ORION’S BOW

If my life were a home,
I’d never bother with furniture.
Let spilled tea stain the hardwood,
And roaches wash the dishes.

For this house is doomed to burn.

So I’ve carefully selected the essentials:
a bed, a wooden desk, a lamp.
Thin paper. And one pencil.

Because my only hope,
is when fire dances on ink and paper,
the ashes will drift upwards,
float away, up in the sky,
and someone may mistake it for a constellation.

Maybe it’ll be beautiful enough to hold them in place,
looking up at the ashes in the firmament.
Awe may engulf their soul,
as tears of stendhal spill from the seams.

And maybe they’ll tell a friend.
Take a photo.
Write a poem.

And in someone else,
I may escape the fire.

PLANET ŒUVRE

Now, I’d like to direct your attention to a new piece.

Planet Oeuvre.

An experimental piece by Ménage,

Framed in a gallery of infinite walls,
The first planet hung in spotlight.

As Mr. Menage took the stage,
continent-sized, purple and blue,
opulent curtains pulled back.
Warm yellow light illuminated the planet,
casting a mythical shadow behind him.

“Thank you. Today we introduce a new chapter of art history. Architecture, biology, terraformation, technology, art—even sociology—have converged to create my magnum opus.

The herald of terrawrights to come-
And mourner of those who never did.

Those symphonies before ivory keys,

Mona Lisas before acrylic,

Homers before parchment.

I believe their spirits will live in Planet Oeuvre—
A canvas for spirits unvoiced.”

Nuclear telescopes,
forged from gold and diamond,
Tilted toward the piece.
and for the first time,

Planet Oeuvre,

is seen.

At its base, flora and fauna flourish alike,
Growing into a velvet pedestal.
Beautiful lakes form diamond shapes;
fish leap in synchronicity.
The sky, a deep orange,
piercing perfect clouds.

The weight of elegance bows its torso,
Where dead weeping willows reach out to the stratosphere,
Crooked down, staring,
Gazing at the beauty they never saw while living.
And so they remain:

dead, weeping, limbs.
An overhang,
of ghosts.

As the spotlight shifted to shine on the planet’s crown,
An extra-dimensional object—
A shape that cast no shadow,
Yet bends all the warm light in.

An object knotting time into a tapestry of ungraspable moments,
Compacting timelines in its density,
A shape that transcends concepts of shapes,
And simply is.

A symbol of all that comes next.

Oeuvre.

LITTLE ONE

Oh, look at the little one.
Trying to catch the bits of dust
dancing in his window’s beams of light
swinging his door open
to catch his toys alive.
Writing his first book,
inspired by a lego movie.

The plots used to be so simple.
A hero and a villain made of brick,
But now you write like a dog eats,
Gorging on my soul.

Our mother still loves him.
Sometimes she calls for you,
And cries at my disfigurement,
As if I’m not still the same.

Ghosts of potential stare down upon him,

Boxers. 
Musicians. 
Doctors. 
Arsonists. 
Accountants. 
Criminals. 
Janitors.

But I am a ghost of the future, little one.
And I am a madman.

I hope there’s a ghost above me too, little one.
But I look up and see a cracked mirror—
Blood weeping from its fractures,
Bending the light of my face to be more monstrous,
more vile—

More me.

JET’S BLAXXX (alt title: CHASING RYŪJIN.)

Los Angeles, the city of angels.
Stars deported from the night skyline.
Jet’s black streaks flying in the sky.
A genocide of constellations.
Remember,
We once called stars the eyes of the angels,
Watching.

Jesus was born here, in the city of angels,
Where the star of Bethlehem was killed,
and wise men wander beneath—
Flickering streetlights.

In a city that blacked their stars,
Ground their angels.
They approached a manger of mange,
Bringing no gold, no frankincense, no myrrh.
Just crumpled up dollars of hope.

Chasing a dead angel’s glow, chasing the dragon…

They sought Jesus.
Not to worship.
But to touch.

Baptized in flickering artificial light,
Kneeling over—under bridges.
Lighting prayer candles over a spoon.
Bethlehem’s light bent off the syringe tip,
Forming a halo.

And still, in the city with no stars,
Angels and wisemen closed their eyes,
A jet of opium’s black streaks, clouding their vision.

And Jesus flickered—
As the halo dimmed to ash.

JETÉ FROM A BIRMINGHAM JAIL

My pencil’s lead, pirouettes, swirling above the pores of stage-skin,
dripping a shell of galvanized lead-wire rope,
Soaking, weighing, 
sagging…
my muscle fibers.

I strain against these wires
to hoist into,
More lead.

Today, my shackled hand, port de bras.

Leadened, refusing épaulement.

Body crying, battement
lent.

The stillness — not from metal,
but from injustice.

See, injustice wraps around my leaden hand,
squeezing, compacting, compressing.
Purpling, bruising, leaking black blood.

Pain whispers a sweet lie:
“Your talent will determine my departure…”
I keep listening. I keep writing.

The pen is mightier than the sword.
But the inks running out.
The pens getting duller…
Sword becomes lighter… Quicker… Sharper. 

Sometimes it can kill that quiet lie that injustice loves to tell,
that lie of civility, of humanity, of peace.
And with no lies to tell —

may even kill injustice itself.

I — Jeté — my weapon.