Politics
No snakes here,
but a little voice
says the mice
will return,
and which
do you prefer,
the one that
gnaws open
ramen packages
then craps
on your plate
or the one
who takes
its prey
under the house
and swallows
it whole,
leaving
no bones
behind?
“Politics” first appeared here in January 2017.
Poem Swallowing Itself
Reading aloud—
people turn their heads
and step back, never
imagining what lies behind,
expecting neither snakes
nor bear traps nor other ambush.
Beginning where one ends, or
continuing a conversation
over decades, the truth
rises then subsides,
like soaring vultures or
cubes in scotch whiskey.
Measuring volume by
glance, the poem shivers,
opens its mouth wide.
“Poem Swallowing Itself” first appeared here in April 2016.
Sensing My Dismay at the Election Results, My Wife’s Dog Presses Against Me
And when I roll over, my toe finds a hole in the not
inexpensive 400 thread count percale sheet and rips
down its length, and I wonder if I should extend this
metaphor to include walls and the unbearable weight
of societal collapse, or hatred with small hands and
minds or faces like pale disks of whitewashed emptiness
glaring at my friends, or, well, my wife and me, across
the restaurant’s laminate booths or the potholed street
by the bus stop. I recall the woman’s sneer and hushed
commentary that afternoon, and though I wanted to
correct her mistaken assumption (hey, lady, I’m not
Hispanic) and redirect her bigotry to the correct ethnicity,
I chose instead to smile and wave goodbye, to drive to
the polls and cast my ballot, one drop in that dark bucket
of nothingness, floating alone, perhaps to coalesce with
others and attain some sense of parity and belonging,
or to remain outcast, bewildered, wondering how this
could be, what’s happened to us, my home, our country.
* * *
This first appeared on the blog in November 2016.
Self-Portrait as Border
Some rivers shift course, but
I stand firm, a nexus of rejection,
that line denoting separation of north
and good, evil and south, dark and
white. Welcoming no one, I stand
guard, opposing all with my flag
of diminishment. Squint, and you
still can’t see me. Your bare feet
won’t stir my dust. I am nowhere,
but remain here — that feeling of
prideful despair, strong, resolute,
inflexible foe to all who dare cross.
“Self-Portrait as Border” first appeared in October 2018 in Minute Magazine. Many thanks to the editors for taking my poem.
Scarecrow Questions
Though my tongue withers from disuse and
drought, I taste from across the sea astringent
smoke and the progeny of a hundred bullets
buzzing by like misguided insects through
the theater of the dying, and I question how
pride and greed, hubris and fear, unwind their
cords to detonate these differing yet tangled
lines. How to fathom such depth of mistrust?
The Christian paints her door frames azure, a
Muslim carpets his tile floor, the Jew panels his
walls, yet among each, various segments clash,
and all of their houses implode. I feel nothing,
yet shiver throughout the sun-blazed afternoon.
Then I consider the structure of zero, whether its
body contains or extracts, negates or compromises,
hollows out duplicates within duplicates, exorcising
with a blade so sharp as to peel away memory from
those it crosses without the faintest murmur. Gone.
Erased. Banished to never having been. I neither
breathe nor digest, but I absorb and recall. How do
you so willingly forget history? This post determines
my destination, but not my destiny, not tomorrow’s
promise, nor the returning birds and faith, the long
nights, their stars, their deaths, the following days.
“Scarecrow Questions” first appeared here in February 2016.
Forecast
Does the peach
blossom
count its
numbered days
in the lure of false
spring?
Smiling, you admit pleasure
in cruelty,
in assigning lots
to the relief of those
never called,
and those whose answers
remain open,
unfixed.
The freeze is coming,
you say.
Let us pray.
This first appeared here in January 2017.
Poem Swallowing Itself
Reading aloud—
people turn their heads
and step back, never
imagining what lies behind,
expecting neither snakes
nor bear traps nor other ambush.
Beginning where one ends, or
continuing a conversation
over decades, the truth
rises then subsides,
like soaring vultures or
cubes in scotch whiskey.
Measuring volume by
glance, the poem shivers,
opens its mouth wide.
“Poem Swallowing Itself” first appeared here in April 2016.
Shoe
The right has only one option,
as is true of the left,
neither to mingle
nor disappear like washed socks
or loved ones in a casino.
There are those who believe
in fallen towers and pasts
burnished beyond recognition,
and truth, as it was written, for them,
in blood, with money inherited
from thieves. The puddle happens.
The door rotates. A snifter shatters.
The shoe’s approach defines its wearer.
* * *
This first appeared in March 2016, but somehow seems even more appropriate today.
Vesuvius
When the earth shrugs,
some warnings are better
heeded. A little
smoke, some ash.
A knife point held to the chin.
Why listen at all?
The man in the big house hides in its vastness.
Surrounded, he walks alone.
People speak, but he hears only himself.
Meanwhile,
the mountain
belches
and the birds fly north
seeking firm ground
upon which to land.
* * *
“Vesuvius” was first published in The Big Windows Review in December 2017. I’m grateful to editor Thomas Zimmerman for accepting this piece.
Politics
No snakes here,
but a little voice
says the mice
will return,
and which
do you prefer,
the one that
gnaws open
ramen packages
then craps
on your plate
or the one
who takes
its prey
under the house
and swallows
it whole,
leaving
no bones
behind?
“Politics” first appeared here in January 2017.
O at the Edges 