Open Incognito: Recent Episodes
4nna
personaleffects
searching for personas
personally affected
by personal effects
left with bones of those
searching opportunity
only to have their
promises unfulfilled
by coyotes who
took their money
and ran
leaving them dry
their faces erased
by the wind and sand
blowing
on a desert that
holds no forgiveness
only their bones with
a ring
a toothbrush
a doll
a photograph
waiting for their names
I gave my first word
Away to my mother
And it was filthy
She made me
Lock it out of the house
After washing my mouth
With Irish Spring
My tongue hated
The taste of clean
Holmes was a dropout with a dream
Took in more than she could handle
Promised a blood machine
But instead she gave a scandal
She fed on fragile, old, white men
Who showered her with money
When she was threatened with the pen
She blamed her ex-lover, Sunny
She denied the bait and switch
Claimed failure was not a crime
Let’s eat the rich
I bet they taste sublime
Seen together
With his butcher
Stumbling down
Milwaukee Street
A brown boy fled
His butcher’s bed
And when they found him
He was almost dead
On his feet
On his wrists were
Handcuffs dangling
His destiny set for
Later strangling
There could have been
A rescue
When he ran into
The men in blue
But his killer
Undercover
Claimed he was
His lover
And cops claimed
They had no clue
To discover
So they sent
The poor boy back
To slaughter
All because they believed
In Dahmer
Seen together
With his butcher
Stumbling down
Milwaukee Street
A brown boy fled
His butcher’s bed
And was never see whole again
She was just a roadside distraction
Tom picked up from some run down
Auto shop from the Valley of Ashes
Wishing she was a phoenix rising
From the fire as she
Burned with desire
For some real good breeding
And he really wanted to give it to her
Like he gave it to his wife
Because he liked his material
Girls
Lavishly in love
With luxury and pearls
Always needing
But rich boys don’t marry poor girls
Had she known she wouldn’t have ran into the street
Where she was swept off her feet
By a delicate Daisy
Driving like a demon in heat
With a speed to match all greed
Leaving her to bleed
Like crazy
On that road where she became
A different type of roadside distraction
Sometime in the year 864
A mountain spat
Blackening the forest floor
The sounds soaked deep
Where the darkness sat
Until they were heard no more
In that landscape of no escape
A sea of trees blossomed
Blooming with despair
Beneath a stone
A moan
A groan
A sigh
And flowing with the wind was
A lock of someone’s hair
Sometimes a rope
A vine
A cry
In this place the hopeless hope
To die
Sometime in the year 1886
A man jilted with love
Said farewell
Lost was the
Message in a bottle
Of Prozac
When prescription turned into
Manslaughter
In her manic state
Michelle Carter
Couldn’t read Coco’s
SOS
Believing death
the answer
To his distress
But all he needed was an
Ear not an end
Because he was afraid
Instead of throwing a lifeline
She sent him a text to
Get back in
the
F CK
And the generator was generous
That day in the truck.
Remember that time Atwood fleshed
Aunt Lydia Out
To be more than a monster molded by the patriarch
Beyond the Handmaid’s Tale ?
Was Becka’s demise
A dark nod to the girl
Fished out from the water tank of
Cecil’s dark tower?
The water stank
And everyone drank
A piece of her
Flavor in their mouths
Metallic
They fleshed her out and played elevator games
Conspiring with ghosts
All because she tied her fate to a rock
And drowned
Her body
A bloated eucharist
To be sacrificed to tall tales
I imagine her skipping
The sidewalks of skidrow
Past the newspaper blankets mixed in with
The stench of piss and
Dirty little secrets
Crossing borders and
Borderlines
In a search party
For herself and
People looking
She must have been
Manic
In her own Femme
Fatale
Nizm
Manic from the fix to fix those nights with no sleeping.
Manic off a cocktail of pills meant to keep her
Demons at bay
Instead of opening the lid.
She must not have read the fine print.
There was no escape clause
for his wandering eyes
He plucked his women like
Virginals
Instruments with a shaft
Resting on keys
Singing to their master
A production of his
Consumption
Looking to produce
A male heir for the monarchy
Not another girl
So onto another lady
In waiting
Their time with his words
Made flesh
Until flesh becomes
Stillborn
and him
Still searching for his
Queen
A baby making machine
To soil and sully
Until he is bored
With her bed
Then off to another
Head
Because there was
No escape clause
None at all
For the wives
Who lost their lives
Like poor Anne
Penitent and pure
Her neck
Long
Beautiful
Hanging
The twins got punched
With fists of steel
And tears of screams
Came pouring out
Of their burning eyes
Glowing red
Smokey
And billowy black
Leaving a scar
On history
And a skyline that
Will never be the same
skyline
That day,
In the 6th Communications Squadron building
I was on a project for the general
Designing a poster for the Corona conference
Where all the commanding generals meet
And the news was on the television in our office
Sometimes running in the background while we worked
On my monitor was the Tampa skyline
With the Blue Angels Cessna flying over
My hands gliding as it moved
Across the cityscape over the terrain and towers
Then someone turned the television up
And I turned my head to see
Myself caught in synchronicity as
The American Airlines Flight 11 &
United Airlines Flight 175
Crashed into North and South towers
of the World Trade Center
Surreality dawned on me
Later that day the General asked
To move the plane further away from the skyline
And you know what?
I couldn’t blame him
skyline
Someone blew the whistle
And everyone’s talking
There’s a virus here
I fear
Seventeen
Down
I hear
I’m going out of my mind
Because I know the numbers
Are going to climb
Don’t tell me things are
Going to be fine
Wuhan is where it all began
And I’m just a visiting American
With a plan
To take the next to last train
Out of here
Before those tickets
Disappear
I have to outrun this disease
Before I run out of time
And they lock us all down
With me left behind
A ghost in a ghost town
nexttolasttrain
Eros penetrates himself
After missing his Mark
On Psyche
Who doesn’t even try to be
Anything but herself
Unaware of her own
Powers
Her beauty blinds
Like an unapproachable sun
Unknowingly
Casting shadows of
Jealousy
In her marriage with Eros
She is caught in the embrace
Of a promise
A moonshine ultimatum
For the affection she received
As if she never gave anything back
That he remains
Unperceived
Concealing her
And his cowardice
From his mother’s
Vanity
Their union sways
On blind faith
And feeling
Senses devoid of sight
Riding on the enraptured
Short-lived night
Until the cock crows
At the break of day
When Eros pulls out
And he leaves
Psyche
Blushing
Almost innocent
With her story still longing
whendayandnightisashortstory
What kind of truth
Are we searching for
When a body hits the ground
20 seconds
Short
Redacted stories of
Brown
Going
Down
In broad daylight
Because monsters no longer
Come out at night
They have come to the surface
Wearing blue uniforms
And a star
Under the sun
Where they have buried the
Truth
With a life
Their shadows are long
Winded
That run into the night
We have emerged from the caves
Seeking justice
Seeking peace
Out of broken pieces
Of bodycam videos
Unchained
With our eyes wide open
We reach out towards the light
For when the day turns into night
And the story is short
We demand a higher form
To cast off this allegory
In exchange for something
Whole
whendayandnightisashortstory
Foil is my blanket
My mother is not in sight
She sleeps on the moon
no se puede evitar
concentrationmoon
Ojiisan served in World War I
Wore his uniform with pride
To proudly say, “I am American”
To soldiers who don't care
Shikata ga nai
Stepping into fairgrounds
Harmony in discord
Okaasans birth in stables
To babies born in dust
Shikata ga nai
Children pledge allegiance
To the flag with hands on hearts
Rejected by their country
Still happily they sing
Shikata ga nai
Surrounded by barbed wire
A village in a coop
Bullets shot from Towers
At bodies near the fence
Shikata ga nai
Otsukimi gathering
Rabbit lays down life
Beggar carries rabbit
To the harvest moon
Gaman
If you concentrate you can see it
The rabbit on the moon
concentrationmoon
Coined the Super Bowl by Kansas City Chief
Lamar Hunt
These stadiums stand on the edges
Of Dug-out depressions
Hiding depressions of the men who
Play in them
American gladiators playing
The game of champions
Concealing the brutality spilling
Off the field
A broken bowl of black
Bodies in motion
Trying to make it
No matter the cost
Being sold a dream of being
More than just black
To white profiteers
Who coven them
brokenbowl
Dark vessels within a vessel
Drift through dark water
In a fate worse than slaughter
Where the sounds of iron clank
Across the plank
And packed bodies in the abyss
Breathe in salt and feces
Bodies beaten by the breeze
Where their blanket is the mist
In which they freeze
And with every breath
Some pray for death
To pull them out of hell
To fly them home
And leave an empty shell
For fortune smiles on those who died
To never know the tale
The deeper thrashing of the hide
That follows every sale
In a black and bleak market
Where men and women are sold
Their heavy hearts worth more
Than their exchange in gold
In the heart of darkness
darkwater
“No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,”
It’s hard to hear
The susurration
Of storm flags
Battered by a breeze
In a land under siege
Drowned out by the barrage
Of bombs bursting
It’s hard to hear
The susurration
From freak flags flying
In the dawn’s early light
Blocking out
An unsightly piece of
His story
Songs of the black man’s plight
Lost in the fog of
Of Pat-RIOT-tism
Now in rage of racial reckoning
It’s hard to hear
The susurration of
White noise carrying
Monochromatic tones
Of supremacy
Land of the brave
Home of the slave
Owners
Where black is the Bull's
Eye for brutality
It’s hard to hear
The susurration
Of names trending
On twitter
Shuffling against the
Apotheosis of apathy
Of All Lives Matter
Their thoughtless prayers
Never sent to heaven
It’s hard to hear
The susurration of
Names worn on T-shirts
And worn out bodies
Walking memorials
Marching in protest for those
Bodies piling in numbers
Buried in statistics
It’s hard to hear
The susurration of
“I can’t breathe”
“Please don’t kill me”
“Mama”
Voices usually lost to a jury
Sorrow
Full of justice
Delayed
Always with the promise of action
UPDATE: On April 20, 2021 the jury finally heard and the promise
of action was finally served!
Rest in Power, George Floyd
#susurration
American anxiety
Is an underbelly of knots
Tied in with the times
Politicking with the clock
As the senate’s influence is sold
And bought
While a paranoid right
Hold their guns tight
And yet
Again and again
Another man’s shot
American anxiety ties not so neatly in
This knot
Of words
Where apprehension finds its home
This tired poem
Running out like that last man’s breath
Just another day
Just another death
Because death brings no trouble
When his clock runs out time
A pulse out of rhythm
This poem of rhyme
Still senate doing nothing
Might as well resign
This