Sunday, December 28, 2008

I'm Under the Soup Spoon of Alaska

I’m under the soup spoon of Alaska,
not in the sun. When sky blends into
desert, even clouds melt.

I tried something new, but I don’t know why.
There is something rich about the lilies of the field
and the porpoises of the Pacific,
but my worship often reverts
to calves or crowns of gold, or groundedness,
securities, or past or future ghosts.

The inevitable is harsh; starkly walling,
but undiscovered freedom is a pity.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

racism

a maddening scab
and picking at it
does nothing at all.

in the rain and stench
is there nothing left
to try?

shall we dance again
our tactile tango
of dirty guns?

a gun is nothing.
it only changes
the pain.

bullets bleed
and targets quiver
and survivors,
well, they survive,

and souls like blackbirds
and whitebirds
rise in alluring parallel.

Friday, September 12, 2008

Poem for a Friend

I am wetter than the rain.

Clouds and me tearing
up into peaces.

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Monsoon Season

The rain is melting the windshield. No wipers.
Streetlights become sparklers, and I become you.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Thirty-Eight Lights

Night. It's the Fifth of July,
but I see fireworks. Barricade light blinks the street orange.
Flashbulbs everywhere like toy lightning.
A police car. The beacon pirouettes,
but no siren. No sound.

Thirty-eight lights live and die each second,
and no one else seems to notice. Oh,
and the pharmacy next door is on fire.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Complex

I can still see you on a white tour bus, nibbling potato chips
and theologizing; your captive audience
sometimes escaping to that shoebox of a bathroom
as Massachusetts blurred by beside us.

But as I pass you in a bakery, offering hello,
you are perturbed. Your eyes head for safety,
and the man in your memory frantically scours
files and microfiche for a clue to this strange stranger.

You have forgotten my face and name,
but I forgive you. It simply squares you in the packing box of humanity;
among a sheepish and oblivious crew, captained
by Oedipus, who forgot even his own mother's face,

making love to her in blissful ignorance;
whole worlds swirling unnoticed about the bed.
He was not blind yet, but he was a man.

Friday, March 28, 2008

lifting waits

I hold still; lifted up
by a pulley. This is not flying,
and there is no breeze. Still, I
wait. I will never know how
to fix a carburetor or raise beans by a pond,
but still snow will fall this January,
and I will take a weighty number
and exotify the wall stucco from an orange chair.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Holy Week

I
Bred in a red birth.
Behind your eyes, our bread's worth.

II
You last, I backlash,
lashing your back with black ash.

III
In black the red dies.
Stillness, and last, the dead rise.

Saturday, March 1, 2008

reflection and object

a blackbird careening into
a mirror. a mirror
becoming me, becoming
a blackbird, and lifting
me up to nature.

a blackbird
on an oak branch,
mirror shards for leaves.
The blackbird leaves.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

cathedral

there is a horn and a sanctus bell
and an orange and an oak tree
down by the river

oh brothers, let's go down
and shed our sandals like leaves

mud and murk in our toes
vines' branches winding skyward
in warm breath of sunlight

we will whisper prayers and poetry
and discover a dove nest with fledglings

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Mesopotamia

cutting up old newspapers
to
papier-mâché today's headlines

toenail clipping for a moon
and broken cookie on a plate

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Stand on a mountaintop and twirl slowly; your eyes' satiety spiraling with you in an explosive double helix. It is odd enough to be a speck of dust in space and time, but to think: there is nothing meaningless. All ripples into the sublime. This is the most beautiful food chain: a thousand thousand small things nourishing the Kingdom, and I am one.

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

resurrection

I see sea shells. I ogle them
and smell Easter lilies
to my right and left.

This, too, is a resurrection. I flow
and my costumes ebb. Existence
ends without fanfare, leaving only
a sigh of satiety and an embrace
of sunlight. We were the sun once,

burning away cloud after cloud;
life in our breath and a river of
completeness.

bildungsroman

Like a petal on the wind the toy plane
flew east. I stood centrally, a sentry,
watching the moon pull the sky
in an alluring ebb, and I knew that the
days of my life until now were over. I
cried and smiled and went home
to look at old yearbook photos by the light
of a new candle.