Revised poems

Love You Kids

Copters clip to the clouds as their
lost luggage looks upward,
“I’m still here,” they cry, and down below
shooters of looters lay the law.

Pilots peer at the roof-stranded refugees
but they only see black mold
spreading across the shelter’s summit.


Fever Dream

At night I crawl into a castle,
pull its outer walls up to my chin
and lay my arms across the battlements.

Outside there’s the roar of an army
of mice and elephants
stampeding along the moat.
The orange, circular explosions created by their artillery
swell slowly and innumerably beneath my eyelids.

I look over the rampart’s edge,
peer down the curtain wall
and see my feet sticking out
at the bottom, toes wiggling,
twenty feet below.


Listening to Joanna Newsom

There is a sacred ribbon
with your voice on it,
and when I imagine
pulling this ribbon
back and forth
between my ears,
I am on the floor,
eyes rolled back,
my top teeth sticking out
for a grin.

You may make your ribbon
into a clothesline,
if you like,
and I will be your laundry
hung up by this ribbon
as a gentle breeze
blows me
in the direction
of a nearby cornfield.

Sestina

TO MY POETRY PROFESSOR
(A Care I Post)

All right.
It’s been a long time
since I was supposed to have written this poem,
and I am once again
trying my best to write
this.

I dunno if I can do this!
I keep thinking it’s not right
and then I feel too inhibited to write,
time after time,
and the reason I try again
is because I know I have to finish this poem.

What bothers me most about the poem
is that it gives me this
feeling of repeating one thought again and again,
and to me that’s not right.
I’d exhaust the thought in no time,
And that is not how I want to write.

I wish I was able to write
the most beloved, preeimenent poem,
one that stands up to the might of Time,
but instead I pour out this,
a tired, unfocused, nearly-defeated man—I mean poem!
Oh, I wish never to write poetry again!

Okay, let’s try this again.
As long as the poem is in my own write,
and the pattern is just right
the resulting poem
will be the best I’ve written. This
one will be good. I’ll get it this time.

But Jesus, this is taking too much time.
I think I’m gonna give up again.
Agh, fuck this!
Six stanzas are too much for me to write!
I’m done with writing this poem.
I’ll never get it right.

Well now, it looks like this time I did all right,
and when I read through it again it’s not the worst poem,
but God, this sucked to write.

Ars poetica

Aorta Spice

Suck it in,
now let it swirl around inside for a bit.
Once you feel it has left its stain,
just let it out.

See how the smoke lingers in the air,
how it curls and twists.
Let it writhe around,
fold in and out on itself.
Trace its patterns with your eyes.
Once you have had your way with it,
fan it out the window,
so that it may join the rest
in the great smoke collective.

Place poem

Backseat

My troubles, they
sprout,

like bad acne;

plant,

like the warts on my feet;

rise,
like the standing water as I shower;
linger,
like pot smoke in my living room,

and I long for them to pass over me,
much like the long orange glow
of streelights in my youth, washing over me
as I sit in the quietude of the backseat.

Witness poem

Morel

S’nice out! Come hunting with me!
Stay close,
don’t wander too far,
and oh, you found some!
Yes, yes!
that’s the right kind.

Back at home,
I’ll cut them into pieces.
Crack these eggs;
let me heat up the butter.
Eggs stirred? Toss ‘em in!
Coat ‘em real good, now;
I got the cracker crumbs.
Cook ‘em up real nice, now,
just like that.

This is a memory I like to keep,
even though I wouldn’t eat those mushrooms;
I was simply happy to have found them.

Harjo poem

Joy, or maybe Equus

With all her tired horses in the sun,
how’m I s’posed to get any writin’ done?

Shadow poem

Mammoth Blue

Welcome to soundless, expansive,
turbid void, drifting in solitude,
caught in mammoth blue.

Something massive and
silent creeps over;
that deep, low rumble swallows.
Heart, the glass elevator,
it does its best to remain
always in the opposite corner of the room.

Where is that bird outside the window,
that wind against the ear?
Wake up, already!
Where are the sputters of passing motorcycles,
those rattling bottles on the fridge?