words dagger-like though eluding and vexing:

She configures inside the power of passive persuasion –

Not passive in a sense of an absence of action,

But rather a passivity of encouragement

For my diplomatic soul, overly given to reflection:

No n-words were dropped, no other curses either –

This was fresh discourse in the purest of settings –

And she pointed me towards a house,

And said it was mine, god willing and letting:

She gave me no name, but I call her my Luz,

The duchess/conductrix traducing my doubts

Into channels of courage, serpentinely supreme

As they wind and combine like a skein of asps:

What a chance, what a change! What a life,

And I aim to make meaning from the sight

I was granted:

Ten years ago, I was next to nothing:

A little “urban” kid with a love for words,

But a mistrust of meaning – which I didn’t understand

At the time –and status, which is stasis:

I entered the flocks of collegiate seekers,

With no chip on my shoulder but one on my mind –

I think this is how I’ll become a seer:

My tongue firmly in cheek, like a warhead,

I spat hot fire and sweetness in turns –

And I learned that I was marvelous

And evil – which I didn’t understand

At the time –and that status, which is stasis, is my static target:

I saw seasons turn over,

And I sat on the dewy grass

With magnates of the future

And felt no fear

And I knocked glasses over onto

Concrete floors,

And learned to take advantage of time

While it’s here:

And then, there was a blankness – dare I say, a blackness –

A realization that I was evil, if only for seeing

And feeling and saying that mediocrity

In classes cuts “meaning” to fragments:

Parejo? Uppity n-word?

I think it’s worse than that

I am the real tun-tun, and it’s never loony:

The moon is my goddess, and I her servant

Which means that my levels, crescent and abate;

Wax, wane; ebb, flow;

I am truly as high or as low

As my own instincts tell me to go:

In a world of straight lines and points,

I’m a gradient. I observe to absorb

All points in my mind.

I confuse the truth and the lies

So that we all refine

The stories that we repeat,

The destinies we repair to:

Ten years later, I stroll around to look at the stars:

I’m at the Mid-heaven, I guess,

Saturn looms over my virginal mistress –

I mean, duchess – with much insistence:

My future is far-reaching, but it isn’t far

From my grasp – It’s just a matter of time

Before the world is yours, and your world is mine:

The new moon is there, but it’s stuck in the clouds-

Plenipotentiary if not full, I can “see” it inside

I am pure now, no more evil than an empty glare,

Or an eye behind sunglasses,

Despite the fact that

You don’t see what I see –

And that you can’t.