Jonathan Bennett Bonilla

in response to the painting “The Guardian” by Angela Alés (digital image of the painting above)

1. Goosehead 

You never laugh
you only cry
Laugh or cry
you are always 
saying saying saying
What you know
How tall you are
How much better
Smarter faster
But you never were
Soft kind sweet
unless it benefited 
you in some way
and now you're sad
a crier but a different
kind of town crier
you are the one 
who never sleeps
the one who destroys
civilizations 
the one who makes
it all about them
and you are ceaseless
and cruel


2. Chickenhead

You are the correction and the balance
	to your evil twin guardian.
The two of you, when taken together, are forever 
	balancing and unbalancing each other.
But you’re the kind one, the quick one, the one to be 
	competed with by the other who’s always watching.
You are always the first there and the last to leave.
	You never complain, though you claim what is yours.
You find ways to work together to be together for others to be.
	You make room for more than yourself. You are ever listening.

But also maybe sick in a different way
	dear guardian:
Sick from holding in your life-
	wishes 
Sick from holding in your life-giving
	capabilities
Sick from being the vessel and not the life 
	coursing through it.

Be more than just yourself
Be just yourself
Be you.
To be you is to have to fight the other guardian off
To be at odds with the other half of your guardian self:
guardians like Ox Head, Horse Head, and Pitchy Patchy of Junkanoo.


3. What There Was to Guard

A world made by masters and bosses
that stealers and takers inherit
and pass down to the next generation
of stealers and takers, but a world nonetheless.

We worldless ones, nearly earthless ones,
complain to the guardian-heads to cease their bickering,
Goosehead most of all, but Chickenhead, too
is trying to create the terms and conditions 

for their co-guardianship of what there was to guard.
But almost nothing is left.
What they had to guard from was that it all could go away.
Just because it hasn’t doesn’t mean it can’t.

We’ve seen the earth-destructive bombs and missile warheads.
We know they exist. 
We know that the masters and bosses 
who are thumping their chests from the Pentagon 

are cruel, lifeless, life-stealing zombies, 
and we will not stand for any of their actions.
Chickenhead and Goosehead, 
be the guardians you said you were.

Be wise, be still, be swift. Take from them.
Give us back our earth and life-chances.
Be who you said you were. Take from takers and stealers.
Give us back our world. Give us back our lives.