I write magical runes on the ice and poetry for humpbacks, which animate my tattoos, and create a restroom for celestial beings trying to get a heat in their bones.
This verse will be picked up by crows in the morning
And they will be thrown from heaven
On icy concrete heart rocks
hallowed be the whores, the sugar babies, strippers, porn stars, cam girls
escorts, freestylers--hearts of gold, cold hustle, whom i owe by the dozen
hallowed be the word of the whore, for i believe her over anyone
hollered over too-loud new wave or whispered in the bathroom
“Do you have a minute?” read the email. The Editorial Specialist opened Macrohard Community and saw that he had been assigned a Community Task, which was the same as a regular task, except that its assignment did not require human interaction, virtual or otherwise.
now that he was crisply re-figured at a bus stop on the same gravel shoulder, now that he had earned the insignia, wore the uniform of red and gold, a gold peaked cap over still tangled hair, now that he was raised
Tonight, fatigue’s grim flower unfurls,
but Gandhi, gunned down, had this to say:
“Be the change you wish to see in the world.”
Americans live on a hair-trigger,
ready any moment
to depart life when
they and a bullet might collide,
and so they die,
either the one shot or the shooter.
I’ll be sorry to leave,
sorry to move onto
the next plane of being
to slip into the new skin
decanted in smeared dots
I was going to throw away the water
bottle then the river spoke: DO NOT
SPIT GUM INTO THE URINALS.
I was transformed. Red bumps rose
along the collar of my hand and I
Standing in the moment, a diamond
Reflects, the romance in waves
Of enjambed ideas, free contours
That do not restrict, but let flowing
Rivers and hearts full of innocence
Meld into a melody of flowers!
my eyes never healed so I may see it all and that I never forget there are those who could use a hand with alms a line we’re human beings for Christs’ sake and some of us are not at home but we’re still here.
They won't say: how did the snow lie on the streets?
But: why did the lie so beguile?
They won't ask: how loud were the feet on concrete?
But: how did the poison taste when imbibed?
The art of listening is fading,
the way light fades at the end
of the day, when we need
lamps, candles that erase
the shadows of the lies
we cling to, and separation,
Twilight bodies, alleyway tramps, hide among
trash cans & apple barrels; hoop apparitions linger & we
become invisible as nights grow longer & memories fade.
You knew me once. I knew you. Now we meet as strangers.
She’s always had teeth why so violent
Now-why shouldn’t she be? The laws of
Nature dictate that she kill, pillage
And burn I saw her as a pup
I’m IOWA pariah. I’m heterodox writer. I workshop Twitter, they says all. I brought shame. Esteemed institution happen. I’m IOWA pariah.
back into the clinic under the guise of seeking treatment, a shrug
when asked why, when PTSD is offered as cause—a bruise,
a mass metastasizes, seizes the rest. Like shrapnel, shame echoes,
scatters; a stain his brothers can’t evade; an angry, unhealed wound.
I am awake late,
watching a screen in awe,
as courageous women
throw their head scarves into flames
I’m getting kind of surrealist
you said quoting from the psalm
After the weeping comes the murders
of the infants and then comes the weeping
Time was taking a piece of him,
Piece by piece he would disappear
Not made of anything permanently enduring
What once was most alluring
Vanishes to dust
Risk here: a muffle
and choke
and silence introduced
risk here overwhelms what was
sound, a levee between us
She took the fury whole
filled her gut with it
she doesn’t follow where inkling’s gone
accepted every slap down
like the commonplace custom it was
I shall not unclench these fists
if doing so means carrying destruction.
I have never close another’s eyes,
cut the twine that tethers him
the nightmares tell me the same thing. They tell me I will be the last poet who will write the last poem before the world ends.
The afternoon light is dingy
from unwashed windows
as residents begin gathering
in the social room. Brains,
nervous systems & psyches
are wounded in many ways
While the greenery was being wiped out with the club, while
the golden womb of the earth was being looted, while the
paddy field was being ruined and the green pan leaves were
being wilted, where were you, poet?
Amy Adams travelled into the future for a Chinese cell number
where a Rubik’s Cube solved itself in Matt Damon’s fedora
as a poem is a puzzle missing pieces in a thrift store
Maniac whistle hollow ring finger
: this [BliSS] Anger subtracts
conquered citizens of
diatribe : ,
from the garden section – of a big-box. grab the goods, off the shelf. or a random lot – picked while the children should have been focused on homework or hopscotch, yet the service lines are monitored by bots.
We plant our poems aside this bus stop,
hoping to leave some of our seeded selves here
upon the weeds of earth, granted the lesser parts
of ourselves, we plant, as the route will carry
the rest of our bleeding parts away.
it’s got love out the yin-yang
it makes a sound like a zippered handbag being opened inside a cat
it feels the pleasant weight of its lover & cries out for the touch of her lungs
it fixes its eyes on the future & gets buggered by the past
Crazy buys a gun
Crazy walks right in
Crazy shoots and shoots
Your mother
Your daughter
Your son
At 40 miles per hour, everybody splits open.
Thighs and dreams and hands holding signs
about lives and rights and histories.
Now sirens scream as thunderheads encircle my teardrop isle. I recall from my cool school days a question about the world ending in fire or ice.
no one teaches girls
to fall down with grace
coaches yell, Slide and Get Up,
Hey, You Are Not Hurt,
No Blood, Brush It Off.
Like a small miracle, it forms the shape of a Rubinesque angel in the center aisle between pews. Outside, a nun slaps me while I’m standing on the church steps. Then, she hugs me and weeps.
I like myself after, free for just that moment
of the surly bonds of corporeality,
of no touch, no sight, no sound, no scent, no taste,
no mind,
But the next present hasn’t surrendered, for nothing’s inevitable
where nothing’s been. What lifts in the blood searches through
space for signs of life. Where half of this day has been night,
half of the night remains some kind of Bodhisattva emptiness.
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