Home
If they told you
that you can’t go home
again
they lied
because that place is still
there
underneath the pavement
and the tires
and the signs
with their sun-bleached messages
that said:
this isn’t a place for you
they lied
again
this has always been your place
and it always will be
underneath the bones
and the branches
the moss like ghosts
and the tides like a heartbeat
as slow and steady
as your very own history
I Need You
Do I need you
to be here with me
to bear witness in the morning
to this steam coming off
of the wooden boat
that I named for a hand
and a deity, untitled
Do I need you to see me
in this new, green light
to touch me
and to make me real
under your fingertips?
Or do I just need this
these birds
this dog
this cup of yesterday’s coffee
with no one to ask me
to make something better
for them
I don’t need you.
Still, I wonder how
the birds might sing
to see us
and how that song might
sound like laughter
if we were holding hands
Then again,
if I were holding your hand
I wouldn’t be writing this
…and I don’t know
whether that’d be
any great loss
if my head were on your chest
…and my every word
was breath
and joy
to ring in my ears
like a song to the gods
and all the ghosts
that want us to be loved
Do I need you here
to watch the world
change with me?
No.
Will the world change the same way without you here with me on morning’s like this?
No.
PROOF OF GOD! ...and other tragedies. 
Poem From Last Night
THE SAURUS
So I opened up this book
full of words that mean
the same thing as other words
but different
because no two words are exactly the same
otherwise there wouldn’t be two of them
..and there are all these words that start with ‘h’
my eyes land on ‘hit’ first
because it has the most entries
the most meanings
the first group of which
are violent
and I can’t even read them
because they make me flinch
because that is the way
I read things
though I am comforted
by the fact
that all of those words
have other meanings, too
Strike
Cuff
Smack
…and May Day
is the day after tomorrow
and you bet your ass
there will be arrests
and lips will be kissed
and some kid across town
will probably die
because he shot too much
just like this friend
and like that friend
and the kid with the nice shoes
saying, “I just want a little hit.”
…just the other day.
…and across the page
there was ‘historic’
and I figured ‘hysteria’
was just a page or two away,
somewhere after 183
and ‘home’
I just got home
just a few hours ago
I got home from home
some place by the river
to the rain in the mountains
and I didn’t spit on the ground like I’d planned to
not in spite…
but in reverence,
honor
or no
just shut your mouth
…I tell myself this all the time
and I wonder
how many women are being told to shut up right now?
April 28, 2013, 9:04pm
@faithghost: How many people are being told to “…shut up…” right now?
…sent from my handheld device…
April 28, 2013, 9:04pm
@faithghost: “…keep talking…”
…sent from my handheld device…
I didn’t howl at home.
I didn’t write either. I drew some pictures, 1/2 hearted and distracted…second-guessing myself and thinking about
how I had been trying
to draw a horse in that house
for 30 years
…and how I hadn’t
gotten much better
after all
that time
I looked at the clouds
and caught them in forms
suggesting this
at the edges
and that in the light
I didn’t take pictures
because I resent the fact
that I feel like I have to
and because I know
that isn’t true
I was the girl in the fish house
with the big black bars
across her back
and the small hand
held in her own
…and when I think of anyone
wanting to hurt me
or scorn me
I want to say:
“Look at my palms, motherfucker. Do you know who the fuck I am? My name is Faith, and this was my home you sorry assed rednecked military stepchild of the WalMart colonization.”
gang rape
double lanes
train tracks…
“…and don’t you ever fuck with me.”
The boy who gave me the wings on my palms was a preacher’s son and he died in his sleep
three years clean time.
So what can I do
when I’ve driven so far today
gone from breeze to rain
coast to mountain
talking to the kids
about this
about that
keeping the miles passing
with one part of my brain
churning churning
like it does
like it does
…and the wretched little places where the soldiers hid
and the ancestors were hung
and the Indians died
and the swamp got filled up
“The water’s brown because of the cypress,” my father told my son, pointing at the wake.
“It’s got a chemical called tannin in it…”
I just smiled, because it hadn’t yet occurred to me that the river may as well be blood, for all the iron sunk in it
in forms and figures
tossed into the waves
…and so I didn’t write
because I hadn’t quite thought of all the things I was thinking about…about Timucuans 7 feet tall, all dead within 3 years of the horses being gifted in exchange for warfare…about why there were so many rays washed up on the beach, so many dead animals…about why I hadn’t been home in 7 years and what those empty rooms meant to me, why they still smelled the same.
I told myself, before we left the mountains, that I wouldn’t cry, that it wouldn’t be traumatic…that it would be healing. So, maybe, it somehow was.
What was it healing?
Oh, you know.
Home.
I could write a whole book about what led to those two days and why they were significant in the span of history. I could tell a story about my daughter walking beside a feral horse, the descendant of those gifted mares and stallions from Spain, and how the people stopped to take a picture of the rusted cars,
the heaps of metal,
that used to be
The newest
greatest
thing
So, I am home, back in the mountains
and I haven’t even bothered
to load the pictures
onto the computer
because I just relive
relive
relive
…and, god, to remember everything everyone says to me:
“Would you like a bag with that?”
…said the man with the delicate hands,
standing behind the counter
not thinking twice
about his life
and worrying about whether
the gum goes in
or stays out…
“It doesn’t matter,” I told him. “Either way, it doesn’t matter.”
There are things that I forget, but I remember way too much…
The woman’s nails were bright yellow. There was a white t-shirt tied to the driver side door handle.
…and I’ve forgotten
that I was writing a poem
that is really a part of book
that I’ve been forgetting
to write