'Nobody's Queen'

Kors Collaborations - Claiborne Swanson Frank

mother t

i left this piece of metal art that i made on a street in Portland Oregon

the only thing i kept of it was this picture i took

i wonder if anyone has it now

Light.

Photograph Taken By Nick Gibson

Shot While Taking A Walk With My Mister In Forest Park, Portland Oregon.

New York Times Archive

I had read a New York Times article back in November of 2005.
The article inspired my poem 'Volume No. 53,4111' which I wrote shortly after reading it.
I had misplaced the article years ago, and just now, almost seven years later, found it in the archives of New York Times.
It is a story that definitly pulled my heart strings then, and still does today.

Here is the link to the New York Times Article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/27/international/africa/27malawi.html?scp=14&sq=africa%2C+child+sold&st=nyt">

POEM

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 2005

volume no. 53,4111
november 27th, 2005
New York Times.
African Times.

there is a push
pull
try to keep up with the times
try to keep our cultural lines
some things aren’t meant to last
some traditions don’t stand a chance
when are we going to speak up
start raising our intellect
if you listen to an anthropologist
he’ll show you a view beyond your own mind
but tell me how can a baby be sold still
the value of a girl child
compare to food on the kitchen stove
debt unpaid
your son with his own wife
the sorrow in her eyes
when you tell her
she is your bride child daughter
to a man with seventy years
paying your going rate of 16 dollars
the price of your adolescence
taken away
by your parents own blessing
did you know then
you were the sacrifice
the lamb upon the alter
its been happening since bible times
told you to consider it an honor
but you child are a child
the lamb was just a lamb
there is a push
pull
on demand
come with me now
let me show you
how we disregard
societies lower rungs
so we lower the sins
for the guilt of our own stakes
resist the efforts of change
divide our sanity in desperation within
to think it’s okay
to mutilate
and mutate
fight the laws
that govern land
sell the soil
with our own plans
give away our righteous daughters
with attempt to believe
they are our own rightful martyrs
to keep lineage
right
and good
with who lives in new money
who lives in old money
who lives with no money
and lets keep it this way
who would want to divide up the profits
the rich look richer
richer with goodness
to give their portions to the poor
to the needy
to the cause
but the tax dollars
get bent
and they get relieved
by there own reductions
so they can sleep at night
but there is a push
pull
and I am not sleeping
cant sleep
because I am middle class
middle street
twenty four
and still im coming home
still blessed to speak my mind
to say what is so
of my belief
to write these lines
and scream with rage
to find food
rotting in the cans
below the sink
because water still runs clear
on this share of land
and I look away
turn the blind eye
but today new york times
haunts me
with Africa front page
center stage
because this is our world
yours and mine
food enough to go around
airplanes to travel the time
but how can things still be so harsh
just another 12 hours away
how do the streets stay so full
and the homes live so empty
the doctors told me of my dis ease
but blood is thicker then water
more knowledgeable then eyes
today I was granted with the gift to be humble
and still spared my own purity
but there are so many
mis fortuned
layers
to unfold
overlapping
the how
and why
and who would
when
you could
but never did
and we have not be honest
with our intentions
not been honest
with what really lives beneath our surface
viruses and bacteria and little bugs that manifest on the flesh
this is how we live
an epidemic
of tribulations
there are so many ways
to look
and point the finger
to many ways to tell a story
into believing it’s a piece of fiction
a world to far
gone away
to believe
and to regard
because even our families
even our bodies
even our own souls
get looked over
denied
into caring
because it is easier to numb pain
take the vice
find the muse
and write about the tragic occurrence in the mind
what does it take
to share the burden of the soul
to reach out
and be the needy one
and still find that steady hand
there is a push
pull
and here I stand divided
here I am broken
how many volumes of new york times
does it take to feel your heart strings felt
how many children have to be sold
how many viruses must be spread
how many victims of hunger have to die
how many human beings must be prisoned
how many words must be written
how many people must lose their way
until we find solutions
does it have to reach into your home
drag you out of your warm bed
shake you down to core
push you until you are pulled
how do we fight without the rage
how do we find a new way
because we keep on repeat
the past becomes the
future becomes the past
and we keep on repeat
there is a push
pull
the past becomes the
future becomes the past
and we keep on repeat

it became that way

it became that way
when he said he couldn't stay
here in this city
above the fault line
it was loves fault
i said
the earth shakes and quivers
and i am below man to believe different
he said
you have two minds
ambivalence runs between the cracks
i liked the light before the sun rose
the breaking point with water
orange
then white
bright
i turn the lights off wherever i go
they find me in the dark
i live surrounded by candles
soft light
or moon light
it wasn't meant to be that way
she explained
but he wouldn't listen
couldn't listen
to the knock hard against the door
rattling the cages of her breast bone
echoing through flesh
it's been to long
to go back
the long way in which we came

f.t.p.

i dont know how to follow into the proceeding
of what it looks like to continue beside you
because it doesnt have rhythm
or sense to begin
picked us off the curb of question
without answer or direction
"hold me close" you'll say
and i'll squeeze tighter
but will that move us past the cyclical motion of our lives
you say you'll be twenty-seven
that your bones are feeble and the mind distorts your reasons
i ask if they are our reasons
to let go and reply
with more of the truth then lies
the connotation
of a squid in love with a whale
and this is not funny
but honey
there was a suitcase with your things
left behind
and in every morning i'll wake to myself
and every night follow your trace
into cities brutal with honesty
where the streets themselves tell you that life hardens
and then there are crimson moments of skylines
and birds low enough to land with possibility
i'll describe myself to you
and hope your patience wouldn't abstract
and forget to follow
you are everything i said you were and all the more of what you know you are already
i am the pieces pulled together in darkness created by light
maybe we were never meant to say all of what was spoken
but life lives with no room to take back or deny
and ive fallen
hope full and in love with you
honey there is this connotation between us
it was the suggestion to follow the pull
walk the line
break the direction
forget the meaning
of every piece that others held and placed their bets
because it's only your word against mine
and here we stand alone
here we are divided
from all the other crossings pinnacle to this

breech.

i wanted to write about the meaning of us
our centerfold of how we belong
it cuts into the distinct differences
it breaks the question open
long enough to tower its heights
and explore its magnitude
you perspire to learn more in us
then another woman
while i want things which you cannot give
and lack the clarity to tell me in honesty
that you never will
the truth is
i loose myself
in this heat
in this sun
in the endless television
and the sugar that keeps me at thrills length
lost in my love for you that takes me at such great ranges
that our ups and downs have become a steady pace to keep
maybe you are so right
not to tell me
someday we will be forever
even though i know this isnt even a concept
forever.
its some illusionary stance we take on
writing down our lives in some mystical
fanciful way
it was breech
the way we fought for strength to deliver ourselves
out of our consistently stagnant and stuck patterns
that lovers lie down naked to
we pushed until torn
and now were making memories out of our own blood
feeding our bodies with this life substance
that dries hard against the skin

salt tears.

if i were to read the sentences that marked our lives
you would be the comma of a breath taken
life leads us into the fragility of human form
and there are no words to say what is felt
there is expression of face and hand and eyes
it was sad he said
in a way to mark his tears
but the moment watered down
to pale white
and the compromise left it salty with memory.

poetry in compilation.

the window pointed to the street
call it a name
call it rollin hills and
backdrop sweet with fault lines and
road signs
the end of all end all and
you knew nothing about it
you stopped short of living
denied something of soul and
sweet life
populate the surface
sanctify the soil
you wouln't end up here long he said
willingly, take yourself whole and round
hold yourself still
still you will see there is more to this life then
breaking ground against your knees
pray
believe to disbelieve everything
that no one and everyone seamed to know was right and good
and oh! so bad
your mind is clever and able
she was the woman you had waited in lines for
at bar dives and picket fenced in garage sale signs
you took to her solid and frothing
like you knew she had the fight and the breath and the sound
you had waited all your life to hear
music
but had you known then that she was you
would you have followed her so patiently?

salvations army of hope

a keeper of a day
she wanted nothing to do with his silence
written less walls and papers white
she wanted the hole to remain large
where he kept her waiting
on bus tickets and overpriced blue jeans
she couldn’t say for fact that love had come down to its finest moment
over beer spackled rings of onion layers
and the dripping soaked napkins of grease
a moment defines itself
and reappears in new motive
she was the wonder of her life
wandering around the questions as she liked to remain in bafflement
he stayed on the left side of the road
the diner across the street kept his order by memory
and his fingers always stained themselves tar honey brown
if she couldn’t live complete in him, then who could she
the moment you hear the sound of the 6wheeler catching up to your rearview mirror
you know you’ve lost your chase
the slow down to peddle
makes the metal of your rings clink together oddly
and that’s when you know you’ve ended up alone
without a keeper of your days
to tell you where you’ve been
and just how long you have stared out that breakfast joint window
and when did he say he was coming back
after the rain
after the darkness turned to sunrise
after the waitress kicks you out
and you beg for one last coffee to go
you realize then you never did drink coffee
it was his word against your own
and now
out on the curb
the heat of styrofoam warming you down to lungs
deep into your pit of a stomach
nauseous with fact
the horn wakes you with conscious
the old man
with the rimed hairline
sticks his tongue out
loops it around in the air
and slithers it back in again
gesture to you and your lonesome face
“honey you want a ride”
but you were no honey
and somebody’s kid
if only you could remember at what point
if ever you said goodbye
and how you became the wait
in line
the drugstore ile five
greeted you with maxi pads
and then you realized you weren’t bleeding
hadn’t bleed
for months
and this time you coudnt get
back on the bus
and into the blue jeans that favored your reflection
time had warped you into twenty five years to long
if you were to say
it was always his silence that turned you on
turned desolate into salvations army of hope
but no memory could keep your face
and even tar stains forgetful smells
the only memory worth repeat

i feel fragile here.

i feel fragile here
my skin soaked deliberately in the water that has lacked in presence
so confined ive been within four walls and a view
tonight i witnessed my own insanity
the pulse that aches into emotion
with the resulting outcomes of holding in and holding on
the land feels exposed to the wetness
as i am exposed to myself
ive missed the rain
the way it holds on and quivers against the release
they say the skies know when it is time to weep
sometimes i too feel myself slipping
the fears grow inside of me up through my belly from the root of unconsciousness
they spread over the dinner table
that is surrounded by a home which has always structured the perimeters of my life
this memory becomes beautiful
with no room to be anything then what it has already been
there is nothing to expand on here
to grow me out into longer years
i have to say goodbye to this part of me
that eases into this space of comfort to tight to bare in any length

relevance.

you described yourself to me
hollowing out of heart
honey
you told me you would remember the days
each sound you made would resemble the echo of an inclined hardening
harder still you make me wonder
how it is man differs so much from the view of a woman
and you were the boy
who wanted to hold my love in the cusp of two hands quivering
every night if i could see thru the eyes of a sunken view
the water would buckle against the earth
and i would grow you out of roots five years longer
long enough to see the sun stretch against my naked skin
late enough in the morning to see still that you were lingering
ive grown up inside long rows of agricultural indifferences
you said everything you could say
but could not be
and the rows still grow longer
it was the point i said id take
but always knew would never hold solid when
the water no longer takes claim to sides
when life continually asks us to let go of everything that wants to hold us
the runoff remains brutally uneven with honesty.
i’ll describe myself to you
but your patience will abstract
and forget to follow
you are everything i said you were and all the more of what you know already
i am the pieces pulled together in darkness created by light
we were never meant to say all of what was spoken
but life lives with no room to take back or deny
you are the journey of your own dreaming
i am the face you wanted to stake claim
neither will keep vivid towards the ending
of your silence and my relevant withdrawal

searching for the one eyed jesus.

he said he wanted curtains
to live where the light seeped through
but it was already morning against bare window pane
along with the bareness of her skin exposed
she could no longer count the lines that defined her palms
her will lay on a towel
curled beneath the bed
and what if she could complain
tell the sky
and weep like rain
consideration is always considered
but couldn’t the fall free an explanation
never mind the heat of conversation
desert lines up to meet the water
he lined up to meet the words
un-curtained from the threat
his touch cant describe
the neck line
and this is what he gave her
light and morning and skin
and this is all he would give her
she wouldn’t ask for more
couldn’t
because breaking down the moment
that should be taken back
lived too far down the road in front of her
and speaking truth seeped between the night and the day
and breathed in neither
she adjusted herself to trust in occurrence
as he sat
between silence
and agitation gone unseen
mistaking anothers heart beat
for the rhythm of his own
im telling you now
you missed your one eyed jesus

november second.

im reaching towards the past for you
trying to read between lines that hold you pivitol
i asked you how you lived
your life before you knew me
although i didn’t care to know of time and space and listless seasons
the way they know and cling to history
not with you
not that way
because now is something different then before
and this i’ll say with confidence
this is how i’ll ask you
to knot the world
tie the strings of lovers to the anchor of a boat you’ve already sailed out to sea
and if i was your lady
would you be my mister
in the sailors water of ocean blue
spread like honey between wet and board and you
lay in curls of each other
folds of sweat and scruff and smell
the coffee didn’t hold the heat
the morning effected the light
and then you were going
i know all about it
straighten out the right and wrong
but not right now
in the silence of lips and lust and lacked love
you wanted to drive up the 80 where the borders reach the chaos
in quite reasoning
i’ll recollect all the hours
minutes given minute detail in the corners of my mind
to give three days more length
of time spent with you
and how do I live the day towards all the other days
be here in a moment you say
drink your orange juice
finish your breakfast
get up and make the bed
call your father to talk about your mother
and its here that you have become the hollow of anticipation
stored in my chest cavity
burrowed into my life

hollow.

hollow out this space of use
take away the objects of display
the piano feels empty
white notes to distinguish black
but nothing squeezes between flats and sharps
so vivid memories fit into childhood recollections
hollow out your adolescence
something began there
ruptured and subtracted
to fit into a form
hollowing out the divide that created you different
a little odd and totally absurd at times
but all you
all soul
hollow out your days that turn slated
jaded and worn
ragged and ruff
they turn you out into the coldness
the hollow of your life
you were never made half whole
all of you becoming
constantly deserving

port clinton.

you call me
from the insides of port clinton
locked down
between walls
barred steel
wired webs
voice quivered
they do this to break you
low
remind you of where your two feet stand
and the perimeter they will solely walk
their days to
but these are not
their days
give them nothing
they will never carry you circular motion
one foot in-front of
the next
time goes by
in four year intervals
last time I saw you
me
driving cross country
thru cleveland
don’t go back there
when they let you out
don’t go back there
people die in the homes they grew up in
we ‘grew up’
but growing old is not the same
you and me
we'll never die
there
in those homes
i woulnt let us dissolve
like that
burnt ash
we spent our days
groom creek
cabin style
wood burning stove
at war with freezing air
outside
heading north on montezuma
towards sundance place
drink our fill of beefeaters and
tonic
that was life
in a moment
you don’t know how to tell me
on this collection call
what worlds your two feet walked
we sit on telephone wires
a man echoing in
silhouettes of time
to let me know
where exactly you are
i don’t trust your story
but i trust you

break the verb.

i am making moves that have turned my bones into years
with all this solidity ive taken weight strong enough to pull a river down
it wasnt how it was the night before the rain
it came down steady and strong
and that was after the clouds
we part our ways
down towards the middles of our life lines
and say goodbye
because its better then not saying you were right
and id agree
but only if you stay with me
because staying never brought you closer to your thoughts
of love and life and ties that unbind before your eyes
it was the way she said it that wrote itself down on paper
inked and remembered
because life is simple and smart and pure
and you had to come back
with all your hollow tears pretending
all to bend the water
break the verb
to become the noun that ive held up against
the place of a person
but you were the thing
and you woulnt remember this way of knowing by morning
extraction has become a method for means

"hello girl"

it didnt help to stop the commentary
the second guess of a good hand
handed down in generational habit
the stomach exceeds tension
a breath drops to a shallow gaze
and you are pivotal in these lines
lined up against the odds of fated outcome
the coffee didnt hold to the heat
the morning effected the light
and then you were going
i know all about it
straighten out the right and wrong
but not right now
it must have been the color of the day
quick hold to moments intertwined in lifes sentence
does the beginning always know the end
illusions ive become
hard pressed for ideas that keep me yearning
wake up to a man you do not know
and ask again what you have found here
in the silence of lips and lust and lacked love
become someone better
walk central down to where the park breaks
past a home you never found comfort in
after lies you told yourself at night
"hello girl"
did you remember in the city of fog that it is june
one year older then the last time you thought about it

pull.

the stronger downward pull
towards inevitable mistake
a breath lengthens
heady in the lungs
couldn’t see through thickness here
if only the water would break the damn
a storm gravitate south
the body conceal the tear
but the skin sweats beneath the sun
a river pulls downward
love empties the heart
a breath becomes betrayal
hard to grasp in the chest
nights dream of something other then lived
i listen to my own advice
forget to calm and come to it
like a child weans from a mother
i wean from the desert
a cold night
im not in my body today
im nowhere near it
brushed up against matter
revenge is the seeker
hungrily mistaken
distraught in memory
city walls to bind believers
believe me
the heart knows reason reason knows nothing of
he said
shutter your eyes
the light bleeds through onto paper
onto pen
but i will not write for you
for the world
or myself most of all

earth and sky & city traffic.

it was the rivet of a man
the obsolete that kept him meaningless
the burden without a drawback to hold to
towards fate and the mystic
between the barrier of time below anything of noon
she waited on him
holding space for the turning point of return
but he never returned
to her
like he did that morning

it was a silouette of time
a lapse in believing
she wore her sweater like ripples of a sea
deep blue
deeper than her eyes
she could withstand the taunting gaze
retreat and memorize her lines
as kernels of hope squared around her
she couldnt write like before
she couldnt squeeze him into the spaces that defined her heart
couldnt even find the break where he now ceased to exist inside
she mazed together places and pieces of fiction on truth memory
do you discover sense before scent is accumulated
into earth and sky and city traffic
commute with me down this long corridor
promise me, she said, promise me you woulnt end me like this
it was all premonition
pre dated
pre planned
pre organized business of affairs
containing the lengths lovers will lie down next to
and trace their way back to where they came
because we forget and forgive five pages long
 too long
a headache is a burden on my night stand 
because now is not like before
before was something different then it was

and this she said with confidence