Claudia Dawson 12/13/22 Claudia Dawson 12/13/22

Gossip Angels

We sat huddled on the floor
gossiping like school girls —
in the purest way
and I can’t tell you
what was said
because it’s a secret
but it was about you
and your fears
and how it’s all going to be
OK.

Claudia Dawson 8/27/22 Claudia Dawson 8/27/22

The Last Reunion

Sometimes we feel like disconnected segments of ourselves. Periods of our lives are cut off from each other. Our brain rewires and restructures itself, and we forget who we were in the past and what we felt and what we wanted. We forget this is not the only life we have lived. Someday you will call all the various versions of yourself home. Row after row of multiple you(s). Together you will walk toward the Sun. It will be your final pilgrimage, and it will feel like resting.

Claudia Dawson 8/19/22 Claudia Dawson 8/19/22

All the unknowns are outlined

A blackout poem made using blocks of text from my diary and Emma Winston’s Blackout Poetry Maker.

Claudia Dawson 6/12/22 Claudia Dawson 6/12/22

Love does not need an object or objective

“In the church of my heart, the choir’s in flames.” — Vladimir Mayakovsky

Love does not need an object or objective — it is a persistent fire within my heart. It does not need to spread or burn everything down. This is a controlled blaze. I fan the flames with my dreams. It is a consciousness that lights up all of my cells. It does not grab or hoard or need anything. It just continues to beam out of me, like a laser toward the cosmos.

Claudia Dawson 5/15/22 Claudia Dawson 5/15/22

Sunday Consciousness

I have been there — on those Sundays
standing on the cathedral steps
when the sun is bright and pious
and it blinds me

What kind of worship is this?

When even in my Sunday dress
and frilly socks
and Mary Janes —
I feel unworthy

What kind of worship is this?

Beams of light dancing on a little girl's skin
and still she feels shame

What kind of worship is this?

This God must die
I have been there — too many times
standing on those steps
sinking into that Sunday consciousness

Here is atonement
Here is absolution

But why must I answer to anyone or anything?

I go back there in my mind —
to those blinding Sundays
to those pious steps
to that sinking consciousness

I pray to a dead God
and I create a new one

What kind of worship is this?

The sun continues to shine — pirouettes on my skin
and even though the sun is outside of me
it warms from within
and this is how my new God
chooses to love me

Claudia Dawson 11/9/21 Claudia Dawson 11/9/21

Sailing stones

We were two stones sleeping in the desert,

when I woke up you were miles away,

I asked you why you left,

you said a strong wind had stolen you,

I asked if you still loved me,

you said yes and no,

I wanted to throw myself at you,

you said you and the wind were in love,

I asked what that felt like,

you said like sailing.

Claudia Dawson 9/23/21 Claudia Dawson 9/23/21

When you find yourself flooded with Egypt

When you find yourself flooded with Egypt / the gold in your bones begins to sing / close your eyes / we made portals for this / let your blood dissolve / become stars in someone else's galaxy / in death we inherit wings / in life only your heart can fly

Flooded with Egypt created by AI Art Machine — *Flooded with Egypt created by* *AI Art Machine*

This poem was inspired by a passage in Antero Alli’s book Angel Tech:
To the Western world of the latter 20th century, Egypt circa 3,000 B.C.E. is a most exotic, magical kingdom of great knowledge and power. A remarkable surge of human identification with this era has unleashed torrents of psionic information from the Akashic Archives.
Your ethical responsibility is to return and help your bodies become more intelligent. Teach them as if they were your children, as they are, and express the denser sides of yourselves. Have patience with their anxiety and ignorance, for without each other—they will grow lonely and you, dear lost souls—will not grow at all—visit their little minds in dreamtime and show them who you are. If they are flooded with Egypt, appear as KA—the bird-human symbol for the soul from Egyptian mythology—but appear!

Claudia Dawson 8/20/21 Claudia Dawson 8/20/21

Oh my darling demons!

Claudia Dawson 5/11/21 Claudia Dawson 5/11/21

Tiger heart — a visual poem

Sometimes I dream of a tiger clawing at my chest. In the most recent dream, I discovered him locked in a cage in an abandoned apartment. He was so malnourished he was almost dead. I was also destitute and squatting in what shape-shifted into my old apartment in Oakland. I wanted to feed him, but I was afraid he would get bigger and bigger. I debated setting him free, but I knew he would die. Before I could decide, he broke out of the cage and came after me.

I realize now the tiger is my heart and I have to feed it every day. So every morning I ask my tiger heart what he wants and he says he wants my whole damn life to chomp and chew.

Claudia Dawson 4/29/21 Claudia Dawson 4/29/21

What has carried me (an ever-expanding list)

What has carried me from birth until now has been this: love, the openness of the world, wild overgrown yards, imagining I am a princess warrior, digging for dinosaur bones, calling out for god in the dark, what prayer is, wishes, the sky at night, that one star brighter than the rest, my grandfather communicating from the dead, love, the dimensions of dreams, coincidences — no — synchronicities, magic spells that work, love, being alone but not feeling alone, love that grows claws, my mother in my throat chakra, art as a choice, stretching past my shame, a wide open sky, walking in nature, aliens, the believers, love, a murmuration of birds, love, falling down on my knees, getting back up, a warm bed, nostalgia, oh my god, so much nostalgia, animals as familiars, freedom, every beautiful thing, this incessant flowering of time and life — each day, I open my heart up for the looting.

Claudia Dawson 4/26/21 Claudia Dawson 4/26/21

The resurrection of Phantom Kangaroo

More than 10 years ago, I created an online poetry magazine called Phantom Kangaroo. Its birth could be described like this:

Strange occurrences of kangaroos appearing in areas where they should not be are sometimes reported. Often they appear ghost-like, disappearing or hopping through walls.
Some speculate they are aliens, or spirits haunting us from another dimension. Someone suggested animal teleportation, maybe they bounce in and out of existence. Whatever they are, these phantom kangaroos are an omen. A cryptic warning that you will soon be falling into the unknown. They seem to say: I am real and I am a hoax, and so are you.
Sometimes poems seem to say the same thing. Sightings of these poems can be found here.

I was in my mid-twenties, poor and living in a studio in West Oakland. Phantom Kangaroo was a passion project that, at times, couldn’t sustain itself. Like the cryptid, it hopped in and out of existence. At one point the domain was held hostage by algorithms wanting thousands of dollars to give it back. So I waited it out.

This past year of sheltering and cocooning forced me to rummage through my inner cauldron for all the things that bring me life. Creating a space for poetry is one of them. For the past few months, I worked late nights and weekends to put together something that was long overdue — Phantom Kangaroo: The Anthology. It is a 296-page hardcover book of 300 magical and paranormal poems published during the past decade.

Now that it’s complete and no longer haunting me, I have resurrected the magazine. Issue 24 will be published on June 13, 2021, along with the first ever print magazine. Phantom Kangaroo remains an eerie place for poems. The door to the unknown is now wide open.