The color of all that’s hysterical
travels along your bones.

Just be near you,
sucking your skin,
not gonna leave you
alone.

Yes dear, of course there are miracles.
A lover that loves, that’s one.
Room with a laughter,
ecstatic disaster
coming to rouse the fun.

We could build an engine
Out of all your raising stars
Tear apart the apart
that seem to think we are

Call of work the next day.
Call it Lover’s Day.
Call it Lover’s Day.

Gimme the keys to your hiding place.
I’m not gonna tear it apart.
I’m gonna keep you
weak in the knees.
Try to unlock your heart.

Your gonna turn me animal.
Your gonna turn me dumb.
Kiss in the night.
Bringin’ the light.
You’re like the raising sun.

I hunger for you like a cannibal.
I’m not gonna let you run.
I’m gonna take you.
I’m gonna shake you.
I’m gonna make you come.

Swear to god it will get so hot it will melt our faces off.
Only we can see, the you, the me in your mirror outside clock.

We’re naked in the light.
We’re jelly
Real tight.

Sooooo soft. Get off. Get off.

Balls so hard they smash the walls
And break the bed
And crash the floor. Don’t stop and laugh and scream and have the neighbors call the cops.
Two lonely eyes have seen the fire blaze.

Can’t forget.
Mark it down.
Call it Lover’s Day.

Yes dear, of course there are miracles
Under your sighs and moans
I’m gonna take you
I’m gonna take you
I’m gonna take you home.

I’m gonna take you home.

I’m gonna take you home.

I’m gonna take you home.

I’m gonna take you home.

I let foriegn oil

Burn wet and cool on my chest

to feel clean again.

[night classes]

Lids drift down eyeballs

laced with leadened lashes dry,

tired and wilting.

[calming down]

The art of waiting:

Everytime you think your bored

Inhale deeply, once.

[giving in]

Like drugs the first drag:

The buzz papercut of cool

Newport on fresh flesh

We mostly stick to the sweaters. This winter they are re-releasing this gorgeous little wool turtleneck, eggplant purple with a thin white corded belt. All piled up, they give under us them like hands through warm fresh cookie dough. And there’s tons of this stuff back here: big puffy winter coats, furry hats, those tiny black gloves everyone is wearing. Oh, and these cute Santa throw pillows, which are SO convenient when we start, you know, getting more creative.

You know.

And it’s SO nice in the back of truck, not cold and harsh like you’d expect at all. He put a red light in there, just like out of a movie or something. And it’s nice and warm and just climbing though all those clothes, thousands of dollars worth, before anyone buys them. I have to admit; it kind of turns me on. I wonder sometimes-this is so embarrassing but-sometimes when I ring a customer up I sniff their purchase a little just to, you know, see if there is a trace of us still in there. Once, I swear, I caught a little white dab right on the collar of a dress-casual button-up the day after he left. Sooooo embarrassing.

I think I am going to use my discount to get some of those pants this year. The new ones. They were fun. Nice fabric, long as you watch out for the studded side. “Spoiled” maybe. Or, maybe “Slut.” I don’t know. Besides, I mean, I’m getting a pair for Kimberly anyway. And I deserve a Christmas gift for myself, for a change. A keepsake. I bet he would get a kick out of them come January.
________

‘bout 20 miles to Los Angeles. Don’t even need a road sign at this distance. Every city’s got a tell. Just have to ride enough; keep your eyes open. LA is one of the easier ones. That alien lookin’ haze in the sky just creeps right up on you. Not the biggest fan of LA, not by a long shot, but that sky is kinda pretty sometimes. Some good people in LA.

It’s the usual load for this time of the year. Stacks of cheap clothes for rich people. Boxes of furry boots and tight pants. I’m not a man for fashion, ‘specially in this town. All shinny and loud like on those cheap strippers on rap videos. I just don’t get it.

Money is money though. And the ride from Seattle is nice enough. I miss the leaves back on the home though. Nothin like a midwest fall.

Cus world music ’s white music like jazz was
And white hip-hop’s not hip-hop, it’s rock
Good neighborhoods are were the melanin is far
And bad one ‘swhere peoples ain’t bright.

So let Irish be Irish no longer.
Jews don’t care about Torah or Law
Sicilians are tanned and the Nordic’s are bland
And Egyptians are proof and South Africans too
That at base we are one with no culture or tongue
Cus it all just evolved like the science involved
and each land was a rung and each thought at end comes
to perfection, a blankness, all white.

Be the color of water when anything solid seems to disturb the new tide.
It’s the color of ice when dot on a height says no snowflakes more unique then I.

It’s the steam on the mirror
Between you and a face
made of off-yellow indian arab ancestry
million earth light-years made dark matter mass,

and a cell full of dye,

and a thought made of glass

that’s a fragile and crystal as narcissist pond
and the water condensed when your cleansed and embalmed
in a fog made of light
son of Canaan, son of night
son of God who is white
cus he must be.

Make me white just like heaven and Reagan,
White like tofu fried chicken breast milk.

White like gun in your hand
and a brain make of silk
and a last gasp of light like the sun.

__________

The lastest in a series of poems about racial identity that have been banging around my head lately. With all the Reverand Wright stuff swirling around in the past couple weeks (is there anything that guy said that EVERY white liberal friend I know haven’t been saying since ’01?) I’ve found myself more then a little preoccupied with the idea of deconstructing race. For the record, I don’t black is very useful term either and while I have heard of the book of the same title of this poem, I have never read it. Nothing else to say but that…I’m slowing coming out of a fog this week.

This one was personal.

I use to think that I maybe one day I would try to run for office, that if not, noone would articulate things honestly. It’s a very arragont outlook, I know, but I think all of us feel sometimes that the whole world is crazy and no one ever will really speak to what seems like such obvious concerns. Thankfully I my world is filled with friends who very quickly show me that I am not alone.

Today, though who knows what the time will bring, I do not feel it NESSIARY to get power in order to here the concerns of my heart spoken honestly by a government I live in. It’s been building, but today, senator Obama convinced me that ultimately, real change can only come from hoping in each other and spreading the power all around. At this point, even just with this one statement, I feel I don’t have to worry about the truth being spoken in clear, unarguable terms. It’s all out there. Now it’s just a matter of doing whatever part I can, big or small, to help make this articulated, documented and worldwide distibuted dream become a reality.