AN EMPIRE OF LIBERTY
(for Tecumseh)

When ink can choke an open mouth
when nothing is left to be said
when the forest is ablaze
and the eyes are blackened
and the bullet is hot
and the spine is breaking
when nothing is left to be said
you say these words, “We shall
leave our bones upon them…”

LISTEN FOR ANNOUNCEMENT

The ears are peeled, the mind is blank,
the night is full of the digital
approximation of silence.
We are attending a ceremony
in our honor, but the invites
have been wiped clean.
Come to think of it,
all the labels from my clothing
were neatly snipped out
while I slept, and my driver’s license
now shows a picture of me
missing on a milk carton.
Come to think of it,
I can’t think of it,
and such forward-thinking
leaves me way behind the curve.
I count loose change, and try
to make small talk with strangers,
but then realize I’m not sure
of the language that’s supposed
to leave my lips…

BLACK BOX

The first turned coins of dawn
gleam, a bird song flitters,
and the black box out my window
is slowly opening…

I am less than myself
and more than I want to be
as the edges spread,
and words fall in between…

THIS DARK IMPRINT…

doesn’t even leave the eyelid
before it’s categorized,
half a shuttered frame, at best,
out of focus, inconclusive,
you can barely call it evidence,
but still, a shadow has to live
with itself, and every grain
leaves bread crumbs behind
for every bird who ever pecked
at the order of the house next door…

FLIP-SIDE

I never said that.
Let the transcript be struck
from the record that’s on
extended play…
Let the vinyl’s grease paint
be a lesson to you:
Show the face you proclaim
to the world, and then just
keep it spinning…

WAKE

In every dish left to dry on the rack,
in every idly spinning window fan
refracting the TV’s light, in every
whisper of a book’s pages or
dimming of the stereo, there is
a soft trilling, a touch of collective
cacophony dialed down a notch.
The storms of August have passed
for now. We hover, uncertain
in their wake…

MUTE SIGNAL

A firefly was trapped
in the TV room tonight;
its’ lonely teletype
flickered fast dances
above the screen
as our eyes strained
to catch the sub-titles
and the rain stood outside,
waiting for the next downpour.

AFTER/LIFE

The roiling black-ink cloud
consumes the moon and sky,
and I was laying on the beach
once, high, watching the sea gulls
peck at scraps, and realized,
“They’d be eating my eyes out,
if I were dead!”
I guess we’re not so alone, after all…

WHAT THE BUDDHA KNOWS…

that the stars go out
that the sky is a Crackerjack surprise
that caramel is the most fleeting
of elements, that our lips can open
like a wound that knows a good ending…

THE GOOD SENATOR BEESWAX…

proclaims it’s none of his
but that the honeycomb was so sweet
he could not help but gouge its’ sockets
his paws so steeped in treacle, how
could he refrain in good faith
from not lapping up
his talons’ misdirected nectar?
But that the bees, no, the bees
have a mind of their own…