Pier Wright's art (this verse's muse)

summer,
like bright colors unpainted
on my friend’s palette,
waits to be swallowed watermelon whole—

dripping, fruity, full of seeds.

friend ship

my floating soul
you–its dragging anchor–you
ignore me bobbing overhead.
A glance. A glimpse. A ghost. And gone.

(Please come up for air. It’s just me.
inflated with hopeless love.

No more a threat
than a happy rubber raft.)

2.

lost at sea

ha! i cut the rope. hope be damned, be drowned
i’m moving on
oh lively sound//winds, waves.
clouds pass fast
like dreams that, taking a whole night long, are lost
a moment after dawn.

damn the dawn, the light of day.
i see my way. i see me going
wayward.
blown about unleashed, unloved,

blown over, face down. waylaid by the tide,
a glimpse of you, undersea,
holding out your hand (sweet hope)
but not to me.

A Moment of Silence for John Ross.

Hell no.

Speak up.

Yell out.

Shout over.

Proclaim.

Demand.

Insist.

Make some kind of/any kind of

Noise.

Make it Loud.

Blast John’s words of revolution with a bullhorn.

Write them BIG in black ink.

Type them bold on your keyboard.

Spray them on city walls in blood-red paint.

Rock’em on the fuckin’ mic.

Live them loudly

in your every day.

Push, keep pushing.

Stand, keep standing.

Resist, keep resisting.

Keep his dream alive.

With every dream you dream,

dream of revolution.

Dream that this nightmare of a world

wakes up,

rubs its formerly-blinded eyes

and sees to celebrate all

life and

one life,

the life

of John Ross.

A pocket full of why

Four and twenty black drones

Naked in the sky

When the sky was falling

The bombs began to sing

“Was that not a dainty death
to set before the king?”

we dancing Death

we dancing Death at the end of the world.

no not a slow dance—

a go go go dance.

frenetic and senseless.

a bought and sold dance.

over the counter and under the table.

Wheeled and dealt, bullshitted, targeted, marketed

by prescription and by-line;

bi-partisan timelines track profits, build skylines.

we dancing Death at the end of the world.

no not a dull dance

a full dance, a so full that

we can’t stop dance.

apoplectic and tenseless.

a forgetting the past dance, disregarding the future.

‘til Earth striking back takes back, the night—

all of its glorious darkness—

puts out the light, electric, human.

Skip to my Lou.

Skip to my Lou, my darling.

Kaleidoscope,

colliding hopes,

What I see is truth, but hold–

What you see is just as bright

Being we’re both from the light.

Look the colors’ patterns toss

image of an empty cross.

My light tells me I am good,

as witnessed by these boards of wood.

Hand it here; the pieces shift.

I see the dessert sands adrift.

Mohammed feeds the hungry man,

then speaks to me of Abraham.

Kaleidoscope,

colliding hopes,

What I see is truth, but hold–

What you see is just as bright

Being we’re both from the light.

Abraham, Esther, Moses, too!

All ancestors of the Jew.

My prophets! Their laws I keep.

What they sowed–so shall I reap

Sowing, reaping, Ying and Yang?

In this life and others—hang
the balance of my karma. Om.

The sound of love brings me home.

Kaleidoscope,

colliding hopes,

What I see is truth, but hold–

What you see is just as bright

Being we’re both from the light.

Home–is where the raven flies

across the prairie’s wide blue skies.

Great Spirit’s totems speak to me

in words of smoke and mystery.

That spirit in the plants and trees,

That calls to us on each day’s breeze,

Love heals our bodies–our souls rejoice

to hear the Universe give voice.

Kaleidoscope,

colliding hopes,

What I see is truth, but hold–

What you see is just as bright

Being we’re all from the light.