+ Poets?

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Tonight we sang a million tongues together. I've seen Africa in summer, I know magic and this is it. Two poems for me? It's my dinner. We write one together, The Dust, B & me in a Mexican restaurant in the Mission, exquisite corpse-style, we write one line, the other writes the next and folds the first into hiding. The next writes a line and folds the one before and we pass it like this like a thread through conversation. Unveiling it's final poem and reading it into trio song, how beautiful our coded language. Let's write poems back and forth forever.

In real-people speak, this is a poem we wrote together. It was accidental beauty, not knowing what came before. Even the word gutter appears twice.

The Dust & Baraka wrote more poems for me. Dusty Rose said, "I was jealous, I wanted to write a poem for you" all shy-like the five year old in her stomping feet stubbornly. I hold them in my belly like good food. Home cooked. Baraka looked me in the eyes under street light outside a cafe and said, "I was wondering if we only existed in coded language. Once we talked about hip hop, I knew. Should I pretend I haven't read your blog about me?" There is friendship here beyond the words, but they hold us together, lift us up, brandish wings on our back. It sounds silly but it's true. Still, I have new poems for them about to exit me in a moment. We've committed to a series, to trading, to the amazing inspiration that passes from our brains to lips to fingers. Expect lots of poems here. Come join us.

Before the poems though, I quickly want to tell you about Emily Butterfly, the puppitista educator and her lovely song-bird voice and the good food we shared and the random friends that rolled through. I also want to show you some pictures. Here they are:
















Caits & Emily Butterfly, this photo is for Yarrow!




































Mural for King Dream, who was shot by a store owner while painting graffiti


















































The mural artist introduces himself!

















There is a comet in The Mission!





















Emily Butterfly & The Skeleton





















Yer one hot cookie!





















Wishing you love & hot cookies
















I'm serious!
















See, The Dust loves hot cookies!
















If you buy a pair of their drawers, you get a free cookie...
















The catch is you gotta pose for their wall

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The group exquisite corpse we wrote tonight:

who paints the signs in Mexican restaurant
of purple pastry in Livemore sunscapes
thunder leaves that fall hard
ground then cradles their veins and other insects
crawl into my sunset I'm crawling too
spiraling through the earth
to find your center
middle is false, though, the sky tells us this
through vines, through acid rain and pesticide
filter daylight
hold it inside your elbows, behind your knees
are ticklish and soft like melon
hard boiled detective in the afternoon
sleepy, hungover and waiting like a barometer
waiting under the gutter
for the rain, dirty tongues and sooty minds
gutter love and muck I smell of concrete
of confusion, my skin of grim
of digging and old men's beards
creaking floor boards
fire rings and a hidden tear drop
under your Havanna hat, the one with the feather that this whole city wears
roll me one for Cuba, I would live Cubana if I knew the way
cotton dress whispering summer
whispering let's not wait

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To Brooklyn
by Baraka Noel

We must find this cave
the hyberbole of your embrace
an artifact

the cinema of
silhouette by lamplight

the moons quiet coin
aching to be stolen

a laugh of broken glass
have I invented you?

ladle me onto your belly
campfire cradled in our palms

an alter built of awkward phrasing
in remembrance of flesh

my crooked tongue, king poetic
too much flavor
I'd wager
you're too Brooklyn for Williamsburg
where were you as I

walked beneath the dripping JMZ
and wondered where to sleep

I didn't get the call to come to Ghana
I would've gone

I'm gone now
stiff as a bowstring

resisting the pulse of you
the ache of my slow

nice guys finish last because
we let women come first

the first time

how honest do you want me to be?
we could play it cool

so cool

I spilled an iced tea on my trousers
you trip on your way to the bathroom
and shatter the mirror of a medicine cabinet

plug me into your electrical fire
spill me like grease across your page

sometimes I forget that
I'm an optimist shouting
into a tin can

so now I gaze as if your tongue answered
the riddle of my laughter

if this is a crush
how much weight must we place on affection

let's hang like sneakers
from telephone wire

find a broken window
and squat like pigeons

pilgrimage from a Christopher street
pier to remixed emcee lyrics

Greenwich Village is not in Brooklyn
neither are we

this afternoon you punctured my lungs
with your staple gun tongue

hold me like your attention
I'll rant beautiful gruesome

till you forget to listen
passing post-its in Coke bottles
across the unknown

where is your smell?

how did we stumble
to this alley way?

your king poetic wrapped
in brown stone
coastline to rooftop

will you curse
in regret of my masculine?
arms lifted like the suspension bridge

will you forget

this is what I have to offer

the humble flame
a trembling echo how I knelt
in prayer one sunday morning
hard as a bench, grinding my desire into hymnals
as word becomes flesh

the transubstantiation of of wine into ritual
an apple from my hand
may it leave you unsatisfied
there is still time for wanting

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Mama
by Dusty Rose

May I give you this
a flame
bursting into being
over and over inside an improvised
windshield

frayed hem
strings touching the floor
to remember the place
we'll take it with us
conversations that sink
beneath our hovering cuffs
and bathroom sink
that's better
than the dumpster in an alley
hold me
in your wrists
reach for me with your fingers
the night highway
dotted lines
and street lamps
train tracks and gravel
let's break
some rules

mama
may I open you
untie your boot strings
with my finger tip
I wished
on your unlit cigarette
to fall in love
again
I think you could whisper
winter into my throat
until my shoe strings freeze
is it cold
where you harvest your vibrations
and do you hear the crystals humming
I wasn't glued when you left

mama
may I lay my head in your lap
like an afghan
knit my skin to hold warmth
so you'll save me for the snow
I want
to hitchhike on your earlobes
lend me your taste buds
we'll name the citrus in The Mission
hold dark amber in our throats
at Grant and Push
because buffeted by tourists
we'll hear Chinatown's drums
like a tent zipper at 7am
put ourselves back together
lace our legs in a three armed race
write itchy tags and turtle necks with me
hold me inside woodchips
and when they bite my arches
when I want
drifting aimlessly past your sunflower lips
remember
you pierce me like a star thistle
I carve grooves in my skin
so when I crack
when my chest buckles
above the weight of my lungs
you'll know
I am not this checkerboard kitchen
not the parallel silverware drawer
I am the eggs
shivering, sweating in the fridge
riveted in my own skin
laced to your footprints

mama
may I give you this
coax the morning
dove from my throat
let it perch on your fingertips

sing me awake
call through this city mist
like sunrise
dangle me from the tip of your spine
let me give you this
a flame

I met you on the wrong coast
give me a story
tell me home
let's pull the sun
back across the sky
like a kite
tether it to a shore
and
remember

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(Editor's note: Yeah, I know.)

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