Like a bomb hit it. Controlled destruction
For want of a better word, for choice information
Raised above censure, published at will
Blurring boundaries between now and otherwise.
the name of the beast
or the number of his name
what’s at the center
but a big hole
Polyps spawn on the lawns of
the State Capitol in Sacramento.
An annual event; but nobody
bothers to count. Lots of guesses,
each man given a sequence
that must be followed
until the meaning
becomes obvious
and the light is found
Wouldn’t it be awful were you to chance upon a fishbowl
in which your only daughter morphs into some mermaid?
How would you go about rescuing her? Would rescue be
worth the pursuit? She would swim there freely in denial
But those were empty meanderings, the
Solace of ruined moments and
Beatific outcomes, captured in thoriated
Aluminum cages, bound to the page with cheap tape
under a bridge, under cardboard, or here at the limit exposed at one of the crossings around Hastings & Main, on pavement never ceded
As if his wounds are
family members, he’s become
kinder since his accident. Sun’s
heat against her back, she gazes
down into that curtain
praying hands
deploy hidden marigolds in the air
for the finches singing
the death of plastic
outside my skull
I wish to meet my son, who was unborn when I decided to
openly condemn the dictator and consequently
missed the chance to witness his birth and growth
I had thought, naively, that my action was for a better future of his life
Amerikkka has built a system of status where standing together is impossible . The dominant caste of every confrontation , an ectopic thru/space between the right to stand and what is really police brutality
Except for rape or trickery
you choose your child’s other parent.
at the moment of conception.
This decision can be neither
reversed nor erased.
I don’t want to burn
in our everlasting sun
or drown in the endless
ocean of our truth I have
traveled wide in the waves
resident mantis, thin and green
rises at the first drops of water
i greet him and ask how his day is going
tell him of my pain for the newest war
I don't want to have anyone in my life whose soul can't burn
black with hatred bright remembering
the swollen void where our future was
removed from us
Uselessly donned glacial sphere
functions as a topographical error
[INCOGNITO], as a
drunken cobblestone
underneath shapeless
We are the endangered souls bound for hell —
living off alms from the table of our Master,
begging for survival because we are scared
to live and unwilling to die for paradise.
today at 17:52 the planet Mars ceased to exist,
the sleeping war machines that rest
beneath the surface, rust no more,
the breeze that soughs across the dead sea bottoms
no longer blows between the towers
They requested that I proof-read
Some poetry that they were
Planning on publishing and
As a poet I always write by
The rule that one should never
Edit, let alone re-write,
twice
the man’s body is strapped to the gurney
twice
his last words are documented for eternity
but a Greyhound will still abandon
Jesus in Tucson, then
reboard him in molecular Cincinnati,
reuniting him with his dark luggage
and old world remains
“you won’t feel a thing”
no I feel
every slow stitch and pull
on the landscape of sliced cheek
witness
under pressure
not always debriefable,
clamming up
could be transformative,
The Presenters interviewed the excluded boy.
Their stated aim was to understand,
to see what could be improved,
how it could be made better for everyone.
thirsty goldminers
nourishing on
mercury-filled water
sweet tooth fills
with gold amalgam
In the beginning,
all my little poems
were suicide notes.
Five thousand pages,
one long suicide note.
They fly into the sea
like a ghost's imagination
and its bewildered dream.
Upon the shore for a brief time
their songs echo, skip
Poetry workshops
trauma and abuse
A room of fourteen teens
about to age out of foster care
It is evening all afternoon. Winter all spring and summer. There are nights when Mr. Mallard looks up from his desk and swears he sees the shadow of his missing wife brush to and fro before the panes.
None of this may make the slightest difference
in how the earth and the sun and universe revolve.
But we are human and addicted to action,
the probable less attractive than the possible.
for I know this world will break her too
the way it broke me, the way it broke my ancestors, so I have to
help her long before she begins believing she's irreparable like pearls that know they can never go back to their celestial shells
Also, one of the dangers of reading
is when it’s cold and people need heat
you will get into trouble for reading
anything earmarked for fuel.