The Tomato-coloured Couch 1:22pm
Dressed in My Silver Robe
I have Windexed My Dining Room
Table
to lay My Self out
drawn & quartered
for The Sake Of Humanity —
I was born out of Desolation, Depression
Death
to arrive at This Juncture
between the last Two Thousand Years
& the next
The Hawk Kitchen 1:10pm
My Voice Is Signalling Me
To Write Of The Abomination
That Is Christmas:
How Can I Devour
The Little Children’s Innocence
When They Hear Of Santa
Coming Down A Vaginal Chimney
When They Hear The Living Lie
Of That Baby Jesus
Immaculately Conceived?
The Tomato-coloured Couch 4:50pm
I am The Intellectual
sitting cross-legged on My Tomato-coloured Couch
drinking lemon-flavoured seltzer
from My Life Message Glass
–
I gaze from My Central Candle
to The Winter Window
& wonder when My “Good Morning, World!”
will enter every household
The Tomato-coloured Couch 7:30pm
What if You put into The Hands
of a 15th Century Native American*
Who had no way of knowing there would be
a 21st —
put in His Hands
an unopened, resealable package of frozen
Wild Jumble Berries?
*Who would have called Himself something different
The Tomato-coloured Couch 5:55pm
He & I are Black Jesus
crawling out of The Depths
of filth & squalor
out of Lies & Untruths
clawing Our Way Out
of The World Today, Tonight
into The Sublime
of misunderstood Union
November 28th The Hawk West Desk Window 2:34pm
Black Jesus, He a’Comin’
He gonna melt all dat snow
off dis Big Fat Snow Job
He gonna come outta hidin’
throw You a fast ball
He workin’ dis X Miss
He gotta girl fren
She be Him sometime
Dey works si’ by si’
Dey in love
The Hawk West Desk Window 9:34pm
Everyone was once A Molten Star
far away from Everything, but part
of A Churning Galaxy with Its Own Identity
A Uniqueness cast into Our Humanness
and when We Die, We Return
to The Eternal Cycle
and burn
The Hawk West Desk Window 10:22am
What was I pounding for
steadily on that giant door
of The Therapeutic Quiet Room
locked in & beating My Heart Out
on a steel drum?
It was for The Primitive Woman
I was That Strongest Black Woman
wailing with My Fist
until My Watch Strap popped
& They came to The Smash Resistant Window
& thought I had stopped
The Tomato-coloured Couch 6:47pm
What Is The Intrinsic Value
Of One Human Life
— Where — On This Planet —
Or Anywhere Else?
Is There Somewhere We Could Go
Where We Each Would Be Worth
All The Silver, All The Gold
On Some Other Planet — What If
It Didn’t Have Any — What If
It Had A Plethora Of Diamonds?
In My Book, We Better Stick
With What We Know
& I Know Each Of Us
Cannot Be Measured
Any Where
By Any Thing
The Tomato-coloured Couch 8:20pm
Within The Cauldron Of The Sun
Countless Stars Are Born
To Live Upon The Earth
Within Their Hazards
And Their Glory
–
We Live These Lives
Knowing Or Not Our Destinies
Until We Funnel Back In
Into The Sun Again
Leaving Our Shadows
Over This Eternal Playground
Joanna Gilman Hyde 