2.26.2006

monster

With each squat grunt from the pen we humans gain wisdom of stupidity. How stupid we are - how wise to know how stupid - how beautiful it is that we can spit on a flower as easy as we could write a pitiful poem about that flower - How beautiful it is that we can burn bodies in an oven, stab lungs till they gurgle, blood filled - How beautiful the dirt is, that dirt can cry and laugh and hate - that too is like a pitiful poem.

2.25.2006

Post-Postmodern

This desert has many tails
that slither like fragmented beasts.
I take its cactuses and make cactus juice -
My own mirage of reason,

but my cactus juice tastes like starry Stonehenge,
like stairways to places
of light
that never existed.

So would you please not fret
if the world is just a desert?

2.16.2006

The Flagman

The screams last for hours on some nights.
A man comes tumbling out the screen door
with a bad cough fingering his lighter,
twisting and clutching it about with calloused hands
like it was something that offended him -
a few puffs
as smoke pours out his pointed nose
and his broad shoulders lower.

The next morning he’s wearing an orange vest,
standing in the street with a sign.
Stop. Slow, and switch.
The traffic murmurs by.
The sun must move so slowly holding that sign
for a living:
Stop. Slow, and switch.

Tonight his children will be playing in the back yard
making snow men with carrot noses
but never eyes or ears
while he’ll be slapping her around the kitchen counter
and clutching her like he might
clutch a sign,
or light a cigarette.

2.12.2006

Moment of Inertia

Without a centre it pivots and goes.

A star explodes.
Its blurry sewage re-collects oblivion
but there’s no big bang as a boy is crashing
a rock at a window
while over a sandy beach
a pale moon rises
and a call of war runs through a copper wire.

An electron must be another universe
so random
so small
but this one has a fever now -

on a branch a bird is singing what a bird has always sung
and over an ocean the air is laughing and twisting hurricanes
while on a street corner a hobo
is trying to sell “god in a box” for 19.95
and a flower is growing
is growing through concrete
and one molecule touches another in a bottle
of water on somebody’s desk and pushes it away
while a woman is having sex with a woman
and two galaxies swirl half mad
and one third loving it
pulling their dusty stars at 4000 miles a minute
between each other
while an old man with a cane
is buying a pack of peas at a grocery store
and a girl on a swing is looking at the sky
and wishing she could be right there forever
swinging.