Orion's view

Edited final version

I am trying to be patient as hell.
but Time keeps her clock at a distance.
I cannot read the hands on her skin,
but can feel the burning of her breath etching doubt onto my eyelashes,
blinking ashes of you onto the cold worn floor.
If I watch closely with eyes closed
I can see how the fire began,
and remember it all.

You make me want to play with flames,
burn our story into the atmosphere
so that even the stars can be a witness to how this happened.
I want them to see this twisted pattern,
so that I can be told by Orion,
- that I’m not crazy for loving you.
But this
is not your poem.
Do not dare think I’d give you something so fragile.
I will not count you among the constellations in my heart just yet…
but you’ve made it far enough into my sky
that you’ve created for yourself a patient audience
with my own stars.
They are listening to your image,
and watching your echo drift further away
We sit on cold concrete steps
in the middle of everyone else’s life
and I start wondering
if we’re not there because the ground we stood on
seemed too soft for this type conversation.
I know I’m loosing you when you start to avoid my smile,
…because it makes you smile.
Subways rumble their morbid song under our steps
but give no more security than the ground
we’ve refused to even try to stand on.
If I knew how this was going
I may have been able to blindfold Time
before she could steal something away so precious.
My stars are listening to your heartbeat
but none of them are willing
to chase after your hallow trail of uncertainty
so bright, they shine hard against such a pointless journey.
I will not follow you, you are not yet my Polaris, or my Sun.
Your path seems backwards to me
and I will not get lost after you
I only face east and move to the beat of my own dreams
and without you..., it would be no different.
I would still inscribe my life deep into history,
with happiness as my knife.

I just believe it could come out beautifully fascinating
If there were a collage of you and I
scratched lightly as stone relief
I against the path worn away by others.
You give me outlines of footprints to count on and wait for,
and even they are in the wrong direction.
You are lost in your own story,
and writing with an eraser held too close to the plot.
We are not a legend, or myth,
we will not remain simply because we existed
and so -
I write poems to watch how they burn
I’ve seen how paper can catch fire
but learn to fly in it’s last breath if you give it the chance.
…if you give it the chance….
and so for this reason
I find beauty in the fire Time has not captured.
She hasn't found us yet,
and if you would stop looking for her
we could watch something soar,
and smile because we set that flame.
and maybe
it isn’t a good idea for us to play with these matches anymore
when you don’t even know if you want to burn down your own shadow
because it too can follow you into forever.
But in the sun,
I’ve found our outlines match
along sidewalks of what we didn’t plan to happen.
And there is little left other than a comfortable silence
between your smile and mine
and never before have we needed anything different.
Happiness reflects art into the palms of our hands
making the Earth blush from her success this time around.
So I'll blink ashes of you to the ground
and trace the after image of your terrified shadow
pretending I could paint the future in invisible ink for you.
Remove your imaginary timeline so that you could realize
we write it for ourselves.
And nothing is so indelible that it cannot be worn away by Time herself
or the choices we make.

She keeps me company while I wait for nothing.
Her clock hands lay uncharted moments in my mind
And I start to wonderwith each 'tick' that resonates with the echo of what
I already know…
...if I should not ask Orion to tell me the real truth.
I believe he’s waited as long as I have to say that;

any love is always crazy

And Time herself knows nothing more than how to etch doubt
Into the eyelashes of wandering lost hearts.

Colombia

I've have had a few friends, and my sister ask me for a copy of this poem.
so here it is. It is for my sister. *I love u.*

Last night, - mi queirda Colombia, – I deam’t of heaven’s apology
It came as raindrop tears of ice and sorrow
The heart of water would be jealous of it’s beauty as it fell upon the world
from clouds constructed in the shape of time
Etching it’s self into the open wounds of hatred
It pierced holes in the armor of men
who’ve before been protected by greed and stolen wealth
collected with hands red stained with the blood of children
She came down in sheets of crying eyes
and answered for the land of her people
waves crashed upon the steps of the white house
drowning the stone fortress of Washington
leaving the lawn of the white house covered in revolution,
She came down in pieces of history
stinging Americans eyes with the guilt of 3 entire centuries
as anvils dropped on the pedals of daisies beneath the heavy weight of truth
Justice finally fell
and I felt her on the skin of my conscience
And woke instead to whispers of presidential speeches
In his words the past voice of 43 previous serial killers
singing the praises of God
while leading our nation to believe
that what we do,... could not also be called terror
Our Government foreign policies
have invaded history with weight of ten thousand burning bodies
Carried on the backs of children
too young to see the slaughter of their future
in the hollowed eyes of their mother

Let me show you the back streets of Cali,
let me lead you in their wake
so that you can watch them they take their burden to the fields
watch as they bend their backs over double
to support the force of US intervention
Forever shaping the vertebrae of their small spines
into permanent arches oppression
THEY pick the beans that travel to your lips
through star bucks flavored comfort
and yet you refuse to call them Americans
because their blood flows south of your attention

But let me show you the village of Bello
In the early light of morning the sun kisses the leaves of the coca plant
cradling it’s unhappy story in the heat of her fingertips
The sun cannot save Colombia
any more than it can rise tomorrow from the west
and so she too must watch as airplanes drop acid burning chemicals
Akin to Agent Orange,
color the ground with deadly white death
masked as a weapon against deadly white dust.
breathed in by people’s lungs it burns holes in their organs
This poison is not intelligent and does not discriminate between
A coca leaf, potato leaf, or a little girl’s skin

Let me take you to the home of a farmer
Who’s land has been slaughtered with the toxic echo of
American 'assistance'
Unable to grow food safe for consumption
he is forced to produce the only illegal crop
that will keep his family from starvation
But he stands on the land
that holds oceans of wealth beneath her turbulent surface
Running though the veins deep in her mountains peaks
is a liquid black blood our 'president' craves like an addiction
We are willing to hook up and IV to Colombia
to channel it straight from her heart to our cars
We’ve Planned Colombia into the war on terrorism
Stolen her breath, and forced her to scream

But I will take you to the streets of Bogotá,
and show you where my family was from
I want to show you what terror really is
I want their children to hear you say that
we are not also terrorists as they cough blood onto the sheets
America, I do not absolve you from this truth
and so the next time you take a sip from your coffee cup...

… I hope you burn your tongue.

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