The Kingdom Belongs to a Child
by Cashavelly Morrison
Long-Haired Mare
When my daughter was barely sixteen,
I began to wonder of all she’d seen.
Before the sun rose on an icy morn’,
I woke to the screams of my darlin’ first born.
With my dagger in hand, I threw open the door,
saw a man had taken her to the floor.
Promise never tend my grave.
Take the long-haired mare and go far, far away.
The man had the eyes of my love.
My husband, my one who’d stolen enough.
A red sun rose on the love I’d divest.
I pushed the dagger through his chest.
Promise never tend my grave.
Take the long-haired mare and go far, far away.
My daughter wailed, “I’m among the damned.”
“No, no, girl. I’ve untied your hands.”
I held a long white thread
pulled from the lily laced on her bed.
Promise never tend my grave.
Take the long-haired mare and go far, far away.
By sundown, I stood alone
in a sunken cell of ashen stone.
Before the gallows, I wept myself clean
for my only daughter had been set free.
Promise never tend my grave.
Take the long-haired mare and go far, far away.
Emory
In our yard, we made a pyre.
Stacked wood, threw in the books,
burning lines of evil and good.
Went in the house to get our baby.
She ran; it was a game.
Promised candy and to us she came.
We held her back, threw in the cradle.
She asked to play with her teddy bear.
“Not now, you’re too sick and frail.”
“It’s not that we don’t love you, baby.
Doctor says we have no choice.”
It seems God is tossing a coin.
We stared, the fire rocked her,
holding pails of kerosene, oil.
The smell was milk gone sour
the day we turned her back to soil.
Made of Sand
I can’t say it.
The sun’s setting scarlet.
You’ll find I’m made of sand,
a sparrow in your hand.
Don’t go away tonight.
My dress is dirty.
My lips are cracking.
I watch you from the street,
a feline in heat.
Don’t go away tonight.
Wait for me,
tonight.
I have tin wings
in this icy rain.
You are a shelter,
a coal shed discovered.
Don’t go away tonight.
I made you thin twine
from the wet white pine.
Pull me through your door.
Hear lily-white roars.
Don’t go away tonight.
Wait for me,
tonight.
Iodine
My son, he cannot hear me.
In the end, I’ll speak his last words,
soak my baby’s shirt in lye,
and mend his injuries with thread and iodine.
My baby boy had brown eyes.
In daylight, he cried.
I ran, I ran, I ran
to kneel at his side.
My son, he cannot hear me.
In the end, I’ll speak his last words,
soak my baby’s shirt in lye,
and mend his injuries with thread and iodine.
The day turns into midnight
as more sons fall to genocide.
I hold, I hold, I hold
black blooms all my life.
A mother’s voice is the ocean’s tide
and can drown out your armies riled.
I stand, I stand, I stand
and will survive.
My son, he cannot hear me.
In the end, I’ll speak his last words,
soak my baby’s shirt in lye,
and mend his injuries with thread and iodine.
Jesus Dies Every Time
Bullet in the grass—she pulled it loose
from its descent to the middle of the earth.
She buries it in her ancestral wound
given her the right of her birth.
She gives the bullet to her father and mother,
who refuse to hold what is not their own.
Confined at home, blood-letting her body.
A crimson pail as all she owns.
Jesus dies every time.
Still she cuts off her hands.
Her teeth tearing graves
of new land.
When her lover falls to the floor,
she puts the bullet ‘tween his broken teeth.
He vows carry it an eternity.
Her howls replace all for which he speaks.
Jesus dies every time.
Still she cuts off her hands.
Her teeth tearing graves
of new land.
Amputation will not save her
from the bullet, the sum of her worth.
She suffers a coward’s burden
on her descent to the middle of the earth.
Jesus dies every time.
Still she cuts off her hands.
Her teeth tearing graves
of new land.
Breakwater
This water can smother no fire
Miscarried
Hemopheliac
Cutthroat
Ruby Waters
Steel is the mirror of regret.
Face dripping down your shoulder,
following you across the room
on a Sunday after he turned cold
and the sea was full of black gold.
This water can smother no fire
Miscarried
Hemopheliac
Cutthroat
Ruby Waters
Breakwater’s Red Tongue
Ships sinking down my throat and yours.
A leak was sprung in each of ink.
What had no voice was never said.
I was alone after he turned cold
and the sea was full of black gold.
Breakwater’s Red Tongue
The ocean
Pink Dress
I have scratches on my legs
from the briars on the trail
where the weeds were overgrown and waist-high
and I could tell no one had been there in awhile.
I’d been there once before
with my first lover
where we made a bed of thorns
and I’ve been finding them since we’ve been over.
Wear your pink dress.
Clean up your mess.
From the ridge, I couldn’t see the river
without a slide of my foot down the ledge
and I caught myself down on the ground
and that’s where I found wide-eyed Connie under the hedge.
Wear your pink dress.
Clean up your mess.
Connie doesn’t look like herself any longer.
Eyelet dress and a daisy by her ear,
posed in a casket, going lower and lower
and her mommy cursing the Holy Father.
Wear your pink dress.
Clean up your mess.
Now I can’t go anywhere anymore
without a daddy or a brother.
I dream of Connie standing at my door.
She says there will never be a day when I’m without her.
Wear your pink dress.
Clean up your mess.
May 5th
You grew like a vine.
You grew inside.
You grew a short time.
Made a womb your tomb.
I made no bed
wherein you could sleep.
I did not bring silk and tin.
No sleep tights, no fist fights.
No milk will be offered.
Praying hands, fodder.
Not bought, only earned.
I am cold mountain stone.
Should we meet behind the curtain,
I will open you like a fan.
It’s nice to know you again.
You are not weak. Learn to speak.
The Nobleman and the Queen
Silver fists come flying.
If I could open them, I’d lay inside and sleep.
The vines into the ruins
and at the door a beggarwoman turning,
“Have you seen the mad bull idling,
whose spine rises the edge of an arrow feather?”
Swaying into the moonlight,
that is my father I scarcely know anymore.
Father’s a nobleman.
Mother’s a queen.
Do not let me die before I...
Forgive me, I was there no longer.
The great white lily wilting in his breath.
My tears are not weapons.
I’ve grown boughs carrying the weight of snow and ice.
His bold body staggers,
pulsing down to the ivy ‘round his legs.
In my arms, he is shards of rain,
collected by a child’s hand.
My father, his breath and blood,
drain into the cradle of my marrow.
Father’s a nobleman.
Mother’s a queen.
Do not let me die before I...
Dangling gravedigger lashes.
Love is not dead beneath the mask of earth.
The beggarwoman burdens me,
howling for my return to the ruin.
Father’s a nobleman.
Mother’s a queen.
Do not let me die before I...
29 Bells
Here the profit comes
and the hard cash
my husband becomes.
The man got away
who as good sparked
the coal seam’s methane.
My love is gone
and here come my children
the coal baron will pawn.
I ring a bell
and that man hears
every strike swell.
It rings in the night,
it rings all day,
it rings in this fray,
it rings like children
drowning in the lake.
HUNGER
by Cashavelly Morrison
Hunger
Here they come a-hunting after they just been fed.
There’s no end to their hunger until God kills them dead.
They drag us from behind and skin us for our hides.
They bite down and we keep them alive—
How many times before God kills them dead?
Here they come a-stealing the babies from our beds.
There’s no end to their hunger until God kills them dead.
They drag them from behind and skin them for their hides.
They bite down and our babies keep them alive—
How many times before God kills them dead?
I have hunger too as I lay in bed
that your hunger ends before God kills me dead.
Someday you’ll be cornered by soldiers gathered
‘round your bunker with a gun to your head,
alone with your hunger as God kills you dead.
Gunmaker
I’m not a man who raises his hand. Most days I don’t give one god damn.
But I’ve cast enough molten metal to know my hands have known the devil.
How will I pay for this slaughter of the lambs?
The news tells a tale of four killers as I hammer the guard of a black trigger.
Maybe their mothers are to blame. You know, my brother’s a builder by trade.
I could’ve been a builder. I’m a gunmaker.
I dreamed my daughter was a firebomb, who I rocked and sang to all night long.
This trail of bloody dirt and here she stands waiting her turn.
Any man could do her in, right or wrong.
My silver stars shine in their case that I sell to buy my pretty girl lace.
The barrel of alloy on her head, easily destroyed.
Lately, I can’t look her in the face.
Night Feeding
I’m up in the night with my baby.
How many mothers in the world are doing the same thing?
My girl screams in my arms. Is she a wolf or a fawn?
Well, silence wouldn’t save her for long.
Maybe she’s screaming at you,
the kind of man I’ve come to know and she’ll know well too.
Who’ll carve your belly with a thorn so all you make is stillborn.
I didn’t want him so I don’t see him anymore.
My girl, you’re an animal coming nearer in the dark.
Your call is thunder-wide.
All your enemies hide. All your enemies hide.
Maybe she’s screaming at me if again
I trade myself for what’s he’s hunting.
With a rifle’s aim on my head, I taunt him to go on ahead and
take what of my body is left.
My girl, you’re an animal coming nearer in the dark.
Your call is thunder-wide.
All your enemies hide. All your enemies hide.
My girl, when I birthed you on that bed,
like every mother in the world I screamed down death.
You’re the wolf’s teeth in the fawn’s head.
You don’t need him to kill a beast to make sure you’re fed.
My girl, you’re an animal coming nearer in the dark.
Your call is thunder-wide.
All your enemies hide. All your enemies hide.
Hue and Cry
I told Mama he was swinging a knife.
She said, “Don’t worry, he knows wrong from right.”
I told her he’s going to take what’s mine.
She said, “Everything will be all right.”
Then I saw him coming through the pines,
dragging his knife with his mighty bloodline.
The forest was burning from behind.
She said, “Everything will be all right.”
When the children ran, hue and cry,
Mama sang me a lullaby
about a boy who hid in a pipe
and licked rust to stay alive.
I saw his face reflected in his knife.
Like a bullfight, my shirt turned red from white.
In Mama’s arms my veins drained bone dry.
“Mama, is everything still all right?”
Sixteen
I have the will to remain feral
as my body’s sea swells
and breaks my body’s dams.
I don’t want to overflow into the hands of every man.
I sew my legs up. I have to live in the bathtub.
With a lighter, I Braille my skin
and I hammer my feet into fins.
Every day I shed more of my name.
The sun is silver from underwater
as if replaced by another.
Every seam—
sixteen.
My mother comes to me,“What have you done to your poor body?”
I’m like a river with land to devour,
drowning every seed and wildwood flower
on it’s way to the ocean far from this mountain.
The sun is silver from underwater
as if replaced by another.
Every seam—
sixteen.
The ocean never concedes. I have to crawl on my belly.
Underwater I cannot breathe.
Even with fins, I sink.
Had I cut my pattern like a sailmaker…
Ashes White
All night I nurse my lover’s son
who has nothing of my husband’s blood.
Like a shadow on a sheet, oh my baby I hold
from my husband’s hand and a gun.
My husband takes my long mane
and demands my lover’s name.
The name of a stranger is what I gave
and, with it, a killer I became.
My deadly shade of white.
A line of ghosts lost in the pines
and the drum of the march to Calvary
to keep us pure and white.
My husband returned and told of his fight,
dragging a man to the coke ovens that night.
He burned him from black to ashes white,
the stranger I crucified.
My deadly shade of white.
A line of ghosts lost in the pines
and the drum of the march to Calvary
to keep us pure and white.
Who Will Testify
There is a river in my hometown you think belongs to you,
as it siphons little bodies drowned and smothers white roots.
Where’s my darling one?
Pulled under the wave of your wake,
washing the shore away.
Have you undone enough?
Who will testify to your life?
Always searching for a bigger beast to leaven your hands.
Only your beast is the boy within you drown to make you a man.
Where’s my darling one?
Pulled under the wave of your wake,
washing the shore away.
Have you undone enough?
Who will testify to your life?
School Girls
The dancer will be executed.
Her age will show.
On display, she will atone,
wearing the gauze of her last role.
She draws on her face
for the pleasure of the full house.
With her teeth, her tongue bound
in her pretty, little, pink mouth.
Good heavens, girl,
watch the show wherever you go.
Call her pretty and toss her gold
and the school girls taking blow by blow.
She dances like a minstrel.
So does her replacement.
A sign on the backstage door
to warn the others she’s a whore.
Good heavens, girl,
watch the show wherever you go.
Call her pretty and toss her gold
and the school girls taking blow by blow.
The Altar
To be made of alabaster.
The carved and the carver.
Don’t you know the statue envies the altar?
I am my own father.
To wander the desert,
unafraid of the thirst.
Don’t you know your true shape is water?
I am my own mother.
To the locust swarm,
where some protect and some harm,
where some eat what belongs the other.
I am my own sister.
I am my own brother.
METAMORPHOSIS
by Cashavelly Morrison
The Crossing
I dreamt I wore a crown made of a ball and chain.
I dreamt I stood in a crowd with ashes smeared on my face.
I dreamt I entered my own heart as a red stone cave
And found my old age was a hunter who stays the same.
I dreamt I processed like a bride to the horizon’s groom,
The sun, my truest lover who provokes my every bloom.
I dreamt I danced in a field shedding every cloak
Of daughter, sister, wife, mother, skin and bones,
Until finally my spirit was free and all alone
And I danced until I ascended with no shadow.
My dreams are more real than my waking.
I’m an executioner who never began weeping.
I’m a mother who lit her children like candles burning.
I’m a white man beneath black branches dripping.
I’m a soldier who breathed ashes till his lungs were screaming.
I’m a freed bird whose feathers it kept on plucking.
I’m the hands that stole the weapon for burying.
I’m a messenger who never began speaking.
I’m a dead man who kept on living.
I’m on my knees.
I want land to make water of me,
And now my dreams are more real than my waking.
I’ve come to a crossing.
Will you come to the edge and keep walking?
Every kiss of my conception lifting.
I may never know the ending.
The other side may have no water.
I’ll be willingly lost there forever.
Ashes of omens and symbols
Held tenderly on my fingers.
I’ve come to a crossing.
Come with me, keep walking.
I’m crossing.
Come with me, keep walking.
Hair Hang Long
Behold me.
I’m sending out my voice.
Breath it in.
It’s all I am.
Across your tongue,
Heading for your lungs,
Down your throat,
Down I go.
Surrounding your heart,
Surrounding your heart’s sword
between the eyes of a horse.
How long it’s cut in turns
By your crimes every law birthed?
I want you.
I want to see you.
I want you.
I want to see you.
Come out, come out and hear my sound
All around you.
I’m calling
And the whole world is coming.
I’ve been here all along
And it’s where I belong.
I want my hair to hang long.
I’ve been here before.
Is it mine or is it yours?
We meet in the woods,
Kneel down at the brook.
I want you.
I want to see you.
I want you.
I want to see all of you.
Come out, come out and hear my sound
All around you.
I’m calling
And the whole world is coming.
I’ve been here all along
And it’s where I belong.
I want my hair to hang long.
Behold us,
The tribe after the hunt
The whole world wants.
We’re orphans. We’re beggars.
We’re liars. We’re killers.
We’re lovers.
I see you.
I see all of you.
I still, I still want you.
Come out, come out and hear our sound
All around you.
We’re calling
And the whole world is coming.
You’ve been here all along
And it’s where you belong.
You want your hair to hang long.
I want my hair to hang long.
Metamorphosis
In flight, loose and light.
Black eyes dipped in white.
Drawn to my Fahrenheit.
Will you land on me,
Tiny thing? I’m milkweed.
I belong to nothing.
My hand reaches light above
While I still touch
The dirt to follow my blood
To be made of love.
If you hold it as hard as you can
It will leave ashes in your hands.
I come to you,
Unfolding cocoon,
Unfolding you.
Will you come to me?
Your patterned wings
Beating against me.
Your hand reaches light above
While I still touch
The dirt to follow your blood
To be made of love.
My hand reaches light above
While I still touch
The dirt to follow your blood
To be made of love.
Look at all the pinned specimens.
Now I’m no longer one of them.
Wild
The desert night fell cold so I drifted to a city.
Concrete cracked with white lilies.
I stole boots from dead police.
Down the drag, buildings sagged.
I stole a knife from a swollen bag.
No one’s comin’ for it. No one’s comin’ back.
I woke to screams.
A vulture couldn’t wait to be fed
Is what it looked to be, pecking that last lamb to death.
I killed both with my knife.
Struck fire for a feast.
Plucked and skinned in no time.
Hid the rest for safe-keeping.
Wild came to me and ended all my plans.
I said, “I can’t,” and it said, “You can!”
I found a prison full of men scared to wait.
In the dark, they prayed power would open their gates.
I touched them through bars.
They each said they loved me.
I spoke of the stars and sang to close their dying.
Wild came to me and ended all my plans.
I said, “I can’t,” and it said, “You can!”
Then I found a child who’d been stealing my meat for a while.
He’s a joker, a fun little liar and we decided we’d stay in one spot a while.
Then Wild came to me, said, “I’m afraid you’ve forgotten me.
Be my love and roam with me. Be my love and roam with me.”
I said, “Be my love and help me stay free,
to remain or roam to my yearning.
Love me and my child and make our love wild.”
We talked for a while and I nearly dropped off tired.
I was ready to give up Wild and live tame with my sweet child.
Then Wild said, “I can,” and I said, “You can!”
Wild said, “I can,” and I said, “You can!”
Hounds
All my hounds,
They run around town
Sniffing out
What’s buried underground.
I watch their teeth
Bared in lines.
Spreading scent all night.
Mark my territory lines.
Everyone’s got their own cure.
I’ve got mine,
You’ve got yours,
But when will you hide no more?
I call, they come,
Running in formation.
Get what I want,
Come back mangled with blood.
They guard my bed
While I sleep well-fed,
Full of Bones
Of the departed.
Everyone’s got their own cure.
I’ve got mine,
You’ve got yours,
But when will you hide no more?
You can’t hide
The truth I’ll find.
My hounds drag it out
Right out of your mouth.
I run with them,
Artemis with bow in hand.
Laughing in the night,
Going free like men.
Everyone’s got their own cure.
I’ve got mine,
You’ve got yours,
But when will you hide no more?
Whoever You Are
I’ve looked up at stained-glass panes
Where it’s so easy to call up in the vaulted halls
To hear my echo and call it God.
I have loved lost boys
Who joined legions of the paranoid
Before they disappeared into a pile of toys.
Walls of cathedrals,
Walls of houses coming down.
The wild world all around.
This landscape won’t break.
Muscles in my back ache.
My heart’s open and now I wait.
Jane, you’re gonna wish you’d gone away.
There are no roads where no one’s been before.
Jane, what you following the pavement for?
Jane, you’ve spent your whole life leaving.
This, this you will not believe—
They need the big guns. You’re lethal enough.
Walls of cathedrals,
Walls of houses coming down.
The wild world all around.
Jane, you’re gonna wish you’d gone away.
There are no roads where no one’s been before.
Jane, what you following the pavement for?
I’m Not Afraid of the Dark
I beg to be let out
To drift in darkness.
I want to be new
And innocent.
I surrender to what I cannot know,
I surrender to being alone.
All I’ve ever done may never make any mark.
I’m not afraid of the dark.
At times I think I’ll die
From loneliness.
I own nothing
But my own caress.
I’ve never gone this far.
The blood of my birthmark
Is as faint as a watermark.
I’m not afraid of the dark.
I want to ask questions when we speak
And just confess.
You have nothing to hide.
Every law is absent.
I’m so close to my beginning.
Atmosphere beyond my body.
Can you see the smoke from that first spark?
You’re not afraid of the dark.
I’m not afraid of the dark.
Match Me
We’re in the desert.
Raw bones of a lion’s jaw.
You look tastier than anyone I ever saw.
No, you can’t taste me.
It’s my turn to eat.
I’m gonna show you a new part of me.
Why you so afraid
With my hair over your face?
Can I lead you blind?
Try it and don’t ask why.
You think my power
Makes you a coward.
Match me and you’ll be braver.
Show me your weakness and you’ll be stronger.
We’re in the desert.
Raw bones of a lion’s jaw.
You look tastier than anyone I ever saw.
No, you can’t taste me.
It’s my turn to eat.
I’m gonna show you a new part of me.
Here the sand storm comes.
See that wall on the horizon?
It blinds the sun.
All you can do is trust.
You think my power
Makes you a coward.
Sovereignty
Against the sun,
On the horizon,
Crowned in sunlight—
Divide, unite.
A dandelion crown
As a girl I wound—
Braided into woman,
Braided into human.
I have no need
A willing man must give me.
All the loose strands
Thrown from my hands.
When I find you,
I’ll lay my heart bare,
Laid bare to love
Even if given no care.
When I find you,
I’ll lay my heart bare,
Laid bare for pain,
If no love returns from anywhere.
I can be discarded.
I can be hated.
I want you. I don’t need
You to give me anything.
I drag my fears
Kicking into the dark
Till they shrivel away
Leaving me unmarked.
Throw me into the sky
Where I must fall to death or fly.
Race me up hills
Till I’m so strong
I can’t be killed.
I have no need.
Come to me,
Or leave me.
I’m the only one who keeps me.
The Rafters
So that’s where you’ve been hiding,
Up in the rafters.
For years you’ve had no work,
Like a blacksmith for hire.
So every hammer hit in its place
And you’re not the man they wanted you to be.
Looks you’ve got nothing to build a fire.
You can’t admit how much you need me.
This roof’s gone to rot.
Let die what’s dying.
See me plain when you come down.
I too must show you what I’m hiding.
I see you’ve been picking the same wound.
I’ve seen the same on every proud man’s son.
If it bleeds, you aren’t a fool,
But you aren’t fooling anyone.
Come down, come down, come down,
Come down from the rafters.
You’re not the one who’s guilty
Or I must be guilty of the same.
I know the long hours alone
And how you’ve smoothed your own hair from your face.
Your hands won’t fall empty.
I love in you what you hate.
Now come down and we’ll build a fire.
I want to kiss your shame.
Can I kiss your shame?
Come down, come down, come down,
Come down from the rafters.
Badlands
No, you didn’t need any savior.
You were just holding your own shoulders,
Walking along a river
All alone, all alone,
Staring straight at it.
There to see, what is it?
What is it?
The wet branch this paper used to be.
You began in your mother’s belly.
You were there even when she was a baby
In the belly of her mother Mary.
Now you teach yourself how to sit.
Now you teach yourself to clean a fish.
No, you didn’t need any savior.
You were just holding your own shoulders,
Walking through the desert
All alone, all alone,
Staring straight at it.
There to see, what is it?
What is it?
Tethered between the dark and light.
You’ve got a grip now, you don’t have to fight.
See for yourself alone in the night
That moonlight changes what you saw by sunlight.
You see the wind turn sand dunes over time.
You learn in storms how to be blind.
No, you don’t have any need,
Now in canyons of badlands so steep,
with lovers alongside you who also know
What it is,
What it is.
With lovers holding you who also know
What it is,
what it is.
With lovers letting you go who also know
What it is,
What it is,
What it is.
Nameless
My love, my nameless love,
Holding your hand is enough.
It’s your spirit I want.
My love, my shapeless love,
Hearing your voice is enough.
It’s your music I want.
My love, my timeless love,
Gazing in your eyes is enough.
It’s this moment I want.
My love, my boundless love,
Beholding your tremble is enough.
It’s your love I want.
Dragging our fingers
In a river,
Making ripples
that go farther,
Farther than we could go.
Dragging our fingers
In a river.
My love, my nameless love,
Holding your hand is enough.
It’s your spirit I love.
Hieroglyphics
I promise I won’t tell any lies.
I promise to keep my eyes.
I built my own house and I burned it down.
I took every gust of wind into my mouth.
I made my name and cast it away.
My age is sand blowing away.
I see nothing but your belt with hieroglyphics in the etching.
I come shirtless toward you without hiding.
Here I come
Into love,
Listening to its strange tongue,
Listening to its strange tongue.
To know love,
To know what I’m made of.
You know you don’t scare me.
Tell your desire it hasn’t met me.
I want to sleep with you in an empty field.
I want us digging up roots for our next meal
To keep moving through the dark.
I don’t care where or how far.
I want to know your wild and your captivity.
I want to know your lonely and your holy.
Here I come
into love,
Listening to its strange tongue,
Listening to its strange tongue.
To know love,
To know what you’re made of.