New Poems

a sketch in autism: morning ritual disrupted

hot circle bursts open
throws brightness
through clear square
in sleeping place
walls throb color

the me of me sways in and out
waves of hurt
snake around my paper coat
the mother has touched

the mother voice echoes
sound upon sound
scratching the hard insides
that keep me from melting

led to place where smell
become shapes in mouth
see round cup
white water rains on brown specks
noisy in mouth like smashing rocks

I search for you
On a thousand faces
Caressing the marks of time
...and pain
Within the places that
Slipped through the cracks
Forever hiding in shame
I reach for you
With constant embraces
Examining the souls
Of the sad
There
You can be harvested
Polished and Glorious
Waiting to be recognized
... and applied
Because you reside
In all the races
Within all aspects
Of life

Successive years of falling leaves, as gold-
Enameled flowers flitter out, around
The garden nook, with simple stories told
To fragrant crowds at play on dampened ground.
 
This time we sipped a cup of coffee cold
And spoke of speckled, thinning hair once brown;
A crow called out, as if a black-winged scold
That hits its mark and pulls us twisting down.
 
Through God we came from chaos to earth and skies,
And painted all that’s dark a color bright,
As child-like wonder shows through gleaming eyes

Moonshake

Sonnezio based on Pablo Neruda VIII Sonnet

If your eyes were not the color of the moon

 
bag filled with smooth squares
letters and numbers
all lead either somewhere
or nowhere--both somewhere and nowhere
 
there are no absolutes
dissolve the antidote
with the poison
the poison with the antidote
they are the same and yet not the same
 
a vowel is not a consonant
but without it
the consonant may have no meaning
this is the way of scrabble
the way of meaning-making
 
the way of long into the night
when the moon hangs just so in the night sky

Lights Out — Drew Attana