Category: Poem

proof of life :

On By ©️K.T. 2026In Mother, Poem, poetryLeave a comment

she taught me to not like
myself/

especially, my image

— in photographs and in the moments themselves

ingraining a self-consciousness in me

and in the candidness of my real life

in

play
laughter
effort
surprise
exertion
contemplation
fatigue
wonder
sadness
silliness
conversation
worry
unmade

pose, poise, posture, profile, perfect,

control

and because perfection

is unattainable,

in the eye of the beholder and in the eye of the beheld

she was absent from the photos of our lives, and so also was i,

becoming onlooker, background, photographer,

instead of subject

and, so i learned

to make myself invisible

to become invisible

to accept invisibility

there are so many ways to be a thief, mother

self-portrait, proof of life,
Kahlo, an ideal of self-possession
Continue reading “proof of life :” →

ravenous

On By ©️K.T. 2026In Poem, poetryLeave a comment

i subsist on this right now

chartreuse
red, purple, black
and gold

early, brave dandelions, low-key wonders

muscari, moss, catkins, i study in real-time-lapse — like it’s my last Spring / is it?

these black birds — red-winged, grackles, and starlings, their obsidian gloss and iridescence, who could look away

sandhill cranes, five years familiar, but i am still arrested with awe every single time

deer roam in forage for hours for tender emergent greens among last year’s corn stover/

chorus frogs and woodcocks at twilight, i heard them into the night, this had to be the first white noise for human beings

i watch for owls til there’s no more light, straining my eyes / willing them to feast on the moles that i can’t bear to kill /

no one’s here to call me in / no street lights/ and i forget to eat til i am

ravenous or ravishing/ my favorite and unforgettable malaprop

i am warmed, buoyed, sated with vernal sensuality

but the mud, my heart – and hips

remind me
that i am also

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siphon

On By ©️K.T. 2026In Capitalism, Poem, poetry, Politics, PovertyLeave a comment

drove past the new plasma store
they’re buying, not selling
do you need to know more?

old cars fill up the vast parking lots
that pristinely fresh concrete,
marred by oil and brake fluid spots

this is a tale-of-two-river-cities,
white kids don’t sell platelets here/
this is no college town
this place was known
for Black boys, kidnapped and drowned

this fucking joint, is it never empty/
how many times can they draw blood per person, per month/
is it just two times – or twenty?

Freedom Plasma: there’s still Black blood to be drained!
24-7 audacity and
not ONE DROP of shame

Continue reading “siphon” →

dear human, woman,

On By ©️K.T. 2026In limineen, moon, Poem, poetryLeave a comment

if you are acquainted with nearly every star in Orion and Canis Major in the Southern Night Sky from the Northern Hemisphere;

& Castor and Pollux have glimpsed you both in and out of your blue pyjamas;

& the Moon spotlights your face like you’re the star of the show, while asleep in bed, insisting you wake up and be both worshipped and worshipper

through your bedroom windows, overlooking a wet meadow, a red dirt road and then some trees,

from a ramshackle, old green house that effortlessly called you in, to hold you, and to hold you down

on this good Earth,

for a short while/

then, dear human, woman,

you are doing fine,
you are fine,
it’s all fine

nothing gold can stay
except your own aurum treasure of a heart

you, above all, know this

so, all you need do,
is keep

keep, keep, keep.

lying in bed, 4:59 AM EST, March 15, 2023
Continue reading “dear human, woman,” →

residuum II | collab with Yeats – he only died 84 years ago

On By ©️K.T. 2026In anthropocene, Anthropos, birds, Capitalism, Earth hospice, Earthling, earthlings, planetary hospice, Poem, poetry, YeatsLeave a comment

pushed to the margins
hanging on by one stressed thread
to toxic or barren fringe-lands

when the once-verdant centres could, and did, hold

us, all/

“Surely some revelation is at hand;

while now, all about it

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.”

“reel shadows of the indignant [shore] birds”

harkening

one day soon, you too, will be residuum here

what remains: gulls converge in a chasmic rain-filled pothole in the parking lot of an abandoned mall

An ephemeral asphalt pond after heavy rains in the parking lot of an abandoned mall, long-infested with gulls, as testimony – not merely to the inorganic evolution of consumerism, but of the intersection of NAFTA and other free-trade agreements, American soft segregation and hard apartheid, and the inherent discriminatory and predatory migration of US and Western global capitalism.

Continue reading “residuum II | collab with Yeats – he only died 84 years ago” →

He swept.

On By ©️K.T. 2026In Father, Poem, poetry, SundaysLeave a comment

“See how He loved [Them].”

swish, swish, knock
swish, swish, knock
a rhythm, a metronome
once a week,
usually a Sunday

you felt very near to me today, also a Sunday,

me weeping while sweeping, or vice versa

my movement conjured you, conjured the once-me and the eternal you/
me, looking down from the landing//
you, nearing the top of the narrow, 2-flat stairs
in your white v-neck t-shirt or “dago-T”
looking up over your thick glasses at me, with your big eyes
with your snaggle-toothed smirk, a gold cap on your front tooth, and mustached/
the broom in your beautiful hands / you, pure lank, pure elegance

i wish it were a saxophone.

instead of a broom or steering wheel.

had i snapped a photo of you on them stairs
with that familiar look/

Continue reading “He swept.” →

grail

On By ©️K.T. 2026In Poem, poetry, waterLeave a comment

here am i

my eyes stigmata
overflowing saltwater
corresponding
heartache of this life, heartbreak of this world,

this cross of water, women carry

here i am

creating
fresh watersheds
from my headwaters/
my tears runoff into wrinkle streams/
flowing tributaries converge into
rivers desalinated in sediment of flesh/
creases of time and depth
weather my face/
carved canyons carry
rapids down my cheeks/
raging confluence pours into
the lake of my mouth, onto bed of my tongue/
spilling waterfall
down my throat
into ocean of my heart/

torrents cascading over my lips, chin, breasts,

Continue reading “grail” →

james, thank you.

On By ©️K.T. 2026In Poem, poetryLeave a comment

a man who knew my father befriended me
and caused me to question the nature of my reality,
my history, its validity,
my possibly-false memories
— all, viewed through the lens
of the person
who had a vested interest in
indoctrinating me
who preferred my naïveté
under the guise of protectivity

my last photo with my father,
Christmas break, age 6, Waukegan, Illinois

parents write stories on the folds of a child’s cerebrum,
their pens go unchallenged
until they’re challenged /
their ink is like cord blood,
except it can re/generate — or damage

but it only takes one person
to crack open their sky,
then, we astronomers spend
our lives asking our zealots
the non-answerable “why?”