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 over
my 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


YOURS & MINE FIELD


What is love but the right to devour?


The black-out lights reveal

a yours & mine field. Step lightly now.
Through the words, to the knives
dipped in water that can also heal.

Monday, March 3, 2008


REDACTED SCRIPT


Blank
kills Blank, to seize the position of Blank.

But Blank was foretold the prophecy, and acted
against it,
setting into motion a horrible blank
of his own
blank intentions, that ended in
a blank,
an unholy marriage, a dirty thimble,
and a renouncement of all blanks.

Blank follows…

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.

Monsters