Poetry

Your daughterland, my motherland, stands aglow,
A beacon of a people stripped of vitality.
It’s as plain as red in snow.

When some local jester lights it on fire 
God owes us nothing, for we are 
watching the innards of the universe 
streak past our feet; so, rejoice!

And there is a fear in me
That to write this is to ask for my murder
–a plea
for my grief to be met with a bullet–

One day, while I was
     retracing my own footprints
along the hybrid,
     winding path of being and
non-being (being 

your hands become
coarse and thick,
hardened to feelings
from digging, picking
crops for your Lords
dining inside towers.

I know why Picasso painted women that way
A jumble of parts rearranged, exaggerated,
Diminished, objectified all at once
According to his measure

you leave your mark on each sheet
in the belief you’re
 
the only one who gives a
good shit about poetry

one absurdity stacked
upon another absurdity
on top another
until all you can see
is cracked greasepaint
and garish fright wigs.

and I know now
 
how easily
a thing can live here
 
without belonging