Life At First Sight Is A Broken Heart
It is
It's broken
The first time I looked across a room
And saw you, the way you moved
And your eyes, and your smile
The things poets have to write about
I saw my future
Falling apart
An edge
Falling apart
An edge
A broken heart
When you touched my elbow
I was shocked to life
And I found I dove
In feather pieces
In feather pieces
Into the future until it became passed
A broken heart at first sight
Everything bypassed
Like a nine month wormhole
You devastate me
A memory like a book of poetry unread
How did I learn your smile?
How did I learn to quit?
When food that begins
How did that become me?
When food that begins
How did that become me?
How do you sit alone
In a crowded room
Unlit in despair?
Those lonely souls who have lingering
Lumbering days, space
Those lonely souls who have lingering
Lumbering days, space
What is love?
I always fall in love, with every beautiful
Thing and then another too, it's a flaw
I know to look for, that if there's love
There must be one more, converging
And coming through the stinging door.
Whenever there is stillness
Thoughts run back to you,
If I say I know how to move on
It was out of fear. I don't even
Know what it means. I've learned.
Love is sometimes a stone mountain,
It may be a thousand different things
At a thousand different times,
But someday you may notice, every
Little once in awhile you may notice,
Beneath that season's grass or the collapsing
Tourist, it's a stone mountain.
To The Moon
I love you. To the Moon in the window,
Reflective of the grey horizon, in
The 27th house, in the corner. In
The violet sky, to the moon shine hidden,
Visible in backlit night, I love you.
I love you too, I'll never learn to fly.
Artificial Light
Under the sweet desert
the anniversary impulse
is bred into
the soldiers heart...
in time nine beats
for eleven measures
and self dissappears
into the Arabian rhythm.
In rhythms and beats the orange
sun rises and violent
its violet edges
say good night
and good morning
to insurgents and surges
of soldiers playing and plying
the dead for mediated
affirmations of each other's
causation.
Under yellow sodium
artificial light
death came.
To each with ecstasy, sadness,
passion and numbness;
To each with pain,
forgiveness,
and hatred.
Two televisions sit facing
each other, transmitting
in different languages, filling
the air with sounds
mixing together,
playing to an ever
deafening crowd.
the anniversary impulse
is bred into
the soldiers heart...
in time nine beats
for eleven measures
and self dissappears
into the Arabian rhythm.
In rhythms and beats the orange
sun rises and violent
its violet edges
say good night
and good morning
to insurgents and surges
of soldiers playing and plying
the dead for mediated
affirmations of each other's
causation.
Under yellow sodium
artificial light
death came.
To each with ecstasy, sadness,
passion and numbness;
To each with pain,
forgiveness,
and hatred.
Two televisions sit facing
each other, transmitting
in different languages, filling
the air with sounds
mixing together,
playing to an ever
deafening crowd.
Sidewalk Infirmary Forgetting Its Own War
What slugs fall apart
On our sidewalks?
Their eyeless
Destruction and left
Path of glue
On the cement progress,
The veins of Our Earth.
I think its clay red skin,
And gasoline eyes
In a limbless five-year old.
What Heaven will account
Such slaughter as righteous?
What would we do
To someone who did
That to a child
Who lived on the next block?
And nevertheless its satisfactory in War.
Human art is sculpted
On the dusty surface
Of history's table.
Occasional chips
In the lacquer reflection
Reveal the dead tree
At the center of
The construction.
Plastic raincoat
To keep out the termites.
More eyeless feeders.
We think they are so blind,
With carbombs and cellphones
And messages from God.
What is it the blind
See? A child of American
Ingenuity, the crust of
Western civilization
Burned on a dead surface?
Maybe an overflowing
Bodybag buried inside
The gates of Abu Graib?
Maybe War Criminals
Asking for a piece
Or maybe just peace
When the money runs dry?
Maybe politicians
Planting coalitions
On carcasses, a sure
Measure of success?
the oregon trail has failed
you in your
faith healing death,
God’s odd way to welcome
you to Antelope country.
The Way of the Rain
What language was that
Drifting across
The grey fabric
Of your leg?
The uncovered spaces
Near my eye
Still ache
From the dull wind,
Someone left a pin
In there after my birth.
The entire sky
Is a cloud,
The earth a skin,
a coagulant
Corpse. It's twelve
Pieces of skin.
What we think of as dirt
Is covering
worm meat in
radiated chicken,
pink and isolated,
Its surface burned
From a boiling torture.
Some veins sicken the air.
We make feathers
Into hemlock tea,
And all the questions are
dusted for wax works.
If I were to weigh the rain,
and lay down in your sleep,
all the decay would be lifted
From this infirmary.
On our sidewalks?
Their eyeless
Destruction and left
Path of glue
On the cement progress,
The veins of Our Earth.
I think its clay red skin,
And gasoline eyes
In a limbless five-year old.
What Heaven will account
Such slaughter as righteous?
What would we do
To someone who did
That to a child
Who lived on the next block?
And nevertheless its satisfactory in War.
Human art is sculpted
On the dusty surface
Of history's table.
Occasional chips
In the lacquer reflection
Reveal the dead tree
At the center of
The construction.
Plastic raincoat
To keep out the termites.
More eyeless feeders.
We think they are so blind,
With carbombs and cellphones
And messages from God.
What is it the blind
See? A child of American
Ingenuity, the crust of
Western civilization
Burned on a dead surface?
Maybe an overflowing
Bodybag buried inside
The gates of Abu Graib?
Maybe War Criminals
Asking for a piece
Or maybe just peace
When the money runs dry?
Maybe politicians
Planting coalitions
On carcasses, a sure
Measure of success?
the oregon trail has failed
you in your
faith healing death,
God’s odd way to welcome
you to Antelope country.
The Way of the Rain
What language was that
Drifting across
The grey fabric
Of your leg?
The uncovered spaces
Near my eye
Still ache
From the dull wind,
Someone left a pin
In there after my birth.
The entire sky
Is a cloud,
The earth a skin,
a coagulant
Corpse. It's twelve
Pieces of skin.
What we think of as dirt
Is covering
worm meat in
radiated chicken,
pink and isolated,
Its surface burned
From a boiling torture.
Some veins sicken the air.
We make feathers
Into hemlock tea,
And all the questions are
dusted for wax works.
If I were to weigh the rain,
and lay down in your sleep,
all the decay would be lifted
From this infirmary.
Our Close Distance
When will I come home
And see that lamp in
Your flickering room?
What will you do, home
From the war? Sunlight
And summer ore, or
Bus stop and creeping
Mourning through the night before?
What will you do,
Bandaged in your skin?
I will drink lampwax
And leave terracotta dust,
My faith and wonder withering in
Shadows on couches and grass arenas.
Until a semblance of my substance
Emerges, resembling enough,
Just enough encaustic dust,
So you may trust your memory,
Unlock the door, and let me in
from this close distance.
And see that lamp in
Your flickering room?
What will you do, home
From the war? Sunlight
And summer ore, or
Bus stop and creeping
Mourning through the night before?
What will you do,
Bandaged in your skin?
I will drink lampwax
And leave terracotta dust,
My faith and wonder withering in
Shadows on couches and grass arenas.
Until a semblance of my substance
Emerges, resembling enough,
Just enough encaustic dust,
So you may trust your memory,
Unlock the door, and let me in
from this close distance.
Mothers Go To War
Mothers go to war
their hearts extended
in the sky
as their only Icarus
goes too far
in the song of some
black eyed sunflower lie
wax wings melting in the dust
and mothers go to war
in their windows
and streets
hearts beating loud
the drums of broken wings
their hearts extended
in the sky
as their only Icarus
goes too far
in the song of some
black eyed sunflower lie
wax wings melting in the dust
and mothers go to war
in their windows
and streets
hearts beating loud
the drums of broken wings
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