Dreaming of northern lights
As I’m walking the streets with you
The stars burn white like your thighs
From my touch
We,re the only children of
Twilight , tonight
Though our breaths replicate
Multitudes
A leaf burns white in the
Night, like your thighs
A dream we share becomes
Real as I hold you
The night is a film negative
Truths revealed,as I
Hold your hand
On a a maple leaf night
That burns white
As your thighs
I watch as the will
Of your dreams
Control you
You climb up a hill
No scheme lies before
You
Such are the choices we make
Fragile, as a leaf falling
Are the breaths we take
On a maple leaf night
The sky burns white
Like your thighs
-Erren Kelly, 2-20-14, Burlington, VT
Down feathers make the
best Pillows,
which rests on Cotton sheets
Because she feels like
An ivory snow baby
When she falls Asleep
Like cotton sheets
And. Down feather pillows
She is an acquired taste
Not pretty
but Amazingly beautiful as
She lies on her brass bed
Like an ivory snow baby
She,s always been good
At getting what she wants
She’s more trouble than
She,s worth
But she,s all the trouble
You Need
-Erren Kelly, 2-21-14, Burlington, VT
sometimes, i walk the streets
because i know if i stop moving
i’ll become prey for predators
i’ll become extinct
god is my friend, though sometimes i
wonder if he hears me when i call
the cries rippling, echoing on
the waters the turtle swims under
in the coffeehouse, my true habitat
i sit, listening to jazz or trance or dubstep
or electronic music, using any form of
art as ekphrasis, to strengthen
my own art, to toughen up
my shell, which is still
soft
art toughens up every part of me
but always soften up my
heart
the loggerhead sea turtle has a life span of 47 to 67
years
the men in my family never live
long
my father, daredevil he was,
managed to make it to 70
survived three automobile accidents
and three triple bypass heart surgeries
my baby brother, roderick
lived for 15 years waiting on a kidney
finally laid down
on night
and made his grand exit
he told the world ” fuck it”
as if life was a currency
that had lost its value
like the loggerhead sea turtle
i have brown skin, i am enormous
roaming the streets, like it roams the sea
my natural habitat
cops watch me, like undersea predators
cops watch me, like they shoud’ve watched adam lanza
before he walked into an elementary
school in sandy hook
opened fire and made kids eternal
cops track my movement by satellite and gps, like
they should’ve stalked those russians
who bombed the boston
marathon
and made sweet
caroline
the mourning hymn of a broken
city
but cops keep me under surveillance
because i’m brown
and because my pen and tongue are
liquid swords
words are the habitat i swim in
like my father and
brother, i know i will die
the men in my family don’t live to be old
but i can look at death, like a turtle
looks at larger prey
and laugh
cos i know there are
better worlds than
this
better oceans to swim in
to make my mark, to leave my
legacy
the loggerhead sea turtle has a low reproductive
rate
females lay an average of 3 or 4 egg clutches and then
become quiescent, producing no eggs
for 2 or 3
years
the loggerhead sea turtle reaches sexual maturity
within 17 to 33 years
once, the turtles reach adulthood, their
formidable size limits
predation to large marine animals
such as
sharks
i am fighting to exist
i am making sure my name lives on
after i’m gone
after daddy died
i thought about kids
at first, i wanted a
son
a nice little brown
boy
who would carry on
my name
who would have me and my father
inside him
who would be
creative
if he wanted to play sports
i wouldn’t stop him
but i’d prefer he’s
paint, write or draw
maybe play jazz the way miles or monk did
the loggerhead sea turtle’s
sex cannot be determined
externally until it
reaches adulthood,fully grown
i have been told i have feminine traits
i’m big but, i’m hypersensitive
i’m strong, but i’m vulnerable
in a coffeehouse
a man walks up to me and touches me
saying,” i’m just trying to be friendly.”
i show restraint and do everything
humanly possible not
to beat him down into a grease
spot
i have this thing about
men touching me:
it’s a violation of my space
the female loggerhead turtle
only breeds 3 or 4 clutches of eggs
and sometimes can
go 3 or 4 years
without having babies
the loggerhead sea turtle eggs are
especially vulnerable to marine predators
kinda like living on
the streets, isn’t it?
survival of the fittest
i get up everyday
doing my best to be the lion instead of
the gazelle
i apply for a job and an interviewer
assumes i have a criminal record
never mentioning my b.a. degree in english
” you speak too well and articulate too good
for a black person”
but i keep reading books
like they’re oxygen
i look at women’s breasts
for their fullness
there hips for their
roundness
i not only want a woman to love
i want a woman who
will keep the line
going
who will swim with me
under the ocean and bring my kind
back from
extinction
erren geraud kelly/ february 23, 2014
