Who am I, really? — I’ve answered this question numerous times, usually as a perfunctory greeting for a literary publication which triggers their inevitable rejection letter. I never got accustomed to either part of that dance, though the practice of writing my own introductory bio for sending to editors who nearly unanimously reply with, “Nah…

A free verse poem — Hip-Hop was our culture. It still is. Hip-Hop was our currency. It still is. Hip-Hop was our common tongue. It still is. Hip-Hop kept us hip to all repeating cycles and patterns. Hip-Hop kept our hands stinging from pounding on hallway walls in time with the cypher’s cadence. Hip-Hop kept…

Restoring moments we’ll never get back — 1. Remove the tattered, ruined subject’s cold, brown body from the bulky black bag. Do not fret about the mess; any blood splattered earlier will be returned to the subject upon replacement within the makeshift stencil via this spool-back restore technique. 2. Place the subject’s tattered, bloodied brown body back inside the stenciled…

A hybrid poem, but not that type of poem — Massive solar flares should make northern auroras visible here, except maybe never from my bedroom window but for a greenish-black glimmer between trees and perhaps my imagination. Here we are looking for something, anything to ignite midnight with wondrous light; anything but the black. Here we are hanging on threads so thin only…

Or perhaps any other blistering abstraction — Is it nature’s late summer evening ballad, nuzzled within lower registers of a coyote solo before her song is joined? Is it a coyote song crooned by goosebumped follicles? Is it a fickle tickle-spot buried within the nape of a neck we’ll never get to kiss? Is it a drought…

When your ancestors or unborn descendants visit, do you listen? — You came to me in a dream The son I have never met, or perhaps A forefather’s liminal return I’d not heard your name spoken But it rang like a bell from within You spoke it from your mother’s womb And that word embraced me, dancing Unorganized, ready to receive…