Thursday, March 6, 2008
TIDAL
Guide me through this open mouth, the tidal scream,
a gathering of waters here at the broken sore.
I am slick with algae, my arm is up-thrust, I am a statue sunk to the bottom of this most available ocean, a convenient back-drop,
something to tell stories against.
I am the Roman, with nothing left in store.
I am the aqueduct that goes nowhere,
the barber with dull blades and the hot smear of shaving cream and throats
that live to tell the tale.
I am the sliver on the ice-choked river, the clanking of loose change.
God, believe this:
I am you without a name.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
DREAMS OF EMPIRE #3
Look! It is late afternoon, and the sun breaks open
the window, lighting for a moment what is usually invisible, gold motes clutched into twining cloaks.
This empire of dust, which settles overmy kitchen glass, my scattered, entrenched laundry,
my eyelids as they flicker and doze.
Through me drifts the Revolutionary War scene
that actually happened down the street, the first fissures of the Manhattan Project,
Boss Tweed’s popped vest button long since
ground down past the salt of the earth.
I blink my eyes again. Just dust.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Monday, March 3, 2008
Sunday, March 2, 2008
EXPLORER
So, the moon launch launched of its’ own accord
and we followed, creating our own
chicken wire & papier-mâché replicas.
For a while we float, as made up as balloons, full of shut air and air sickness bags.
We love the whole idea of a backyard miracle,
that flight could somehow come from this.
But always, we end up with the end of the afternoon, us peering out at the burning spur beneath our window;
a tender strip of asphalt glowering with heat ripples,
a simple driveway waiting to be filled. Dad's home.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
BLINDNESS
My family had a TV repairman, and I had no idea
how he sat in front of his own TV, blue-lit and repetitive, with lids barely fluttering beneath a great weight.
He had his father's name blazoned across the side of the brown van that pulled into our driveway sometimes, when trouble arose, when our reception was marred by oceans of static, licking at a sodden, sore wound that threatened to grow. This might be blindness,
but we are waiting for someone to tell us otherwise.
Friday, February 29, 2008
FOUNDLING
I am the wearer of the Eternal Dunce-Cap.
Sparrows comb my hair.
My fingers are diamond speedboats,
my throat a turnpike which is always turning,
searching out the next bleary exit— signposts
full of stark and bludgeoned hunger. I am all
about the off-ramp, I am America’s Next Sweetheart,
blubbering about my passport and extradition treaties.
I stand for blunt instruments and catching the perfect wave.
I am the scissor in your pageant, the open blade.
I’m very worried about global warming,
if that’s where you want to go with this. I’m your foundling, swaddling and hypodermics aside.
I just want to put this parade in the past tense.
I just know I was born to decline this prize.
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