One day it’s my 33-year-old cousin found dead in bed from an overdose; another day, it’s high school seniors raising their arms in the Nazi salute for a yearbook photo; another, it’s government protesters washing with bottles of Coke to help minimize the sting of tear gas.
with whispering gasps both knew passionate power lust and optimistic love appearing before them in the language of ghosts accused of being tour guides of loss mastering the imagination which was inspired by little toy soldiers
All I can do is stay alive.
The hills demand it.
The sparrow song asks for this above all.
The End of Days is a braggart myth
no adult citizen permits,
as the leaders and their minions,
(mad as moons) bow to Chaos.
Meanwhile, we remember Mommy,
Too. We won’t disregard her tears,
Or fail to recall the owl potholders
She so carefully crafted the nights
Our baby slept intermittent hours.
icebreaking with melts with lunch
in the lurches of steeples
viral as medical substitutions of unstung stringers however the baby swims
in the bathwater pitch-plumb
for the knickers in venous splashes of bloods
Your trip, your sped up present
escape to a certain future
followed by white lines
road signs, that are not important now
never smashing statues
while preferring to polish only a pretty few,
like a posh prince or a ship of dreams
as he lets decay lay waste to the rest
My 2020 vote will not be
an endorsement
it won’t be a thumbs up
a fist bump
an Amen
or an Aho
you could see the blue in there
read for the blind birds of prey
we will sink into the marsh slowly
then we will be a part of everything
his father wanted to raise his son in the others’ eyes
even though he knew the boy would never be a god—
it’s not something aspirational, you’ve got to be in it all the way
"Great band", I told her as I dried my hands.
I was lying, as they were a horrendous
country rock garage band
trying to masquerade as a blues band
in the very white small city
of Eugene, Oregon.
Let us make a barricade against the light; let us let no more light in.
We have enough light; we do not need more light.
We will not recognize this country when it is swarming with light.
I wince at the artistry of finance,
but suffer without suffering for my gift-wrapped
photo: all the village women tote bright heavy
jugs down a shaft where water awaits
Poetry, like cartography, can condense
the world aesthetically, until we see
that the last line of my poem is not ambiguous,
but lucid, perfectly lucid: “More delicate than
the historians’ are the map-makers’ colors.”
now it's a suburb pull
meat from fire and inevitable
face grease and cigarette
decorative scarf yells from
audience, hierarchy howl
There are legends and reports
that an ebony creature travels
the woods of maritime Canada,
often scoffed at, never proved.
no, to tell you the truth
I am innocent but
I am pleading guilty
because I need to get out
for my job before next Thursday
this planet, which waits for us, accepts
its name. this planet fails to communicate
its displeasure at the name we've chosen for it;
her moonlets dance; her seas call us
hit one time only! in kansas somewhere
then gone as quickly! squandered shot returns
but now i stay anxious / crack reminds me
every turn in view caresses Cautious
On the iceblink
is a happy hue:
in concert with my chorus.
There is no bother of bliss.
Memory is what we make of it.
Rain as grey as your skin
defines the softer parts of hands
that scrape along brick buildings
like tearing paper.
here. Malady skin, folds
over whitecaps, beneath wind;
sun weight expounding
levels adjusted to carry. Faces devoid
of the dead man who walks
I am a veteran of the apathy war—
a timeless soldier of relentless joy,
and I am listening to liars,
from dawn to dusk—
She tells him she got into public health counseling because private practice
Is full of clients like him. “You’d be a gold-mine,” she says. “You’d talk and talk
And uncover more and more stuff to talk and talk about.” She stacks more books,
Then smiles at him. “And I’d make money. I want to help clients who can’t help themselves.”
The sky’s been paved and i have no traction, standing or credit
transparent doesn’t mean empty as opaque doesn’t guarantee content,
light that’s never received, so many phone calls passing through me
must be a couple ideas, how to increase signal strength
You are not even an insect evading a predator. Instead, you sit on the floor breathing, because really there is no choice in this life but to allow air in and out of your lungs thousands of times an hour.
I work loose an upper edge.
His smaller moons are lifeless
but breath still rushes like a waterfall.
Even the fixtures are gold-plated.
He writes to say he hopes I’m smiling
Sometimes I do, sometimes
I fasten on a photograph
When he was smiling.
New condo towers leer,
self-conscious on the river walk.
Lean lines of headlights glare over
entry gate, doorman, lobby-high windows.
we stand holding onto one another
watching as lightning slashes the sky
jumping a little with each new explosion of thunder
the cost was high,
but there’s no going back—
profits move ever forward,
and every swindle has a future
on the silver screen
At On the way to the polls with Louisa & Charlotte the at 10:40, I mortify Louisa. twilight’s I tap Brooklyn Borough President last Marty Markowitz on the arm and say, “Praise God!” gleaming Marty Markowitz shrugs.
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