Poetry

Small birds, damaged by shellfire, slant against the light. “The descent of wisdom . . . ,” the dictator begins, and pauses, recalling his mother’s wine-reddened face. A residue of depression become ill will, a sensation of engorgement, and an undeveloped moment in which the    spirit stalls, falls back, and drops to its knees…

We were going toward nothing all along. Honing the acoustics, heralding the instant shifts, horizontal to vertical, particle to plexus, morning to late, lunch to later yet, instant to over. Done to overdone. And all against a pet store cacophony, the roof withstanding its heavy snow load. So, winter. And still, ambition to otherwise and…

The owl said, My son, Oak Table, your stand is strong. I have four talons on each leg, and you four talons on each leg. Our cold heavy hold holds mostly air. We are able. The table did not speak. We both make our home in the oak. My eyes glow with the glow of…

He sailed to wherever the sirens were, surviving by lashing himself to the mast. An image of stalwart resistance, or weakness. And the singers mere angels. And heaven only desire, simply the illegal. Sailed into the not-quite world. Or returned home to slay the suitors who had been feasting there for years. What about afterwards?…

Photograph found in the road: bejeweled hand gripping a limp cock. All parties suffering from lack of ambition. The hills of Tuscany won’t dapple with sunlight, and here it is nearly noon. You didn’t much want that leather jacket, the vendor didn’t really care to sell it, you hardly tried it on, he barely praised…

The women said, “You wished the rain on us and now you are    leaving.” They kept the rain and I left. The muck of that place stayed on my shoes for a mile and then it was a new road with a sour mud and red cliffs and a wind better than a sweetheart….

On the shore, the moon breaks on the rocks, gathering and    shattering itself. The man admits surprise, how easily the point enters the heart. You have only the one day, it’s a birthday. You can smile, I am, he did. He buried iron pots and the cast-iron pan, he washed them, covered their surfaces…

no there is nothing today I want to read I want to gather you like the sky at sixteen I was a real beauty nudged to excellent ways of comforting I was told Radha he grows weak your silhouette and eyes the sculpture Tikkuman chisels forever too busy to take a wife and Radha they…

someone keeps snipping our frayed bottoms off and sticking our necks in cold water. Tonight, nothing revives us. Everything is Hail Hamlet, Othello, and Macbeth. I am sick to death of their lot. O tragedy, o fringy queen, that old scene. What do they do with the stars at night? Pluck them out as like…