Published in "La Piccioletta Barca" - Issue 18 - April 2020: https://picciolettabarca.com/issue-18/
The Sick Child
The Silent Good
And this too is news -gusts blown over the lip of a bottle,and the wail of foghorns, hollows of owlsand mourning doves, the howl of dogsharmonic with sirens, the slow pull of saws. This is what forms in the throat,musters the larynx to cry and peal,the ochre traced hand on a walldeep below heathen, below... Continue Reading →
The Womb
Take it all down:the calendar, the clock,the curio shelf - picture of your ma. Take down those greasy sconcesand those framed flightsof your pigeoned eye. Take down the best of your daysand your rage…your rage.Take down the sheetrock. Punch out all those cagey studswith a sledge - strip out the wireand sell it for scrap.... Continue Reading →
Underneath the Radiator
Lumbricus Rubellus,or perhaps a finishing nail, 6d -I can’t tell from here,with these glasses -old ‘scripts - old eyes -shallowing focus. But, it is there,below the radiator,and the radiator is pink.It is there in dust - on pinefloorboards - unmoving -shriveled in droughtin the first case - bent,rusted and uselessin the latter. Either way -... Continue Reading →
On Cloud and Hope
Bringers of rain and scour -Bringers of harvest and deluge,drift gently over this land,We beg you!We know not the grain of our toil,though we furrow the soilwith thick dumb handsonly to scream at our nailsprised from our fingertips. Is it not enough to put seed before youand hope? Is it not enough to visionfat larders... Continue Reading →
January 31, 2020
Mark this day, young friends,for there upon the hill,stripped and barren,stars no longer claim the sky,but are trodden in mudand rasping coin. Mark this day,for when you wake,unbridled on the crest,a scurrilous beastshreds all hope and takesa dream to its teeth And vomits a nightmare. Young friends, prepare.For what is now unleashedfrom its pitted, rusted... Continue Reading →
The Diminishing Dot
A Boeing occults Betelgeuse,red left and running,and an arrow loosedfinds not its mark.And in the green flickers,banked to a bull,some pink ears popand the belts stay locked. They’re always leaving,they in the vapors,they in the tubes,they strung betweenfutures and blues,plugged up in departuresand thus suspended,held there in grace -such grace - As Mercury crests the... Continue Reading →
Three Rib Bones with Trains and Rain
Three rib bones flush from the culvert pipeafter hunks of pelvis beside the tracks -the tracks with no arms but rumblerumble strips and red bell ticks. Clang go the boneswhere no grass grows Bang go the trainsand the pink prairie rose Rattles with the rushin the same stiff pose as ribs and hunks of pelvis... Continue Reading →
Water for Tea
They are not yours, those eyes -those hazel eyes crustedwith sleep-thrashed release -and neither the mind behindthinking of toast on a new day,soft-buttered and still yet crisp. And those are not yours, those fingers,curled smooth-knuckled on the cutlery,waiting for toast and soft butter -and neither the wait for the kettle’spitched steam or the dry tea... Continue Reading →
