Slam Poem: Walking-with by Ariel Riveros

I walk into this poem

Without a fourfold

card deck,




I walk into this poem

without a silk vest

under how I'm dressed -

to stop gravity, arrow

and bullet




I walk into this poem

with a gleam, a glimmer

of glitterbugged glamour.




Like a windmill to

your pilgrim passages

presaging evil in

the wheels




The rest of this verse

is cursed to reverse

nurse the hearse




I am human fusiform

my skeletal lethality

is scripted and chipped in

with spindling cuneiform




I've written over my entire

interior. I own that space.

I've flagged and spotted

the furthest area

and claim that as my base.




I walk out of this poem

like a hallway exit,

Light up far beyond.

Walk with me

Swing around armwise

with the telegraph poles

splash shoes on wet weekdays.




I farewell this poem,

a moment, saddened.

Work a world combat

orbits. Covered in your

skin. The first words you spoke

Are with me, customed,

made to violent battleground,

owned, fed upon, closed

and treatied.