If She Could
Filthy chamber
Maid in dress bent
Over dreaming upon chores—
If she could, livingroom
Undone broken television cut
Throaty drunken laugh.
In fast car
City roars shifting
Lanes without moving high
Into dark hills
Led by smoky clouds
Fiery moon— stare
Long at snapping flame
Drop down
Howl.
If she could be....
World Down Below
Where have they gone?
Every hill sloping
downward tilting
backward pines thrashing.
A butterfly hovering
scorched rock, fluttering
bent circles crashing
sleepless and black.
Feathered demons
Upon bodies
Zooming hot
Merry-go-round feast.
Bathing in the bay
With snakes
Along rocks spilling
In and out.
Horizon dripping rain
Shadows— sharks cutting through
Airplane’s imprint
In dark sea.
Frozen Moment
History turned that night
In the bookstore— bombings
On Baghdad
BBC CNN
Air raids and missles
Explosions and depots
Key military targets….
Middle East and packing guns
The Draft
Dreams that flash and gyrate
call to fight in unison
against an enemy I now must hate.
Packing bags, attending fate
On Persian sands we kill
Dreams that flash and gyrate.
Missles scream don’t hesitate
Gas masks worn, the rising sun
Against an enemy I now must hate.
Nighttime metal showers radiate
Poison fires, Saddam Hussein
Dreams that flash and gyrate.
Crouching bodies palpitate
Blast through lines, shock and awe
Against an enemy I now must hate.
I can’t believe I’m in the war.
Lucky me in the lottery run.
Against an enemy I now must hate.
Land where fat people go
Singing along on Main Street
singing to the afternoon traffic
veined with those who
like my song.
A butterfly spotted
Brown danced upon my foot.
It spit on my lace and sang my song.
A hawk muscled through the trees
And he flipped me the bird
As he sang my song.
Sing faster sang some more song.
A grasshopper jumped into my path
With a beat and a tune as his
Little face puckered he ended my song.
In love
He’s in love.
They live in a big house
with a yard, a fence.
He bends down, sighs
above arthritic
rake.
He walks into the house
His wife is there all
smiles; she’s in love too.
She cooks a romantic dinner
for two, he tells her how
he bends down, sighs
above arthritic
rake.
She throws him a kiss
from wrinkled chair.
She remembers days
long before
he bends down, sighs
above arthritic
rake.
He sees her and is happy.
Life is real good he thinks.
I love you he says.
He kisses her forehead
and walks into the yard
where his rake pops
in leafy wind, the big yard
with a fence and solid tree
where leaves
fall there
every year.
Afternoons whisper
beneath the ring of sad bells.
The flaking tree
cold upon night reaching
out pale leaf under foot
As he bends down, sighs
above arthritic
rake.
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