Share a Poem

I met an intelligent and introspective man at Da Poetry Lounge in Los Angeles, CA around a year and a half ago. His name is Donny Jackson. His support and appreciation for my work and other poets alike is flattering and often I am grateful for his insightful comments and interesting conversation. over recent months we've had a series of existential type conversations and my curiosity for certain therapeutic approaches has inspired further engaging conversations being that he has a PHD in Psychology. Donny has also shared poems, some inspired by conversations and others purely brought about through experience but I've always admired his sense of humility and the keen observations of relation that he shares. We are always sure to ask each other of our writing process and in recent months it seems he's been sharing more than i have, I enjoyed this poem he sent me a couple of days ago and after asking him for permission was moved to share it with fellow bloggers. I hope that it speaks to some of the women and men that read this blog and over all that the poem resonates to a specific kind of relationship, one that is aware of surrendering to moments, to the gentle and precious sanction of time and detail, before it is too late and we have forgotten what it is all truly and really worth...The poem is beautiful because of its use of dialogue and imagery. It resonates with some woman reserved in me and empathizes so well with the voice of a woman. I've had many of these conversations with members from Omega Institute that have taken my workshop "Surrendering to the Metaphor," to my best friends Meghann Plunkett and Nelson Caban...we continue to practice in the moment of now, the art of being, to be aware of every thing we mean to each other simply in the carelessness of living and laughing and loving, because we won't be young forever and we most definitely are not guaranteed tomorrow let alone the next minute or hour... This is definitely a love poem, a type of love poem that is not typical nor unoriginal and I appreciate its romanctic yet realistic approach. with that being said, I am certain I will have more blogs about this idea and related conversation at some point but for now, thanks to Donny for sharing. May you all read and enjoy a poem by him:






Sittin’ in a tree
(July 2009)
by Donny Jackson

sometimes we think we have forever
to find what we want
but maybe God made you gifted
so you would have more to share
for longer.

(this isn’t because if you don’t
someone else will
this is because no one will
like
you.)

she has already told you:
if i magic a party for you
i won’t care who shows up
if you don’t.

you may be a chameleon instrument
she’ll say
but your singular scent
makes my blood
iridescent: i know you.

pressed further
she will confess:
i love you
not because you are not a mirror
but because you are an echo:
you entice me to shout because
i hear my scared voice shaped back to me into breezes by the
solid of you.

if you can just
find her smile
in the mural of your day

i am sure she will say
i can tame my porcupine mouth
to your rice paper hush
while you merlin in the dark
cuz that’s what faith loves like.

and she’ll continue:
since we’re talking about talk
maybe and if only for our children
we will gently pull ‘nigga’ from our language
like stitches from a wound that is finally healing on its own
cuz there is future in how we history.

and she will savor
how you art your way into self
as long as you want to remember to say:
let me kiss you until it explains the origin of kiss
and that feline ink
lifts from your hip
just so it can watch us
sabretoothed and stalking in envy
as we become hunger.

and if she giggles out of the moment
be magnetic and divinely opposite and pull her back
and say
twist while i let these
chocolate fingers
freestyle your caramel
undoing your sweet
until you melt me in.
you didn’t know we were dessert?
sugar
we are the only reason belly-full angels dine.

so this is when you say:
i’ll forget that we ever snickered at
schoolyard fuck yous
at the moment we are
sculpted from midnight
and your heat disconnects my will
and i say
fuuuuck: youuuuu…

and with this
she will admit
that you were always
the only one
and behave accordingly at last
she will say
i want the inkling of the thought of the wish
of your dynamite grip to
big bang scatter new worlds
into my pores
until i swirl like the blue Jupiter sees in Earth.

and this is when you tell her:

on our first time
the first sound you make
i will snatch from the air
and peel the note open
like tangerine
and taste the wet of you for me.
tell her
i am just getting started
baby
i am about to become
unspeakable.
but
no matter how you put it
she will hear it as a whisper when you say:

i will lick you like my tongue is turning the pages of your life.

you have her attention.
and she may not recall when you said it
but tell her:
while you sleep
i clang swords
with the gods of lust and reason
just to create sparks that will compete to be
the light in your eyes
when you wake to me.

but in spite of all this
know that
she doesn’t need a poem from you.
just your presence when you are present.
we have no awareness of bone until we are broken.
no sense of lost unless we’ve been home.
she is not waiting
she is b e i n g.
as you approach
hope that she will say
it is very possible that
i am the missing ingredient in your potions
so
just to make sure:
stir.