[late] National Poetry Month poem #3: a golden state

named for queen Calafia

from khalifa from caliph,

my love is muslim at her core

carrying jasmin & date palm with her

i was born hers, in a stolen land

of milk and honey. jannahic

are her oases, meccan her temper

her sands crossed by parents

caravan of vagrants transients homeless

exiles awelcome. what else is Blackness

beyond a pilgrimage from ash?

our bottleblonde hollywood mother

(permissive, permissible, halal)

lets yajuj & majuj pigs & dogs

run feral through Hidden Hills

lets the quakes rockabye us all

bathes in brimstone & smokescent

& we no longer know who to follow

let each tsunami wash as wudu

let a new variant of faith blaze & bloom

let the mahdi be born tan, soon

here in the home of all sunsets. here

we stand at the end of the earth,

all eyes on us. here is where i shall die

[late] National Poetry Month poem #1: RAMHEART

my mother caught every possible hint:

the alignment of family shoes

askew near the door was a lottery poem

only she could read: beware of intruders.

code lay under the rhythms of daytime ads,

god in newscasters' laden gazes as

they spoke of her hometown or ailments

my mother knew her centrality well

her brain a kandinsky of crosstown traffic

of clanging connections, every meal a divination

she tosses together garnished words

long after we've barred her from the kitchen

impious, i shut my eyes to pareidolia

see only moon rabbits when told how

find never messiahs but weevils in my cupboard

go unchosen & afterthought, hardheaded

all hints are enemies, the subtle too close

to dissembly. i return innuendo by twisting

a pithy meme into a conviction:

you cannot love me in a way that matters

venus in Aries, my ramheart

can only be pierced by a fire arrow

give me someone with a chest full

of declarations. i will hear nothing less