Dives: On Rejection There was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen… Luke 16:19 “It is not impoverished to say,” the screener wrote,“Your erotic sonnets are no small achievement.”Poets are grateful for any warmth in the cold –The longhand, a scribbled signature, scent.In the business-like second paragraph,…
Our Mothers (for my aunt, Birdie Lou Powell)What would we be without you?Even God herselfKnows that our mothersAre miracle angelsSwiping away the sun’s burns and tearsWith their leatherlike handsWe meanMother mom ma mommy mama mamiGive birth to the earth dailyTransport the moon and stars on their backsWork like hungry ancestors in orange fieldsSmuggle their invisible…
Pandemic is a Place Where Harassing Migratory Birds is Essential Business #1 First days of December 2019, Bird Island was denuded by San Antonio Parks following plans from USDA Wildlife “Services.” All nests were removed from Bird Island; six, transferred to Edward’s Tank at Mitchell Lake Audubon, way south of town. Around those same days, on the other side of…
I Collect Grandmothers I collect grandmothers like flowersyours, mine, everyone’sonce they’ve been plucked from the earthafter they’ve wilted and shriveledin provincial flower potsor upcycled urban glass bottlesI gather their corpsesand lay them between my favourite booksso they flatten like the pages that hold themso words that matter are imprintedonto their petalled facestheir leafy handstheir stalk-like…
King is not well Polished floors, closed doors, clean ceilings, and patched windows stare at the raped halls. Raped halls. People ran, dirty feet pilfering. Then came, the disjointed band. Legs up-down, up-down. Arms stiff-up-sideways, stiff-up-sideways. Hollering, bellowing lies. Megaphones being charged with diesel generators inside soon-to-be culpable throats. Throats that are so dehydrated they…
Air Quality Index Streetlights flounder in dense fog red smear of warehouseporchlights dimmed orange the color of aggression * Inflamed brain on screena man holeto the sewer below steam lifting through snowits wet iron disc unhealthy for sensitive groups * Hollow out a hole for meplease I know my anger’s out of character Just tell…
Instances On a Sunday Afternoon 12:25 pmThe road unfurls in tandem with the skyas parched as a loverholding the grey void in his arteries…….–…….smelling first rainsA prisoner awaiting an ambrosial embraceIn this evermore season of deep prolonging 1:10 pmClouds are inverted commasCarrying the weight of unspoken wordsMarinated in green…….–…….her attire for a swollen worldhaemorrhaged by…
We Will Cry Such Tears He sat there cowled in the blanket. After a while he looked up. Are we still the good guys? he said. Yes. We’re still the good guys.Cormac McCarthy, The Road We will cry such tears as will break the heartsof stone angels. It is not impossible thatI would help them seek revenge.You…
WHERE ARE YOU FROM? I am a poet from Chicago.If music can be carried place to placeand one constantly moves, it’s hardto hold what is needed. Objects dropfrom my hands. I am from the Americas.You say you have people here? Home to home, each time something islost and almost replaced. A drumbeat continues.Things gathered up…
Blind Date with Salmon and Cultural Differences He buys me an avocado salad and a salmon skewereyes my skewertakes someeven though it’s cooked to death—death as an appetite spoiler: the death of Aristotle,his 16-years old cat when it tried to follow his car,as he was leaving, after dumping it at a farm.“Toronto apartments are too…
Requiem I nurse cold evening in my soft palmeach star drops a haiku that hangs on the treetop, the moon slices into a half, The mirror the old memories the long darknessfall inside and the gas lightshines at the corner of the street, Shooting stars cross the courtyard,the last time whispers forget to stealthe shy…
A Bazaar Scenefrench peta square, Machilipatnam The first tuk tuk un-tucks the village women,arranging the cane baskets of fresh vegetables along the pavement, thefarm-fresh colours smile, like the prisoners being released but,only draw the cow, the same trespasser again they whiskoff she humbly moves to the just arrived Huassain’s pushcart of bananasfor consolation and gets…
