June 16, 2021 (part 2)

when one is not plagued
by friendship degradation mechanics
a special vacation
to see old friends
can nearly immediately
feel abnormally normal
to the point where
you kind of forget
where you are
or how old you are
(or everything else that has happened these last few years
when folks ask how your life has been…)

~~~

driving
still equals freedom
but the freedom
explored
in the united states of america
isn’t really that free
(when was it ever?)

~~~

how are toddlers
both
straight up babies
and tiny real humans
at the same time?

July 7, half-heartedly edited July 21, 2020

On my rooftop I see:

1. a green tree across the street
2. a match to the folding chair under me
3. a pigeon, hopping on the next roof, its eyes as red as the
4. red brick apartment across the road
5. a treeline, it might be the park?
6. a metal fence, so I don’t fall off
7. this private rooftop terrace, that my privilege helped get me
8. satellite dishes from DirectTV
9. a/c units sticking out of 6th floor windows
10. clouds and a flash of what may be a rainbow
11. my rainbow hair blowing in the polluted wind
12. no sign nor sight of a way to make this poem end
13. sounds of busses, bodega music, wings flapping, construction; scents of the laundromat around the corner,
and wind, so much wind, against my face, feeling a chill on this hot New York afternoon, perhaps//

a loud boom, a bang, was it from the west or the east?
i strain my neck over the gate, and the only answer i see
is the smell of the garbage truck, stopped on my street.


i have so many unfinished poems written
but not the stomach to stomach the rereading.

July 21, 2020

last night there was a cockroach
poking its feelers out from it’s rooftop hideaway
and at night it caught me by the creeps

but today in the
afternoon brightness
complete with my coffee and sun hat
i’m not quite as creeped

and maybe that’s the lesson for today:
the despair from yesterday
can turn to creativity today
which maybe someday could develop into
flow[tomorrow]

May 21 (part 2)

am i too hard on the Spanish?

yes they imperialized
and destroyed
and killed

but there’s less hiding of that past here.

i am used to the good old U S of A
where we pretend we’ve always been here

where we forced the natives of the land
to flat, remote distances
gave them shitty reserves
(and alcoholism)
as gifts for surviving a death march

where white people can pretend we aren’t on stolen land
because we never see the people we stole it from

but there are people throughout Peru
still speaking their language
(and oftentimes Spanish as well)
dressed as their ancestors dressed
living as their ancestors did.

the main attractions for tourism
are the Inca’s clues

i’m wary of European conquerors

because my ancestors either were them
or directly benefitted from them.

is it fair for me
to
blame the Spanish
for
the shame i hold in my heart?

(but they did imperialize
and destroy
and kill…
)