Language
this noise binds us in peculiar ways
as if it knows the frequency
at which we resonate
I can predict the weather
by the lilt in your voice and you
can pinpoint my location
by the clamor on the streets.
evening is when the suburb
breaks down into episodes,
but all I can think of is the time...
Heirloom
When your mother raises her hand; earthy
brown, skin cracked open—
sun parched field—
iron hot temper
and hits you
the pain melts your
flesh,
bones,
marrow.
When your mother raises her hand to
strike you
the pain bites (your pet rabid dog).
She throws the foliage of her swallowed dreams—
barren land that was hers
and her mother’s
and her mother’s mother
who couldn’t...
Home
It was party time.
I went to a party
at a known place.
It was party time.
I went to the party
as their chief guest.
It was party time.
I went to a party
at a house
I used to live,
for some time.
Ode to a Graveyard
City of angels
tombed in silence.
A solemn stillness
is held in the air.
A hollow...
RIVERS
Should I multiply or divide my soul
in rivers under sheltering domes?
I have left bits of me
in the Elbe and the Rhine.
I have left liquid tears
in the lighted Seine.
Paris, Berlin, Dresden --
each city is an epic, a tome.
In rose gardens in the day
or beer-gardens at night
I have ranged and roamed.
The...
Paradise
lonely feet on a subway train
at half past midnight
she misses paradise
where every day she would
collect a pocket full of shells
why not give her home away
for another trip to the coastline without a name
our lady train rider flashes back to the nights
where she would stumble drunkenly with
another girl who split...
A Dream of Youth
When we meet, we’ll fly together
caressing each other
with our enthralling beak,
We’ll sing the half-elapsed song
Twitter, twitter, twitter...
We’ll territorialize the sky,
Colonise her spheres,
Our wheezing would form thunder.
We’ll bathe in the rainbow,
Suck the evening twilight,
Soar down to nestle in
the unfamiliar nest of opportunity.
We’ll mouth each other’s adventure,
Will laugh...
Home
When the tree shed all
leaves under a blue
naked sky,
someone whispered: It’s spring.
I sat a crow on the barren tree
that melted down before
the black bird escaped
in to oblivion.
Pebbles strewn around
the pathway laughed
& walked straight
into my heart
When I found the gate
locked after a long journey,
the road announced:
You’re home.
Skeleton
Standing alone in front,
of...
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
even the violence
seems germane.
same old Wichita,
ain’t it?
bomb every
last life boat,
make the bird
on the bill
soar free above
that ancient tomb.
a camera’s just one eye
but damn
if we don’t know
how to whisk a crowd
after wrongful
frenzy.
the NRA pays less taxes than me
you won’t
find
that shrapnel
wound
in their
tax ID #.
the business
end
of muzzle
is only prelude
of holy
creation.
“be...
THE PARTY
Such a mix
at her party—
one worshiped
his own genius.
another was too flippant.
a third was
a freethinker,
a fourth, a savant.
The combination
could only be uncomfortable.
And throw in a hypocrite.
a born pessimist,
the usual boorish academics,
and even the weather
could not settle
on rain or sunshine.
Maybe
the party-giver
was asking too much,
relied on diversity
as a crutch.
ended with discordance...
Yarn
I.
Spread out like a tangential curve,
perched on window balconies,
I would stare at each abraded line of the sun
The sky was my favorite thing, how if I lay
horizontally, departed from the forces of
gravity and the will of life, everything was united
A quiet murmur would rush across the diaphragm,
knots and levers humming slowly...