After Japan

My friend asked me for a prayer of peace
but I can’t give words to contain such suffering
and everything I offer is less…

Jet squalls past above
turning the night inside out
I still watch TV

Headlights seen through mist
like choreographed rain drops
lit up as they fall

Riverside oil tanks
grey against a fog-grey sky
the day is fading…

Sidewalk newspaper
pages flipping in the wind
no one to read it

Suburban Haiku

motion sensor light
this privileged motherfucker
has a sudden stage

DRACONIAN ERROGENOUS ZONES…

…have been established throughout the city,
hoping to defuse the current social climate
with a self-activated shame cycle, accomplishing
what tear gas and a reflexive leaden thumb could not.
We ask you to examine your own bodies, and their
corrosive agenda of base desires, and wonder
if you don’t come up short. Further, we ask
if a loop can be established, a closed circuit,
between achieving those desires and the white noise
we are currently funneling into your subconscious.
In conclusion: What if Play Time was Work?
What if we could make you strike against yourselves?
What if love was the inverted spearhead
that ended the heart?