Houston Haiku

I love that skyline

“Be someone” says the freeway

How could I say no?

Smoking Gun

Beige reality

Sea foam greens and baby blues

Red’s for fantasies or breaking news

Tucked in tight between the two

Is a broad black tunnel binding the group

The moon may look orange, yellow or pink

the dazzling stars shoot sharp silver beams

How the evening calls to the shades of day, only they’re deaf upon dusk

The black tunnel bleeding into noon remains, and gravestones stay grey as a smoking gun

Smoking gun becomes undone into a beige reality

Forrest greens and ocean blues

Red’s for forbidden romances or for high heeled shoes

And if the shoe fits loose

There’s enough room for a dense black sole to separate the two

Easy Spirits

What’s the oldest things you’re wearing today?

One afternoon my grandmother came over to my parents house with a wagon full of shoes. Excited to give away her plethora of size 7-1/2, brand new, nearly identical, white sneakers. She said she must replace them because she needs bigger Dr. Scholl’s insoles. The wagon-full were shoes appropriate for a grandma, but nonetheless, I dug through them to find a pair that may speak to me. Surely enough, I found a pair of Easy Spirits that look close enough to Adidas so I slipped them on. To this day I have a closet with Yeezys, Filas, and real Adidas but I choose to wear my grandma shoes. To be honest, it’s like walking on pillows. They eased the sneaker head in me, allowing me comfort beyond the consciousness of fashion.

Sweet talker

Hand out words like candy

Honey inspired and confectionary confessions

Sugar sprinkles on the slick delivery of apologies

And again with the peppermint canes around necks

Don’t let it go unless into a lazy River of licorice

Give and give and give it out

Words like candy, taste brand new

Unwrapped specially for selected sweet tooth’s

Glaze it onto your syntax like a caramel lip smack

Dangerously difficult to get past

Cinnamon diction mixed with buttery sentences

Utterly delicious empty calories

An informed follower

Are you a leader or a follower?

There’s so much pressure to be a leader. All my life I felt that I didn’t measure up simply because I lacked leadership skills. My father, and oldest brother were natural born leaders.

Whereas I tended to lag behind. It took me years to realize that it’s okay to not be at the very front of the pack.

Once I recognized who I am as a follower, it was a matter of finding the right people to follow. I kept falling into traps and letting people lead me who had no business doing so. I ended up in strange places and intimidating circumstances.

Just because I’m a follower doesn’t mean I’m not wise.

It took me a while, but I found the people I would need to follow in order to be the person I believed myself to be.

Leaders may be able to create their pack, or become the head of an existing one; but followers are like chameleons. Blending into groups until they find the one that reveals their true colors.

Blue horizon

The bird hovers through the trees

Stopping on branches periodically

It looks down at the two-legged species

That’s overpopulated themselves

How they live apart from one another

The bird sings for its lover to hear

The bird meets its flock in the grocery store parking lot

The birds glides through the baby blue horizon

Because it can

It’s finds dinner on the way

To the next city, the next state

Sharing the sky with its brethren

Mind over Matter

Would you believe you’re rich

Not in finances not in possessions

But in sheer mental faculty?

The reader,

The one who opens their mind

To all points of view

What’s the matter of time, or space, or opportunity for you?

In fact there’s no matter

You can’t overcome

You have capability beyond

No one told you

So you couldn’t have listened

But now you’ve read it

So pay close attention

Belief

What merits belief

Belief in someone

Belief in yourself

What about seeing nightmares?

Will it merit believing in hell?

Why is believing discouraged

Without seeing

How is there more meaning to derive from seeing

Than the bounty of imagination behind the meaning of believing?

Why is it harder to believe in the best

than it is to see the worst

How will seeing the earth

For what it really is

Make us believe

It’s an accident?

All my mentors

Share a story about someone who had a positive impact on your life.

Paula taught me not to give it away early.

Taylor taught me to pray and told me to write.

My mother believed in me always and dried my tears in stark black nights.

My father gave lessons in long car rides that changed the course of my life.

My brother took me to dinner to share that it’s hard to do what’s right.

I owe it to my mentors that I landed on my two feet.

I owe it to my mentors to live out the wisdom they taught me.

Having it all, and all wrong

What does freedom mean to you?

It’s the mile we have

Versus an inch

It’s our fruitful abundance

The mere chance to get rich

It’s in the way in which

we choose to die

The way we smoke or joke

How the billowing flag flies

It’s how we go wherever we please

We raise a toast or fall to our knees

We have the right to say

what we really mean

We have the right to shout to raise hell

Even defund the police

How strange is it to be truly free