Tag Archives: politics

Never Drink Anything Blue

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blue drink

Never Drink Anything Blue

But always keep your options unzipped and
available to whatever slips in; the snake

lives in the attic for the rodents,
but occasionally takes a fledgling peewee

from a nest near its exit, while the scorpion
generally avoids light except for those nights

when moths seem too delectable to pass up.
Our governor whistles Beethoven but switches to

the hymnal when campaigning, and I’ve announced
a need for organic zucchini when craving a craft

beer. Confession is good for the soul, except
when it’s bad for the body. “Think with words,

not with ideas,” Sontag wrote, and Williams said
“no idea but in things.” Of course he was just writing

a poem. Baking is chemistry – measure carefully –
but cook with abandon! Whoever said “keep your

friends close but your enemies closer,” slept
alone most nights, or not at all. Born in Louisiana,

I am the product of an illegal union, but which
half should be interred where? Both sun and

moon rise and set. Is anything incorruptible?
Drink everything blue. Everything.

hymnal

“Never Drink Anything Blue” was drafted during the August 2015 Tupelo Press 30/30 Project, and appeared here in March 2016. Many thanks to Stop Dragging the Panda, who sponsored and provided the title.

Poem Ending with a Whimper

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Poem Ending with a Whimper

The best liar wins.

You can’t stop talking
and the truth embedded in strands
frays with each word slipping
from your cruel mouth.

If I tilt my head just so, I see God.

Or what passes for God at the periphery:
a fly stain on the window, the redness
at the eye’s corner, the shrike’s beak.

Silence fills me daily

and trickles out in utterances and sighs
meant only for you.

Who lies best?

I look to the ground for answers.

What replies is a tail between its legs,
a headless shrug,            a whimper.

 

 

“Poem Ending with a Whimper” was published in Volume 3 of Lamplit Underground. Thank you, Janna Grace, for taking these pieces.

Lamplit Underground is a beautifully illustrated publication. Please take a look!

 

Shoe

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blueshoe

 

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.

 

cactus shoe

 

I Feel the Wind

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I Feel the Wind

When evening’s gloom thickens I
rest before your heat. What have
we learned, I ask. Have you heard
via gases weaving their hisses in
your shuddering logs stories of the
people whose bruised voices
no longer register? The burl of
discontent ashes over in the
same way: I feel the wind
but cannot see it. I see the
circumstance but those voices
have felt the brass fists of
memory’s sins. I am my
brother’s keeper, bereft and dim,
starved, lonely. Broken, killed
yet breathing, I await the children.

* * *

“I Feel the Wind” first appeared at The Literary Nest. It is a golden shovel poem, a form created by Terrance Hayes, which uses a line (or more) from an existing poem. Each word in the line is used as the end word in a new poem. Thus if you use a ten-word line, the poem will consist of ten lines. You might read this article to learn more about the form.

The source for this piece was “The Mother” by Gwendolyn Brooks. The great Ruby Dee recites it on YouTube. Her vocal performance is stunning!

Love in the Time of Untruth

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Love in the Time of Untruth

They look through us,
fingers scrabbling
through the soil
of a neighbor’s lush garden,

saying “we do this for you.”

Uprooting plants, desecrating
history, palms out, demanding more

they exchange trowel
for shovel,
hoe for explosives,

concentrating on their return
on investment.

Bewildered, we hold hands and watch.

 

 

“Love in the Time of Untruth” made its first appearance at Clementine Unbound. Many thanks and much admiration for editor G.F. Boyer for taking this piece and for being so kind during a difficult time.

 

 

Vesuvius

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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.

 

Who Will Know

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Who Will Know

If I drip like snow from the roof who will know?
When I throw stones at dead men who will know?

The mother’s ghost rests in a razor-filled moat.
He purses his lips, laughs, says who will know?

You are the night sky above the red-cloud horizon.
When I fade like twilight, tell me who will know.

Which vein traces love, which proffers denial
as our blood starts flowing, and who will know?

Unanswered prayers line his frozen pockets.
When he unclenches his tiny hands, who will know?

This man’s tongue repels truth no matter the hour.
If we hear only what he allows, then who will know?

 

* * *

“Who Will Know” made its first appearance in May 2019 at The Local Train Magazine, a publication out of Bangladesh.

 

The Draft (with recording)

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The Draft

All memories ignite, he says, recalling
the odor of accelerants and charred

friends. Yesterday I walked to the sea
and looking into its deep crush

sensed something unseen washing
out, between tides and a shell-cut foot,

sand and the gull’s drift, or the early names
I assign to faces. This is not sadness.

Somewhere the called numbers meet.

 

* * *

“The Draft” first appeared in Taos Journal of International Poetry & Art.

Confession to Montgomery, Asleep on the Church Steps

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bagels and cream cheese MGD©

 

Confession to Montgomery, Asleep on the Church Steps

If I walk quietly by
it is not to avoid disturbing you,

but rather myself. What
could I give you

but another bagel, the
boiled dough of nothingness

rising in cloudy water,
delaying, perhaps, another

guilty twinge. You have no
answers but when you

speak to the air, sometimes
a smile creaks through

the broken words, and I
think even in this cloistered

darkness we may close
the circle between halves

and might-have-beens,
an understanding, if only

in the language of bread
and coffee and the

disregarded. But today I stride
on, without pause, counting

on nothing that can’t be
pocketed or spoken aloud,

my steps echoing down
the alley and its secrets,

along the crosswalk’s painted
guides, under the sagging

power lines and through
your streetlight’s dim halo.

 

Homeless

 

This first appeared on the blog in January 2016, and was published in Compassion Anthology in March 2019. I have not seen the man who inspired this poem in over three years. I hope he has found shelter and kindness.

 

Theology of Carrots

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Theology of Carrots

We hide our best
underground

plumed by ornamental
headpieces

allowing the wisdom
of taproots

to prosper
in darkness.

 

“Theology of Carrots” first appeared here in September 2017.