white-throated singfisher

“White-throated singfisher"

1.

shhh
the storm air smells
like a sleeping creek
a bud cracks open
and leaks out the sun
like a broken egg
if you awaken the dew
the morning fog will file
off its fingertips and write
a poem about the pain
a soft swirling wave of shade
breaks into a curling clang
on the surface of a silver-skinned bay
it’s black wings failed, dipped,
tipped into a rain-stained race
of lusted legs and unloved limbs
dash, dark as a flash that came in last
crash, the lash of a cackling clothes rack
the rapid winds are menacingly mundane
they collect the collarbones from her frame
and toss them in a tightfisted tangle of sticks
as a placebo for their prescription bottle emptiness.

2.

a golden blaze
sings of summer
in the careless linger
of doves in a ditch
the standing stench
left from open faces
smashing at sidewalk
the clatter of collisions
the sullen sun is shooting
starlings from a bare bow
they all fall down as arrows
the bleeding light burrows
burning in her auburn eyes
reds run rich like roseblood
all until innocence is undone
twitching sight, fleeing flight
the twisting touch of needle tip
patterns pricked in the ghost print
stitching the landscape with silence.

just bobbing around

the air bears water
for the feathers to preen
the reflections fragment
into wandering winds
the broken-boned breeze
is a bending stream
of thoughts from the voice
long nestled in me
there is no dead fruit
in my trashcan’s teeth
there are no flies
that fuck in the furrows
and flee like careless clouds
when the weather is welcoming

Unlife

The last prayer
The last tear
The last second
The last step
The last thrill
The last breath

“It is with deep regret
that I inform you
that VCU
and Richmond Police
are investigating
the death
of a student
late Sunday night…
as the result
of what appears to be
a suicide.”

It’s chill lingers
in my chest:
Uncaged
Uncaring
Uncanny
Unclear

Postparty Depression

“Postparty Depression”

You threw the party of the century!
Lights, loose dancing and loud music
overshadows all the internal injuries.

How did your wallet get in the toaster?
Just look at your mother’s coffee table
with condensation rings beside the coaster!

Shhh, stop singing the Swollenwood Blues;
you might wake up the passed out stranger
in your bed that you forgot YOU screwed.

Head throbbing from all the confusion,
you question why the jungle juice dumped
into each crimson cup was a stagnant, stinging solution.

"The Shadow Speaks Truth"

I know those papers are fraud,
I hear the distrust in your reply.

An unfavorable feeling creeps
when you speak of Liberty.
Your tales of tyranny travel
a hallowed hall of Hypocrisy.
This land is polluted by Savages
pregnant with Vanity, perfumed in bloody Death.
And you mock me?
Well, I mock the mockeries:
The joyous Offerings, the humble Prayers,
the proud Parades, the boasting Orations
are all a deception so cold.

A thin veil hides the Guilt in your benefits.

But no, We are inhumane,
a shocking inheritance of Starlight and Stripes;
the abusing irony of the New American Slave.
Allow us a Day of Independence.
Free us from this Nation of Freedom.
And we will rest where the shackles rejoice,
where the last layer of earth reveals your gross Injustice.
We will commit sacrilege in your illuminated temples
for we know the pattern of your ways:

You will come from your Land of Despotism,
rifle-up and creep in from a distance,
searching to save our Charred Souls
from the Hell we already know.


And when your footsteps soil our soil,
we will swell from the shadows and swallow you in Silence.
This very hour is not ours, now be a slave to your own Salvation.

-R.Gibson


*This poem was inspired by an excerpt of Frederick Douglass's "Fourth of July Speech, 1852".



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SRaa3IaY-8

ALLERGY & COLD RELIEF

she is piercings and poetry

snapping fingers like string beans

induced by words that linger

in clothes like cafeteria air

or cigarette smoke

her city has a whooping cough

just curdling phlegm and bless yous

that skip to the other room

where another girl believes

that a sneeze can revive

her sleeping heartbeat

in a graveyard of fairytales

and happy endings

one flatline brushes off

the bugs and bone dust

to bend back into meaning