Lindworm

i.
I have shed for you, Peaches

For you I am diving into a fair-complected pool of cream
Thicken my arteries, pale ideal

Your arms a soft mellifluence
Be cradley
Be motherly
Cover my slithering sins

Let me lay my head against your breast and feel the subcutaneous flow
The white rising to the top
No jaundice, no despised gristle, only honey hair

Coat the teeth and line the throat
Soften the scream I have loosed for you, Peaches

ii.
There was a daughter
That was the promise of the crone
Red for a boy, white
For a girl
What horror when we do not look like they think we should
I have gnashed up other girls in my indignation

iii.
I will come out of this milky
Match the roses in my cheeks to yours
Bathe in our sameness

iv.
When they find us in the morning will they think me pure?
If my skin is the color of cream, will they mind the rest?

Sleepytime for Rafa

Great Cinnamon Bear lives among the stars

He comes from his world and down into ours

And though his teeth be long and his claws be sharp

The Great Cinnamon Bear has a most noble heart

He lumbers through the night, looking for dreamers

And stops when he finds some fast asleep sleepers

"Come with me!" he calls, and if you dare

You can ride on the back of Great Cinnamon Bear

Up, up you can fly straight on to the stars

Soaring towards a new world and right out of ours

To the Dream Land you'll go, a place without compare

As you ride on the back of Great Cinnamon Bear

You'll leap over asteroids and feel nothing finer

Than brushing the tails of Ursas major and minor

Past planets and comets, on through nebulae
You'll swim through the star-clouds of the Milky Way

And then glide away from the moons and the stars
Away from the Dream Land and back down to ours
For when adventure has filled up your head
Great Cinnamon Bear brings you back to your bed

And if you are afraid of the dark or nightmare

Worry not! These are breakfast to Cinnamon Bear
He eats up bad dreams and anything that will frighten
And keeps the night safe, 'til the sky starts to lighten

So dim now the lamp, and draw up the shade
It's time to depart to where dreams are made
Just close your eyes tight, and a sleepy smile wear
For you're off to adventure with Great Cinnamon Bear

A Reading From The Book of Timothy

It was explained to me
That at the Austin Poetry Slam
Among the regulars
There are 3 types of poets:

Writers, Competitors, and Performers

And if you aim to do well here
To win the love of audiences and judges
The esteem of fellow poets
You gotta be a little bit of all 3

But everyone's got a strong suit

Take the writers
These are the ones who think in metaphor
Who never once in their lives have just woken up in the morning
But who every goddamn dawning are wrenched from the oblivion of somnolence
They never see a stop sign on the road without thinking of the syntactical signification ... of pausing
If you tell them your heart is broken they will help you understand
By way of clocks, drums, shattered glass, oceans, demolition crews, Muhammed Ali, chemistry, or Pokemon
Bless their hearts.

And then there are the Competitors.
They are here to win. They are not here to not win.
If they do not win, they must know why.
Was it score creep was it a biased panel of judges
In the next round should they make the audience cry
Or should they make the audience pee themselves with laughter
What liquid should they elicit from the audience
They acknowledge that slam is a game of strategy
And they are tactical geniuses
Bless their hearts.

And then there are the Performers
I count myself in this number
We are the former theatre and debate kids
Who aren't into improv but who cannot wait
For three more minutes of your undivided attention
We thrive on the "Hey Girl Hey" and the "Spit Poet"
And the "I like your dress"
Because we wore this dress hoping you'd like it, and it's not a costume violation if you say it
We are in love with the microphone
And we can be exhausting to be around, but we are totes worth it probably
Bless our dumb, adorable hearts.

And while cataloguing poets this way might be slightly oversimplifying things
I have seen it born out in my time here
And if you think about the poets you know
I think you'll recognize most of them in this list

I say most of them.
Because I would like to offer up a 4th type.

I will call them the Heart poets
Because they are here, week after week,
To share their hearts with you
And to listen to yours.
These are the poets
Who offer first a kind word
And second a kind poem
They see hurt in the world
And they don't spit about it because it's trendy
Or because they hope you'll applaud
They're here to say love aloud

And sometimes they sing a poem
And at first you're like "That's weird"
But then you're like, "FUCK YEAH. MORE OF THAT."

If it were not for these poets,
We might sometimes get lost
In the search for applause
In our ambition
In gazing at our own navels

Heart poets make us purer
They remind us why it is important to be here

Thank God we have a Tim
Bless
Bless
Bless his heart