On a discovery of love.

1.
Love
I waited for you to come.
You came in the sweaty night.
sweat wiped off by an
old hankie.
The moon changing shape
and color on its whimsy.
Until it finally settles
on African bright orange,
so juicy I could eat it.
Maybe tonight
I'll fly up and swim in its juice.
No cheesy moon for me,
and my dreams of love
will be original,
if I have anything to say
about it.

2.
Love
I waited again.
You came in the dew drop morning.
The sun muffled by clouds
sending its warmth in small post.
Coaxing the birds
out of hiding
for a morning show
to an audience of me.
I held my heart to the birds
on hands and knees,
bowing to their creative forms,
and they flew it up to the sun for me.
For I am Icarus this morning,
and my wings have melted.

3.
Love
Again, I waited.
You sent Gabriel to me.
The horrendous glory
of this sacred celestial
terrifying my pagan heart completely.
I am a heretic,
trying to build my own wings.
So sure and proud,
bound to fly away,
and escape my prison with the birds,
but I have failed
and I crouch in defeat
under the majesty of the Ethiopian trees.
Afraid that they will destroy me
in their superiority.
But Gabriel comes,
touches my heartless body,
for I have sold that at the last,
and where his hands
had been I discovered
new wings.

Tap, Tap
See me? I have a baby
and no shoes.
Shoeless feet
covered in frozen mud,
and you are rich with money
and everybody is poor,
in one way or another.
Spare me.
My angry stomach calls
to your pale skin.
I am humble enough to be
a spectacle.
I will take your charity,
I can't afford pride
like you can.

Gloria

"I'm sad," her eyes said.
I haven't a bed
I haven't some food
I haven't a shoulder
of someone older
I haven't a tear.
What a strange child you are
Gloria dear.

"I'm sad," I said,
You haven't a friend
This I can mend, I swear.
Sit on my lap,
my arms close the gap
and my voice sings
"Gloria" in your ear.

Crouching, crouching low
wrinkles making happy trails
over her hills and valleys.

Every step breathes small pains
of an age of cutting the ground.
The bright night of an african moon,
sings her to sleep
as it has done for decades
and in the morning,
Sunday morning,
She puts on her best
and sings the morning awake
blissfully out of key.

Deep Children

You strain me,
deep children of 2AM
with your holy clothes.
Well, holey clothes of course.
On the blood mud soil of this holy ground
you are gods among men.
The sinews of your legs,
under your charcoal sheets
push the plow of yesterday,
hard for life.

When I stood,
ugly in comparison,
white as a moonbeam
on your hallowed ground
I remembered,
that my love would ask me
from outside my safe place in his arms,
why you were black.

I will tell him that the
dark punishing sun of the
African sky,
threw some clay into the kiln,
and burnt your stately shapes.
It charred your skin dark
and you,
sitting dear in your brown toothed ignorance
subconsciously tell me through your eyes,
that I am the blood soil under your feet,
and your sweating, rotting ways
may always or sometimes
stand chuckling knowingly over mine.