at night I can’t see the owl I hear
but a faint outline
of the sandbox on the porch
a playground for unwanted crickets
who nestle to the bottom
waiting to surprise me one summer day
“Really Ready to Rumble?”
Made my bones playing ledgeball on the block, but during college
no taxi’d drive back into the Southside snatch-‘n-grab boarded up
storefronts below Chicago’s elevated trains. Hertz’d have none of it;
“A Grimoire Ajar” and “Moving Day”
A candle is lit,
Pink flesh melting smooth at first,
But as its silk ribbons
Cascade from its frozen bluffs,
It withers as its wick slowly
Bores deep into its heart.
“At the Mercy of My Own Forgetting,” “The Rent I Pay” and “By the Dead Purple Lady”
declares the forgetting man
under the florescent lights
his face shadowless
in a shadowed world
that he knows where it is
once and for all
“BEYOND” and “Beyond”
I found the answers
when the sky was
layered in pink, lavender,
and celestial blue.
I am a medicine woman
though my breasts have
never produced milk, and
my womb is barren.
I’m not bad seed.
“Sipsula solidissima,” “Notice Pending” and “Saturday with Pa”
Let me tell you something about the human
heart. It’s there
in the black paper cameo cutout shadow of a girl spinning a barrel hoop against
an almond wall by de Chirico. A nurse turns her back on
an amputated leg
waiting in motley for the orderly
to bring order.
“Iris the Goddess of Iridium and Rainbows,” “Rust-swollen Seeds” and “End of the Line”
your slow tongue peels my name
letter by letter by letter
Iris
my goddess
my platinum resistance melts
its afterthoughts drifting to earth
I must go
“Canada Geese,” “Boat Hull, Moving Party in a Small Town” and “Crows”
Feet splayed, leather between toes,
black claws meant for pedestrian tasks,
you meet me with your mate in the office parking lot.
Though there’s something regal in your head held high,
I’ve seen you eating grass on suburban lawns,
your hungry bill opening and closing as I approach,
greeting me like you were my pet.
“Song of Aylan” and “Crouching Caveman Hidden Cellar”
Three columns of scratches on the Ishango bone start the song of Aylan.
Forty nights of incessant rain, one lost sheep and remaining ninety-nine,
Thirteen heads on the hill, four bellies in the cow make the song of Aylan.
“Trading Cards,” “After Party” and “Ewing Sarcoma, Extremely Rare”
Papa and his child
play cards in a gaudy
McDonald’s lobby.
I see twilight and
somebody in tattered rags
examine through scraped windowpanes.
“Ticketed,” “Speckled” and “Hello, Instructor”
Late for work, I left my wallet, its gray
color a perfect match for the counter.
Guilty of excessive speed, with no way
to clear my name, I began to flounder.
With no cash and no options to make bail,
Who knew of the horrors that would be mine.
“Speed Limits? We Don’t Obey No Stinking Limits,” “Gym Rats” and “Poking Insidious Eye With Sharp Stick — It’s About Time”
We’re revved up on Peet’s coffee
driven by Silicon Valley vanity
we’re unanimous
we’re equanimous
in our 24/7 disregard
for our city’s 25 mph limits
speeding up & down Middlefield Road
at 40 … 45 … do I hear 55?
“We Learned We Are Gods,” “Freshman Year, UAF: Fairbanks Fall of ’92” and “Downpour in the Height of Summer”
At eight years of age, we became creators of the universe
We made models of the galaxy with Styrofoam balls
A gritty marble-sized mercury
A sun with rays on the bus floor
Jupiter a fist of moons
The slumped crown of Saturn
“Pleasure,” “The Toys on the Floor” and “Within the Walls”
The block finds pleasure,
all that it needs,
as it is slipped into
the place conceived for it,
that spot where it truly fits:
snug, smooth, clean
without jiggle or sway.
“Morbid Fascination,” “Food Pantry in Winter: A Visit” and “The Drone”
Yesterday morning I read with morbid fascination
That “more than 40% of insect species are declining”
And nature’s ecosystems are at risk
Of a “catastrophic collapse.” [1]
In my $70,000 electric car on the way to work
(charged by solar panels
On my 3,500-square-foot suburban home),
I listened with morbid fascination to the news
“Train Prayer,” “Meditation #3” and “Casualties”
Locomotive, set at odds with us, like a dead god.
A god who always been dyin’, dyin’ down the track.
God—oh strange God—not trying to revive husks
of shucked corn—stillborn on cobs in Missouri fields
where buried effigies and pedigrees remind us —
expect a resurrection.
“The android speaks in free verse,” “Speak now, when there is too much else to hold” and “#52”
A theory:
It is actually 2024.
Six years ago,
My job was determined to be automatable,
And I was replaced by a robot
Designed to scour the internet for pictures of women wearing red lipstick
“As if it mattered,” “There Are Others: x-mas at the bar” and “The sound of lonely”
I’ve been lost before
On the wings of a skeletal butterfly
And carried over the landscape
Of my own mind.
A little bee hive
Plush with synapsed ants
Just getting by
In feigned importance.