before the fest

The clown is enough
he doesn't have to state his name or purpose
he doesn't need shoes

and I don't need a sweater
I don't need your problems
and I sure as hell don't have to get up early

I don't look for trouble
it doesn't look for me
but people call me up
and offer coffee and animal pelts
if I will sing and dance for them

Are you kidding me?
You couldn't stop me
from dancing and singing

I would shake the floor
I would rattle windowshades
I cannot stop moving

I'm spotty
I'm dotty
I'm the Queen of Sweaters

You are not an Irishman
We are not lost
We are not doing time for penury

She didn't apologize
You don't even like her

Civil Liberties

Goddamn god bless us
we're lucky to live in this place
where we can question our president
agree
disagree
praise someone or cuss someone out
without fear that we'll disappear down a dark alley

and me
oh my god
as a woman
who can get myself out of bed at 8am,
take care of myself,
then walk out the door
and get on a BUS
and go dance in public for 4 hours
then buy myself a coffee,
read a newspaper
write  in my own damn book,
go watch a rehearsal and speak my mind about what I see
then!
Walk! Alone! through 5 nieghborhoods and then go to work! 
Teach, no less - then
bicycle home in the dark
all by my damn self
and I'm free
I'm free free free

Farty Tales

born an unbeliever, briefly

brought back to me by clothes

and clothes and clothes, closer to

a duck in a dress I used to draw

a duck in a dress! What wonders

mean nothing to me now

a duck in a dress means nothing to me

now and if a duck in a dress means nothing

what is there to mean 

boil

citronella candles at the back of my calves
i pinch exoskeletons between thumb
and forefinger wet with lips salted and swollen

it was uncle mac who dropped the lemons
cut the celery and poured the cayenne.
whose curled lip smile teases, "you don't like it,"

uncle mac dances the way mr. Kunitz,
rolled up the sleeves of his starched shirt.
limbs suspended sacred, each movement so
precise it cuts the most invisible air.

How did the economy of his thoughts work?

If his mind were a school bus (which he often envisioned it was, barreling, blundering, slow), it would follow that new and old thoughts would need to share the worn bus seats of his brain. However, disparate groups do not often commingle on a school bus. 

The new would not flirt or make polite conversation with the old, but rather would push the old to the front of the bus, eventually causing a few to start asking for rides from their parents to school. 

If his mind were a party (hardly, but there are all kinds…), the new latecomers, still wearing their coats and boots, would replace the old, now marching to their cars in pairs or alone. 

Puffed-almighty with the desire to make life electric, new thoughts would roar through his teetering wax-walled fiesta. Dancing between the warm, affable air of past conversations and the morose wind that allows paint to dry (like an immobile furry corpse, this dead party) they would tease his joists. Between wanting to conk out and be revived again by mischief's breath (a host's purgatory), that was really how he felt. 

Yes, it could be, his mind was something like a party. (Although then who are his guests specifically and what is the occasion for the event, etc.)

Using the word "psychedelic,"
can I explain what I mean?

Take for example an apple.
An apple is a fruit, round, edible, and sweet.
Now, drunk. Take this perfect soft rock for a ride,
right into someone's eye.

Division of labor

The one thing you said you'd like us to do different than your parents

is not to divide the labor in rutted tracks 

that can't be crossed or seen beyond.

And yet we are starting to know 

who cooks and 

who washes

and who unplugs the computer at night.

The other way to listen

is the flashlight swinging
and the rope still
glad?
each breath is deeper
sullen, sunken.
ice cubes and twitches
in a noon day sun.

Not lucky

It was too cold

to walk outside today 

so I stepped inside my old cafe spot

to finish some work

bought myself a tea

waited for it to cool

and still burned my tongue

tried to sign on to the Internet

said the wifi was connected

but it wasn't

just my luck today

I vacuumed today, goddamn it, that was an accomplishment!

House means freedom
Means baby
Means peace
Means stress
But it'll be worth it, he says.

Today I put twinkle lights in our apartment
They make me so happy
I have to be positive
I have to be mindful
Being depressed is a waste of time
I'd sleep n sleep n sleep
If he didn't wake me each day

In Der Mund

Someone's falling on a sword,
is uncoiling the racket grip, 
being loose in a tight moment.

I do not know my mind at these times.
Blank as a hobbyist.

A scene, a scene, a scene.
But what about the children?
What will the neighbours say?

I'VE TASTED COLORS THOUGH

I'm telling you, those sun stripes are called the glories,
that small car is painted perfect mint,
and all these doors are playing off the hues
of others that come before.

Radical hedges,
ornamental screen doors,
you know, some driveways
could be swimming pools.

Who knew about this place:
petroleum pipeline that mirrors
the exit course of airplanes as they ascend,
blanketed in green, a place for us to walk.

Sometimes patterns exist
to cushion conversation,
others are so poignant
that they bite.

Then we come to a house
that turns out to be a temple,
bright orange and violet
rising from the woods.

Day 2_fin

And so the night concludes
for the heroine,
awash in a sea of beauty,
a favor to a friend

She begins to begin again
Scouring space for spiritual scraps
Eager to be of service
She slinks her body through crowds of brown bodies in heat
In search of a dance

C. Joi Sanchez
www.jsanschez.wordpress com

No words

I haven't written a poem today
Nor did I yesterday
Nor the day before
Not because I don't want to
Because I do
Not because I can't
Because I can
Simply for the fact that my heart wishes not to lie
About feelings I no longer possess.

C. Joi Sanchez
www.jsanschez.wordpress com

And on our 50th date we will go to Coney Island
and buy fake ray bans

Bash

Largely floral landscape makes me small
to milding
I am this middling seeker
Of rashness in lilacs
And unabashedness in lovers
Corners

Meanderly curfue is drawl and drab-light
Though in morning magenta slight
Accompanying our judgement
Quickly betters kisses
My caressed curses sit
Still in the corner

I am bashful yet

THE LOVE SLOTH HAS TAKEN OVER

Lying here in the house full of cloth
my brain is not
the primary graph
on affection

the man who sold us the chairs
had earrings and sons
he thought we were charming
struggling with the car all over his driveway

the fridge makes a sound like
a band i'd like,
i'd like to like
more bands

darting through the hot broth
are flashes of red
I stir in the honey
with a fork

Rabbit Beach

slats unsteady slanted, pre-boardwalk patch
1920's wet wool sinking, down through rot
built above and sealed with sand, and swept
by night I lost my shoe and dodged these crawling tires
the merrier the trick of false remembrance;
two years then past hot-weather bug rebirth
(myself a teen at last and twenty-five) and kissing twice is every year
the kinked-up line and through the cage, a history of failures
far below and never-ending, the hapless land, the homes
I see a moment of the world in bungalows
linked constellation style, mysterious points
demolished and replaced and always will
be weak, desired, small wooden Greek tragedians
by towers wooed and crushed
and down she swings and I am hungry,
full of fry and was it your first time?

stockings

you became silk

at your office

sitting next to the phone

good breeding keeps its liquor cabinet stocked and untouched

POISONED

the first mechanism to go

is the ability to regulate anxiety

caught in the midst

of such a rich kick

a transparency deficiency

I marinated in myself

a minute longer than usual

I tripped on all my shed pieces

circling back not to retrieve them

just to see them again or something

like old friends

daydreamed from bed

of a river delta

every source this side of the mountains

meeting the sea in one place

that’s what I need

the words I was saying

became a slow dull trickle

my mind a whirl

no mouth could funnel

somewhere there are things that happen

so regularly we cease to doubt them

MY AUNTS' ARMS

seeming broader and stronger

as they age, my own arms

long to join them,

wrap up in a coil,

a royal crown, a mess of roots.

always grace-ful & sun-soaked,

the pride of the family peeking

from a sleeve, extending without apology,

it’s like my mother is here.

I could swear sometimes they trade

and it’s her arm brushing mine.

thumb-print impression from a polio vaccine,

mole spots, sparse hairs,

bicep rising and setting like lungs,

shoulder bones wrapping the origin,

knuckle-long fingers at the end

gripping the steering wheel,

wiping down the counter,

thrown across the towel

at the beach, resting for once.

arms I live for,

arms that can reach me.

Ef ef three slash six

You were Celes and I was Locke.

Aundy (do you remember Aundy?) was Terra and Sean was Edgar

Luke (We're still close) was Strago and Rachel was the little painter girl.

Nathan (that traitor) was Sabin and Duck (Now, the responsible one) was the wild child.

Harrison (I hope he found himself) was the ninja and Gogo was Gogo (of course)

Joey (he found God, like we knew he would) was gambling everything with his airship

and Justin (Philosopher extraordinaire) was Cyan. 

No one was the Sasquatch or the Moogle. 

We all flew in Joey's airship to Kefka's floating island (remember?),

where we split into 3 groups of 4.

You and I were conveniently in a group together with Luke and Duck...

What? 

Oh, I'm sorry, let me explain... Hi my name is Stephen. We went to middle school together.

What?

You don't remember? 

Typical.

non so

fuck you we say
to 
our friends
who say this and that
for
we 
want to marry

a gay man
a gay woman
united in non-so-holy matrimony
we work
we flow
for love transcends all

Audience Tastes

The economy of a hug, a hug and then we are solved.
Such chest tease this illegal overuse of the body,
this menacing fair-weather eggy sympathy.

packed bags

i watch, out of the corner of my eye
a small ghost push through my mouth
out into the air
next to the two kittens fighting

on that dumb blue chair.
i
side eyeing
can't stop shit from de-composting
but, Miss Manywounds,
it could be my given name too.