urbansonnets

I get sad when I write; the pen tears up
The page, like a stage for strict tap dancers
Sweating across the boards, their black ears up
With airs down like at-rest necromancers:
The movement is cursive, each heel kicks dust
And traces a line across the surface
Of that ground that’s the page. I really must
Stop trying to mean it in this first age:
That is, the time after freedom. Face-time
When my inner maroon seizes outer
Space for itself – technically, a race crime
But a human right. Hi haters, doubters!
I pour out libation in these stanzas
And join the deep ranks of negromancers.

Bottles, bottles, bottles all on the floor
Add a fourth bottle and you have the score
Two bottles of water, both primed to pour
Into the parchéd mouth, sweet speech’s door:
One bottle is red, two bottles are clear
One bottle is black, and its cap is red
A howling coyote, framed by the sphere
of a full moon, brilliant and overfed:
My favorite bottle is hot sauce, salsa
Picante. It burns my tongue evenly
No matter which tongue, a flavor balsa
Buoying flavorless foods to set them free:
I have a fifth bottle I failed to mention
It bottles my dreams – an endless detention.

Just know that sometimes failure is okay
A ball that’s dropped does not shatter like glass
Or explode like light to begin the day
It rebounds with aplomb, and hexes pass
Whether you’re late to work or missed the bus
Circumstance must prove more potent than you
For she serves unto Time, no lip or fuss
And will outlast it all, from dust to dew
Let the moment fly, that fugitive Time
On the run from its own mortality
The servant will usurp her master’s crime
Realizing its mortal finality
And  know that success is subject to Time
In the end all will fail but metered rhyme.

The dusty panels of this wooden floor
have seen more souls than a village curate
step across thresholds from fledgling to fate,
holding grounded feet as the mind did soar:
I sweep them with a broom to show them love,
clearing the fragments of another rainy day;
It is oft said: As below, so above –
as the heavens are swept, clouds shrink away:
Marian stance between the light and dark,
knowledge and ignorance across the plank
when the sea and sky are blackened waves; mark
it well in your mind, for the flesh must sink:
Into madness, into chaos, into
history we go; time’s brush paints so gentle, gentle.

Golden age sages write rhymes to the beat
of falling acorns, dropping and clopping
their steel-toe boots are off as the sun climbs
from Aurora’s terrace, steady mobbing:
It was a long night, filled with countless MC’s
all ringed in a cypher to please their gods
and patrons, invoking their names under trees
whose breadth was a blanket from the dark clouds:
It rained on the fields in silvery streams
as Luna shone, flashing her crooked smile;
the price of abundance was rainy dreams
and the liquid flows that they spit with style:
No fake MC’s, just the truest contenders
that knew only springs, not autumns or winters.

Café dude, don’t throw napkins on the floor
and then get up and shove more down your pants;
it’s uncouth and unsanitary, or
there’s little hope left in our divine dance:
Now I’m just laughing because people are
a bizarre bunch. I must include myself,
but I surely have never gone that far
as to treat my pants as a papershelf:
Noises, tics, perversions, twisted designs –
most shut them within, or hold them without,
but some, like weeds, exceed the paper’s lines,
waxing strong under sun in lieu of doubt:
There’s much admirable about such a state,
like the awkward thoughts it can generate.

Porcelain dolphin, elephant, white swan
in the curio cabinet, peaceful;
the white bell sits unrung; the heart unstrung
presidential plastic with heads unhung:
There’s an African queen of some stature,
and a tango, secretly its origins
the same; like a twisted rose with stem enraptured,
the dancers kick dust on hidden history:
There are unused glasses, unbroken plates;
the dolphin holds court with intelligent lips,
making sounds I don’t hear, evading ships
full of bobblehead men and their royal mistress:
Salt shaker, pepper shaker, drink shaker too
all to flavor the air with a dropsical dew.

I made a simple promise to myself,
that I would never leave my flag unfurled;
regardless of the dangers I incurred,
my truths would speak across the depths of space:
Forgive me the lack of patience as I write;
my mind is blank, and blackness is a blur
that lends itself to seizing with a stroke
of hand so swift like mice under the light:
There are sports and words that mean so little
to me, as I sit here and type away;
fast break and lay it in, and then defend;
the flow and counterflow of life and death:
The space is void of meaning and of thought,
as we chase after specters of good sense.

The path to love is paved with gray seashells
that prick the pilgrim’s feet as he wanders
with thoughts of sequined gowns and wedding bells;
behind him thugs stalk him as he ponders:
He has no sense his road and time will end –
the sharp paved road stretched out so endlessly;
his bride gets to the altar at a bend;
the flowers match her eyes so perfectly:
They stick him up with modern weaponry;
against his dreamy smile there’s no contest;
he vows to keep a strict fidelity,
and hollow-pointed bullets pierce his breast:
The ripe sunset makes sense of red and blue;
his view is dimmed before she says ‘I do.’