Where Technocracy Ends
The other day, since I couldn’t recall,
I googled “What was I just thinking about?”
and the computer would not give me
the correct information to my inquiry.
I asked it this question a million times over
and every time it gave me the wrong answer.
It felt good knowing there were still
some...
They Won’t Forget to Pray
(verses in response to “So Long Marianne”)
In the night,
you asked for silence
to speak to angels
for Marianne, for Marianne.
You opened your lips
and dry as they were still breathed
the confession of stillness.
Darkness approached as you addressed
love in its trembling thoughts.
I can’t hear your voice.
It is quiet and...
Civil Guardsmen
From a field of grasses dried
by wind, two civil guardsmen stare
toward the sun for traffic
on the lonely road
they have been stationed to protect.
They are tall
against the burnt horizon,
still as the ground itself,
and one is the reflection of the other
as, side by side, they stand
in place. Should one
turn around,...
SHATTER
Glass wall inside of me
Looking to where I want to be
How this widowed heart hides
In plain sight, wishing to be seen
False light is blinding me
Until I can no longer breathe
Quiet madness beguiles
This raging fire, consuming
Masked her wall of pretend
Fettered anguish lingers within
Imprisoned by the tides
In murky depths a life...
RENDEZVOUS
poems no longer emerge
out of some verdant soil
like lilies reflexively
spreading their pink cheer
they don’t happen as they did
twisting out of a gnawing gut...
glow worms on the screen
shedding light in dark corners
words tapping themselves out
of their own accord
have lost their easy fluidity
stanched like blood from a wound
they want me to...
BLACK IN GRAY AMERICA
(in memory of Sam Cornish)
You recalled a city of stinks:
the shabby breath of yellow teeth,
filthy socks on crusty feet,
blood-spill dried on the sidewalk.
The dirt-floor basement room
your mother tried to sweep clean
rustled all night as rodents
named and renamed you in dreams.
The sorry carcass of Baltimore
coughed up feverish...
suicide
paula’s weak moment
leaving me early
sad lonely feeling
nightly she returns
softly whispering
her lost love
still in my heart
bliss
alone in library
empty used bookstore
roaming shelves
sacred experience
like attending church
feeling hopeful promise
quietly turning pages
becoming dreamer again
freedom
waking to birdsong
before first light
building small fire
boiling water from stream
instant coffee
oats in tin cup
ready for journey
picking way over deadfall
brushing aside cobwebs
escaping...
Balasan
I’ve met the river before, but this is a new setting—
like meeting a parent in their office.
Bala—sand, san—stone:
a river baptised for spitting its monsoonal gifts,
like calling a girl Khushi, to bait happiness.
The mountains that fight the grease of dust
when we look at it from Matigara,
they are here now, my...
Sandalwood
Some foundation, concealer
a little rouge
a subtle lipstick
her reflection disappoints
lines, hard earned, unwanted
her reflection smiles
it helps
She dusts and tidies
arranges
rearranges
old photographs
of ghosts
She lights a candle
sandalwood
she vacuums
and sweeps
she polishes
and primps
her home
herself
just in case
Two Scientists
I should be in work
instead, I sit in a Dublin café
tightly clutching a cup of tea
as if it might...
TRIATHLON
Jane was in Vancouver one day and she stood
at the window and saw a woman crawling out
of the sea. The woman started running really
fast on the beach until she reached a bicycle
and then she hopped on it and kept going.
“Wow!” Jane said, “I just saw the evolution
of mankind in...
CREATIVITY
Excogitate a rainbow,
The piebald mind breaks into,
A woolgathering without rains,
On furlough during emphasis,
Precipitation and tedium.
A breakthrough in a belfry,
Is not a quantum of peerless words.
A sockdolager of a man's oeuvre,
Is also a renaissance of mirages.
Scant advertency makes him think.
DEATH
Cessation is a penumbra of the foofaraw.
The patina of sandalwood is...
POTPOURRI
1.
The other day
When we became very political,
We flagged our posts;
After the sabbath,
We put hashtags
On our souls.
2.
We survived like tramlines in the city,
Some parts remained,
Some tracks gone,
Some lines forgotten,
Some kept like tradition.
3.
That plectrum which you held
Between your fingers
And with which you awakened
Fire and ice,
Found that under the mattress,
And you told...