Gypsies
your
words
only dreamt
of being gypsies they
lived on the borders
of your mouth
never venturing
from the neighborhood
of your thoughts
but your fingers'
sweet migration
populated my chest -
were armor piercing bullets
i bobbed and weaved
punch-drunk
and ran from sunlight like
a vampire.
3 am
and the footfalls
of heartbeats swallow
the silence
i lay
inside the imprint
in the mattress
in vain
insane
trying to wear your
body's memorization
so i can breathe again
the air has long ago
abandoned this place.
Requiem
#9
she
said she'd come
and
i know this time
will
be the balm for achings
to
baptize the savageness of my skin
in
her flesh-blues
to
bury and unearth myself
in
her warm sanctuary
bow
her moistened strings
til
her soul sings hymns
through
her mouth
and
longing to feel the rising of her south
i'll
join my negro-spirituals, prayers
and
field hollers
planting
my need
to
liberate life seed to meet
the
reaping of her coming/
i'll
punish her absentee days
and
costumed excuses
with
whiplashes of tongue baths/
to
vindicate dial-tone mirages
from
taunting receivers,
i'll
allow confession at the altar of my mouthpiece,
til
granting her pardon i
snow
a blizzard in july/
i'll
glimpse the green flame
of
her eyes between long eclipses
and
control the separation of her lips
through
the dividing of her thighs
though
she controls my soul
i'll
drown her lies in a tsunami of seed
attempting
a semblance of conversation
through
the beating and chanting of bodies because
we
don't talk anymore/
inside
idle words
and
minutes masqueraded,
we
wait -
to
fuck
and
addictively i clutch this
trying
to swallow a substitution
for
a mind stroked
intellect
provoked
without
feeling choked
until
she comes
i
won't breathe all the way
and
run the risk of marring the mojo
or
misquoting the mantra
of
praying and hoping
pacing
and groping at pocket change
that
won't change the pathway
of
irresistible clock hands
or
redirect the caravan of el trains
birthing
foreign matter
as
my eyes scatter
scanning
races of unfamiliar faces
searching
for two flashes
of
green flame to connect
and
hotwire my breath
with
emerald respiration
and
overripeness of fresh-fruit lips
spilling
sweet elixir of tongue
into
my starving mouth
because
she's coming!
she
said so!
she's
coming
and
this time she's for real/
and
it's ok for me to feel
all
my dreams of together
and
things will be better and we can move on
and
bygones will be bygones and
two
hours passed
my
feet stir
and
drag the sidewalk like
corpses
on strings -
a
"kick me" shadow glued to my heels
by
a bully sun/
i
swallow hard to keep my heart
from
falling out my lips
don
a ten ton mask of stone-face
to
dam the threatening flood from my eyes/
at
the intersection of noonday traffic rivers
a
"don't walk" sign's siren song
is
so sweet/
i
believe i'll walk the waters
like
Jesus.
(c)2004
Pranoto
 Sifted
through
uncertain armies
of
women fingers
i
am a kernel among men-grains
membranes
of windowpanes blemishing cocoon walls
everlasting
love letters disintegrating into drywall
like
bloodstains saturating
red
clay
a
carousel of world revolving
lifting
and falling
always
just beyond reach
as
i stand still as incarcerated time
the
odor of fossiled warfare
peppering
wide-open
nostrils' doorless doorways
a
brass ring of fire i once called sun jeering
like
a jackal at exposed hide
i
scoop the clay
penetrate
it with desperate teeth
suck
it hard and deep
swallow
it's oldness
fashion
earthy shoulders to kiss
terrestrial
ocher nipples
nightcrawler
lips and hourglass tongue
roll
naked in it's spread mud thighs
humping
long backbeats of blues
old
as the first soul that emerged
from
the bowels of mud
and
sang hymns to an adoring sky
until
bessie smith tattooed the truth with his favorite rib
into
his abyss of apple-ached belly
let
the air die inside
let
fire of syllables
consume
the ghosts in pyres of verses.
spread
ashes like prayer shadows across the
embattled
skin of lake michigan.
let
love songs bleed and indict.
let
el trains turn curved corners
that
echo her hips
and
scream her names for the billionth time
through
raw-throated rails
for
only God and me to hear
let
a mocking wind braid bruised locs
with
a willow's tendrils and
weep
wasted days into my skull
let
the cold days gray to an indigo tomb
and
the moon glow white with frozen hope
let
me close my eyes
still
my heart
and
breathe again.
Numb
we
sift
through
ashes
until
our fingers
find
signs
of life
discarded
heartbeats
in coma
needing
kiss-breath to
resuscitate
we
walk
where
there is no ground
fear
spheres of
completed
mirror reflections
holding
the colors
of
mistakes
like
collection plates
filled
with dead telephones
dented
dreams
and
hopes swinging as
strange
fruit from
familiar
nooses
i
need a
baptism
ice
water to shock
skin
back to innocence
bury
scars
under
living billows
of
H2O
i
left my heart between
the
thighs of a woman
my
breath is trapped
in
her lungs/
she
keeps my songs
locked
in
a pocketbook
covered
in a dust trenchcoat
fathoms
deep
under
the bed/
my
dreams are her
earrings
she
removes them when she sleeps/
i
live only
when
she dreams
of
me.
(c)2004
Pranoto
Rest
even
when the sun sags on the hips of horizon,
she
wears shades 'cause
she
never sees her twilight eyes
cappuccino
suns rising,
painting
skies of hue-less heartbeats dayglo.
she
don't look like tisha campbell,
but
could be sister to minnie or erykah.
she
looks like mother of 2 men
and
she looks like a broken mold
world-weary
survivor of blind men and
daddies
tappin' time to dead beats,
but
she abides,
spills
soft syllable torrents from her tongue like intelligent armies
quenching
ears I never knew thirsted
until
i saw her mouth autograph air.
she
looks like the pretty mama her daddy dissolved into,
chocolate
and musical,
coaxing
a butterscotch baby to breathe.
daddy
used to croon sweet tenor and pluck his guitar,
maybe
that's why she's drawn to a man who sings,
or
why she echoes the familiar curve of my guitar
when
her waist's smallness pours itself into my palms;
and
i am suspended animation.
i
am the ultimate guitarist.
i
am open and i am filled.
i
am a heart slowed and checkin' out her scene,
and
she (lookin' like the missin' part of my hip) says,
"my
lips are too damn big!"
and
makes me burn to brush against their plush cushions,
and
use them as disciples that match the movement
of
mine as i whisper her name,
and
show her my kisses are prayers for repetition
as
i exist in the wishing to claim
her
mouth as my holy grail.
and
when an albino moon has enslaved the black skin of sky
and
gifted it deep blues,
i
reach to her,
brush
her cheek with the backs of fingers
as
i remove her shades.
she
frowns slightly and magnificently
and
bonfires bloom in my chest.
people
call her “woman”
but
i call her "rest."
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