Aches and Pains
There is an indigo ripple in my eye,
sending me backwards through time
on cresting waves that roll into themselves
Tightened by their energy,
these droplets form ropes
that flay my memory
Sent skipping like a stone
back to the hand that caressed it
before it was thrown away
This is the fate of all
rocks that plough through waves
instead of riding them
I am as dense as sea sand,
afraid to sink beneath the white cap
that curls and tucks its tail
Taking me to the white wall
where the tidal door beckons
to be opened by an instinct
This primordial scar hastens its
phantom pain—to be let in,
to rediscover the weapon
That laid waste to the flesh.
a flailing mermaid that fans
my optic nerve, stimulating
A thought that, too—pirouettes
somewhere in the halls and
caverns of my past
Like a place of hiding on the
ocean floor, to dart backwards
fully armored to the teeth
Waiting to be waylaid by scores
of pincer prickles in the dark,
a soft, quiet place, not to be found.
Timber Tantrums
In The Iliad—
the epic simile reigns supreme
speaking of death
the way poets speak of lovers
One in particular speaks of a prince who falls
like a tree in the forest
—later,
to be hewn into the weapons
that kill him
When a thing as lovely as a tree
feeds the war machine,
the Sarumans of the world
salivate
And soot satiates
the fiends,
the hounds of all that is green
and breath-giving
No satisfaction
until a
wasteland…
ad infinitum
Scions of industry
inherit
low ceiling and black lung
A treeless Gaza
walled by sea and desert
An Amazon drinking dirt
from rootless banks
like an addict
thickening its blood supply
A destiny manifest
with aching dryness
Inserting
A cypher into the mind
of a tree
until the gray ghosts
of tentacled timber
screech to the crows
to bury their nests
in a splintered graveyard
Chicago Sunset
The monkey bar reached toward her
instead of she to it
Cold steel meets
warm, soft, small hand
an expert at this kind of play
focused and talented
—swift and free
Another hand, effortless
between bar and bar
like a future dominated
by purpose
Then a firework
HOORAH!
as if congratulatory
She bows before the final
bar
in gratitude
but the ground
meets her cheek
not
like hand to first bar
Screeching tires
instead of applause
is din to dim ears
In the oasis of child play
she leaks what her heart
had pounded
seconds before