BLEACHED AND BEAUTIFUL
She let the sand
Slip through her hand
She was an hourglass
A witness, to the past
She let the future
Unknown
Fall back to the sea
She lived an eternity by these waters
The salt christened wind
That came everyday
To play in her hair
The waves knew her by name
A companion, chaperone, accomplice
They would only surrender
An obscure reflection
Ambulated and alive
She scribed, queries with a shell
She held, to sand, she laid
And signed them
With a single aim
To watch the surf
Worry them away
She would press into the dunes
Unafraid
The waves would keep her safe
An aria of seduction
Orchestrated by the moon
And she would dream
The sea loved to watch her
Her sorcery and symmetry
Her shadows, a soliloquy
Of a tempest, kept at bay
And she would dream
Of falling sand
Bleached and beautiful
Stolen by the breeze
And she would dream
They say her hair remembers sunlight,
even when the rooms are windowless,
even when the questions stack like files
no one wants to open.
From Tampa’s salt-stung air she rose,
a practiced smile, a courtroom voice,
a lacquered certainty that learned
how to live inside microphones.
Power is a mirror with bad lighting—
it shows you only what it needs.
Behind her, paper storms keep forming,
names half-redacted, dates that bleed.
She walks through corridors of flags,
through praise that claps like shuttered doors,
while somewhere, whispers learn to swim
in darker, colder drawers.
Is it guilt? Or just the gravity
of standing near the grinding wheel?
Even clean hands smell like iron
when history decides to feel.
The cameras love her confidence,
the way it doesn’t flinch or break—
but truth is a slow, patient thing
that never hurries for our sake.
So she stands—bleached, branded, framed—
between the oath and what it hides,
a silhouette of certainty
with doubt stitched softly in the sides.
And Tampa’s sun keeps shining anyway,
as suns have always done before:
indifferent to who holds the keys,
or what is buried in the floor.
she walks in smiling
like a billboard,
all blonde shine
and polished teeth.
the laws bend for money,
she knows it—
she’s danced long enough
with men in suits
to sell the dance twice.
you ask about morals,
hell, she keeps them
in a purse—
zippered tight,
pulled out only for the camera.
the rest of the time
she is like the others—
slick, practiced,
and waiting for her next check.
Over six decades
slinging dirt around
reckless-hearted one.
Over six decades
having dirt slung at me.
Time to get out the bleach
scrub things clean
Join me?
bleached shells s
c
a
t
t
e
r
e
d
bioluminescent
w a ve s ~
play with
hermit crabs
The toll of this harshness grinds my bones which now lie bleached in the searing sun. Painful knowledge of ecstasy no longer mine. No greater sorrow exist than the intoxicating memory of you now no more to be. The void infinite and cold, this emptiness black in its totality.
The crow, the unborn, and the old man
all had something important to say
but they hardly got the chance
so, they said it with a quill
and virgin ink
with blackbird songs
with a silent scream
I knew him but very little
He's a father of a boy and he's homeless
I knew I had to lift him off the cold and dark streets
Took him in, helped him with a job
Rent free and everything else was on me
I encouraged him to find himself again
I wanted him to get back on his feet and be
the grown man and father like he should be
But for the love of God for seven months
He was buying heroin unbeknown to me
I treated him as a family, never asked him
for anything but to help himself
Instead my kindness was bleached out
And now his future is without my knowledge
Smile
Akkina R Downing
2-10-17
Old granite face enjoyed job in sewer
He was king of the under ground brewer
Everyday he'd hide away
With the hot lines he did play
Then old bleached gator scared him away
Over the crys of seagulls
gods whisper loudest
over rain, and children voices
heavens open, declaring
'Sorrow is a pagan mask,
to scare the spirts
of envy away!'.
In Summer, tides rise
longest, crustaceans
crawl highest, only
to be devoured sooner
on bleached seagull sands
warming, burning, leaving
a decaying, vanishing shell.
Desert heat cuts no quarter.
Ever.
Blanched white sky
deceitful promises of ‘the American way’ –
“Bring us your tired, your hungry, your poor . . .”
We lied.
They come. We build higher walls –
They come. We shoot to [accidently] kill.
They come. Vigilante groups patrol the border. With guns.
They come. Two gallons of water for a family of eight on foot. 97 miles. 126 °.
They come. The president allocates millions to stem the tide - Homeland Security and all that
rot.
They come. 40 illegal aliens choked into the back of a locked van, left in the desert by
devouring human smugglers who abscond with life savings.
Still they come. Just for the . . .
possibility.
Two college students indicted by the federal government [despite public outcry] for
administering aid and assistance and transporting illegal aliens for medical treatment.
God must surely be trembling with rage.
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