XENOPROBE

I erased that last phrase from
the official transcript; you might
want to keep track of that, it was done
in your honor. Though your tail wing’s on fire,
you’re coming in for a perfect landing,
courtesy of my immaculate muttering.
I’m sure you’ll understand when I say
you must be quarantined and kept
separate from the general populace.
You are the beginning of something
that can’t be said, a delirious silence
that starts now…

SEMAPHORE

My arms are blind, but can’t you read them?
I have achieved Downward-Facing Spiral,
but all you do is lightly perspire and shrug it off,
like it’s none of your business, like your business
stretches out to the outer rings, where farmland
lays wisping in the limp breeze and the occasional
highway light winks on and off. I’m way past
that fly-over zone. I’m done. I’m coming
in for a landing, my arms spread open,
collecting bouquets of empty air…

REENACTMENT

Marie Antoinette, re-headed, says,
“Let them eat yellowcake uranium!”
The Civil War re-enactors stumble about
blearily in the pre-dawn battlefield,
hoping for a second cup of coffee.
Nixon, being Nixon, pretends he’s Elvis
as he daydreams about robbing a bank.
A billboard in Brazil is torn down.
Someone in Hanoi wires the Paris Hilton.
The word “love” is tracked 4,638,000 times
in a single hour by the NSA.
Sleep is declared an Olympic sport;
dreams are disqualified.
I’m taking my position.
Are you with me on this?

MONKEY OMEGA

The last monkey will not know
he’s a monkey. He will shoot himself
in the foot and count it as a blessing.
He’ll consider his tail a be-all and end-all,
a line in the sand that’s already been erased,
the last shell game played on a block
condemned to demolition.

The last monkey wouldn’t think twice
about shanking Darwin in the back.
He’s writing crib-notes in the prayer books,
selling his spine as a holy relic
on the street corner of his ancestors.
The last monkey wants nothing to do
with himself, just wants to jump through
some tired hoops, be done with it.

NOTHING HOLDS ME

The sky lashed tight
to bright-stitched stars,
a glittering skin that cups down.
Off in the distance, a late
clatter of geese calls.

We never know what holds us here.

My breath steams against the cold,
snaking away in grey-shoaled shards.
I pace back and forth on the back deck
and watch the sky grow darker,
the stars bright.

Nothing holds me here.

CONCEIT

Are we not men?

Far from it!

The milk of human kindness?

Excuse me, do you have a 10% off coupon?

The airports are full of detainees.
There’s a scratch ‘n’ sniff form pertaining to their release.

Heaven has been violated.
The rest of you, just file through.
Nothing to see here…

FECUND

Don’t you hear it,
in the sea-shelled howling of night;
a single bloom unfolding in its’
flesh cup, a withering of tendrils,
a grazing of fingertips, a brush
like seaweed against the cheek,
a hush in the breath
of the oldest ocean?

CHASM

Wine-jug moon, misted incandescent through the twining strands of rain that want to pull me in one direction, then the next.
No Jesus, no Buddha out tonight
on cat’s feet, to lend a hand,
no scribbled scripture
to hold this skin together.

Oh Chasm, old friend,
you’ve found me again…

PROFILE PIECE

This fever passes from one to the other
like a tainted bake sale.
This roadside attraction is now
an independent republic
with a banana-based economy
& me a tyrant worried my imported
tin plating will not pass inspection
& may contain trace elements of lead
which could endanger the very children
I swore to protect on this, the eve
of my blood-soaked inauguration,
where “allegiance” is now both
a state of mind, & an accessorized
cologne, & that down payment
on those dowager virgins is actually
none of your damn business---
Did I mention this interview is over?

LIBERTY ASHES

…rolls by, emblazoned on a truck outside
my apartment window, right when I’m going to step
into the shower. Absolve, absolve me!
Of that grey-sheened dusting, parchment-thick.
Let me speak words that haven’t already been burnt.
There’s just a smudge left on your cheek,
in the last grasping rays of sunset---
Excuse me, do you mind? Can I reach?
I want to wipe it clean…