Monday, April 6, 2015

I35 Creativity Corridor: Desiree Morales, Austin, TX, April 6


Downtown Austin circa 2010


140 CHARACTERS
April, 2013

Sparrows trapped in the grocery store with choosing apples it is the 21st century and astonishingly little can be done about that. #poemaday

The man who makes my coffee says something I can't hear over the steam, about elk, or women. Still early and dark out in the rain. #poemaday

These are some ways a flat expanse will trap you: voicemail, garbage, a dead stag by the highway, misplaced music, yeses, and yes. #poemaday





Dancing Hair Down

Saturday night means
Never having to say
You’re sorry









140 CHARACTERS
April, 2014

A woman waiting for a bus folds her face to her knees, her hair waterfalling down. A tree felled nearby, an almost finished house. #poemaday

Afternoon light slices apples in the kitchen. Foggy, trying to remember "Kindness." Someone says "what's next in news is inward." #poemaday

This is driving. "The otherness of the self" up next on the radio, Jupiter in tonight's sky, I'm lost in last year's neighborhood. #poemaday






140 CHARACTERS
April, 2014

Apocalypse drought news, I practice remembering blood oranges, post-water future, a gasp of color. Like violence they tasted warm. #poemaday

Listlessly shop for things I won't buy. Headache, pollen-eyed, nothing in the day but an ugly thrum, I know I'm not alone in this. #poemaday

Backfired flowers I wish I invented pollen-stained sheets but it's happening. The snapping sound I love about "stripped the bed." #poemaday

A magazine says that to start lucid dreaming you must continually ask yourself, Am I dreaming? Eventually, the answer will be Yes. #poemaday






Shoulder to Shoulder
for Hoa

Ashes are the best part of fire
or,
 after I changed,
                  the sheets
still smell
                  like campfire

Aquarius!
Square your shoulders,

Topple the apple-dream
of tomorrow’s picking and     Be!     Here!    Now!

It’s not too late
                  for the late race

Let’s meet tonight
                  the back patio and the chinaberry tree

All the poets lying
                  shoulder to shoulder
to see something the sky says     (Comets!)

                                    Before we realized it
                                    We had to see each other everyday

(excuse me James, for stealing your stuff)—

This is the part of the poem     where I say,
I stepped away
                  to write your name
 on my hand,
                  so tomorrow
 I can remember
                   how much I miss you






Photo by Johan Beisser

Desiree Morales is a poet and educator living in Austin, Texas. 
She received her BA in Creative Writing and Linguistics from Pitzer College 
in Claremont, California. 




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