Dharma Wheel by Jesse Mitchell
 
I am a diamond tipped hurricane, tornado filled with shards of glass…and streaks forever of violet, blue and red, neon gas light bending on behind.

I am 100% a part of you, 100% of you; the thick dimpled plastic covering, vinyl bags, a bit of skin, a pinch of leather. Just carrying around loose change. Filled to bursting under these lights. I know it is hot.

I am too fast for dying and too close for breaking…I will not break and I need no shattering, I am too many pieces and far too fast for building. I will not stay together.

I am all this wind, this pregnant breeze. I carry everything: fire, water, disease. I am all these bungalows burning ashes to the ground. Lap lap before the tongues swallow them whole. I am leaking like the sun, irradiated to the ground.

I am dharma dharma dharma dharma and I have outgrown this wisdom and I have outgrown all this wisdom, waving my damaged hands. I am nothing nothing nothing nothing but words. Nothing but these words and dharma dharma dharma dharma wheel.

Riverside, CA by Jesse Mitchell

Losing words like aneurysm, stroke
Blood clot…falling like paint at my canvas feet…
hemorrhage, cardiac arrest
Leaving bloody stains on the floor
Words like blood soaked waves
Stains on
The mirrored floor
Reflecting back the saintly souls floating,
Breathing above my head
Kwan Yins and beautiful magic Madonnas
Bodhisattvas
Hermits
Paint-like drops and hot breath fog

As I sit straight back
In golden rest.
A Tsaddik… A Tsaddik… A Tsaddik… A Tsaddik
Filled with warm rushing red blood and blue veins.
Little Orange ovals dissolve under my tongue
Blue dots above.
The knowledge tree.
pill-popping fiend
Hiding the evil and wicked
Wicked things
In between sheets of paper
Paper filled with scribbles
A Tsaddik… A Tsaddik… A Tsaddik …A Tsaddik

Don’t try to hide, sleeping, a simple bhikku,
In a shady orange grove in Riverside
The police in their patrol cars
In their shiny cruisers
The police will bust you and lock you away
Even if you are a Mohawk
…they have no respect for the American Indian
Or religious expression or joy
In Riverside, California
Or Oceanside or Barstow
Or Bakersfield north.

The words fall out like fireworks and dust and sparkler ash.
Holding my breath
As I watch the inky blood fall from under clouds
Saintly sitting
Getting covered in the color
A Tsaddik… A Tsaddik… A Tsaddik… A Tsaddik.

flame Eaters by Jesse Mitchell

When your eyes were turned away
When your black eyes were turned away
Half-closed
And looking far off
Is when you lost me,
Sightlessly lost me
In the thick darkness
The dark barely-here-shadows
And the wild sounds
Of wild things.
Lost in the places of fires
And slow trains and imaginary things
And unconquerable stains
Left by indistinguishable stings.
When your eyes were lost
And turned blankly away.
Dancing, ripped apart, dancing in margins
Over here away
On the edge of the blade
Knife
Sword
Sword swallowers
And flame eaters
And fire spitters…
The rail-splitters
The never liars
The green eyed
And
Beautiful souls
The nothing-to-no-one devils
The I-never-know-a-danger lunatics
The no sorrow, no regrets, never turning back maniacs
The wild noises
Of wild things
When you turned your eyes away
Is when you lost me
In the swirl and
Sound
And might
And muddle
Of low light.