Tag Archives: justice

The Question is Never

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The Question is Never

Who will lock the door
or leap in front of the jacketed

bullet. Nor is it four words
born in lust and camouflaged

with piety. No one cares
if you blink or continue

breathing. No one knows
what you think. Nothing

matters. Not the pen
in her hand or your finger

on the trigger. Not the crying
and the dead and the stains

in the hallway, the man
in the street hiding behind

himself. The question
is no question, but an answer

struggling to emerge. Never
formed, never truly complete.

 

“The Question is Never” first appeared on Vox Populi in June 2018.

 

 

 

Ilya Kaminsky’s “Search Patrols”

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Reading “Search Patrols,” I marvel that so much feeling, so many layers, can exist in so few lines. If you have time, listen to the podcast, which includes discussion of the poem as well as Kaminsky’s dramatic reading.

Politics

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15

snake

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?

dc

“Politics” first appeared here in January 2017.

Forecast

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18

freezing


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.

frozen

This first appeared here in January 2017.

Gaza

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13

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Gaza

We presume affliction by census,
whereas light

requires no faith.
Is the roofless house a home? When you call
who answers? The vulture

spreads its wings
but remains on post. Shifting,
I note minute of angle, windage. No

regrets, only tension. Breathe in. Exhale.
Again.

***

“Gaza” first appeared here in July, 2014, and is included in my chapbook, If Your Matter Could Reform.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Nights at the Magdalene Laundry

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4

cemetery

Nights at the Magdalene Laundry

Waiting, as if it could
be foreseen, as if influence and love
and truth could ease into the conversation,

she pours water into the night’s
mouth. A little longer, says the voice,
and the wind bends the grass,

reaching, without apprehension, a conclusion.

Which is not to claim verity, nor the patience of stone
crumbling along the ledge.

She leaves when nothing remains.

washtub

“Nights at the Magdalene Laundry” first appeared here in January 2016, and was subsequently published in The Basil O’Flaherty, in November 2016.