everything beautiful hurts
to be touched
your mother’s
cold hand on your forehead

the number on the thermometer
higher than your burning mind
can count
and now you’re the king

I am finally admitting
that I am never going to read War and Peace.
I started a number of times,
printed out a cheat sheet with the cast of characters,
made many a tasty snack,
read to around page 100,
and each time abandoned the project.

The challenge is called Oceans Seven,
and by the time Marcia Cleveland
finished the ginormous feat of swimming
all those channels and straits,
one, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
she indeed earned ownership.
As in, Her Oceans Seven.

Starscape obscured by
countless swarming pixels with 14-inch wingspans;
but no tangible color or form.
No sound, at least none perceived.
But there was something…
a presence felt. No, not felt. Not exactly;…
a presence known by reputation not senses, as mammal, not bird.

A hot September
morning flames fire to heaven,
Golden Lucifer.

Anticipation
to culmination: a bloom,
its cacophony.

Is there a planet where words silence
a cannon’s demented mouth?

Here, on Earth, furious iron roars
past all reason, past all pleading.
No warding it off
with incantations, prayers,
poetry.