USA

LGarri4951@Aol.com

America!

You have run this nation
with Judas whispers and the politics of thighs
curling themselves around your legislative branch
and your lover boy diplomats
have soaked white sheets with their scandal 
breaking against the great, Plymouth Rock.

America!
You have sat Indian-Style too long
bow-legged and accepting ships
both Pilgrim and Slave into your visceral canals
and you have played peace pipe and opossum along the Potomac
with our Red-skinned brothers.

America!
You stone your whores and holy men alike
throw rocks and hide your hands 
as in most ‘civilized’ societies
you choose to crucify its petty criminals

America!
You have become a nation 
of itchy-palmed dirty rotten scoundrels
squirming in a sweaty cradle of strange bedfellows
you have forsaken your children
of the fishes and the loaves
who hold hands over their hearts every morning
who wave their allegiance in small town parades.

America!
How will you divide the horn of plenty?
How will you decide who drinks from your cup of liberty?
If the banquet hall of justice only seats a few
whom will you serve and who will serve you?

I am Longing

 I am Longing
to follow your drinking gourd
on a night like this, full of stars
of promises made 
and fevers quenched with kisses.

I am longing
to know your helium breath
in my universe of sleeping angels, 
your lips blowing back the clouds
until only my red moon burns 
in the darkness

I am longing
to feel even your lashes
against my thighs
possessing the glory of Venus.
to catch the Northern star
shooting from your mouth
from your phallus, blooming like a comet.

I am longing
to let your rain
ruin me for all other men 
with tears
with your sweet sweat behind knees
the silver trails of your tongue your words 
splintering like meteor showers, and this . . . 

Finally this, 
to let nothing beyond understanding
come between us
not too much loving nor too much living
nothing. . . .
not even the skin of lambs.

Between Mother and Sons

Sing him at his temple like Sheba

Mother him
because he was first to walk upright
to yawn and stretch and move
with the earth’s first  orbit.

Hold him close
because he conceived God 
as divine light and aligned Cheops 
with His crown.

Love him
because his genesis dripped opals
and formed ancient rivers
because his quivering lips
kissed words into language.
 

Praise him
because great scholars
tippled his fountains at Timbuktu
arrayed themselves with his wisdom at Alexandria.

Smell the breath that forged iron into swords 
Feel the hands
warm and golden as temple stone, black and fervent as the Congo
that made fruition of women, words and great wonders
that still impress the earth.

Sing him
with these songs of his glory
he will remember 
that the scarlet robes of kings 
once rested upon his shoulders 
and he will sing a new song of himself.

© All Copyright, Karen Lynne Garrison.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.