KISSING BUILDS UP YOUR MOUTH
VOICES 2023; Love Love #7, 2024
For Wavy Gravy
1.
Kissing builds up your mouth. The people most opposed to escapism are jailers. A poem is more than a series of words strung together to sound nice or make someone feel good. The nine billion names of god float, adrift in a conscious soup, under the influence of an outmoded way of perceiving the world.
Take root, feel the dark of the new moon. Plant trees if for no other reason than to be kind to those who come next. Plug in, feel the flow of knowing right now. Make art if for no other reason than to be a window for light to reflect off. Tune in, slow the beat until the hum heals. Write if for no other reason than to have your passion go where it needs to go.
Jump rope rhymes. A cake in the rain. One for the baby who sucks his thumb. One for the bubble that’s sure to come.
2.
My cat looks at me like there’s a bird singing inside of me. Speak what makes you wow. Why are you here? One two three: to have fun. One two three four: to tell the truth. One two three four five: to sweep away the nastiness. One two three four five six: to learn, to teach and move. One two three four five six seven: to play, play, play and keep playing.
Every monkey is different and any monkey can lend a hand. Tyranny releases its hold only to come back again. Oppression, injustice and cruelty have no measure, no standards, no units and no sonnets. We have no idea the influence we have on each other but like planets and moons and stars, we bend space. We each have gravity.
A glass tumbles, resists definition. There’s no crash, no applause. I trust my compass: the closer to home, the easier the way.
3.
I bow greet salute the person I am becoming. I bow greet salute the person I have been. Shahbaz, shahbaz, shahbaz, the open wing. I am I am. Relying on a measure of time is overwhelming, unless I learn to slow down the crush, the moment, the intensity, the show, the need, the emotion without resisting any of it. Being clever is nothing. Being wet is.
I ripple, I spiral, I wear my incomplete knowledge of the true nature of time and space with absolutely no sense of which thoughts, which actions, make or don’t make a difference. The poem is the word, bouncing off the page into the ear, across the heart and into the feet, your favorite dance, waiting for the sound.
Bitterness is not a flavor in the Love Store. It’s not even a topping. Forgiveness is available in sprinkles, swirls, cones and even comes in throwaway cups.