All that is misery now
Was joy yesterday
All this suffering is new
It balls up like yarn
The harp melody has ceased
In trade for all sin
That will turn precious coral
Into Satan’s silt
All that is misery now
Was joy yesterday
All this suffering is new
It balls up like yarn
The harp melody has ceased
In trade for all sin
That will turn precious coral
Into Satan’s silt
Tall, slimy, with the bodies of eels
and beady eyes
sunken into their faces
and lips so pursed
only steel claws could pull them apart
They creep into books,
poems, magazines
and sprawl across billboards
and television screens
Whenever I see them,
I wilt a little
and I get even tinier
because I know
I’ll never see myself
in their place
My cat is like snow
soft
and cold
landing with grace from above
and onto the ground
below
As her baby bird splatters,
naked body contorted
into a crumpled discard
on the sidewalk,
The mother continues building her nest,
weaving twigs and nurturing
her valid children
underneath her directed warmth
You desired the soul of a dragon
stashing gold underneath your talons
feeling the cool metal of riches
and scourching your tongue to feed your defenses
Now you must viscerally
gather the pocket change you have
to keep your blood flowing
and leave the cloak of desires
at someone else’s doorstep
Pull me under the silted snow
Tuck me in under frost
Perch upon the branch, you red crow
Ice throttles me, I’m lost
your words are
a pinned moth
in my head
on display for
me to look
back on them
language that was
once alive and
pumping but now
is sitting in
the boundaries of
a wooden frame
egret
steeping its legs
in
the runny fog
unable
to lift the
concrete
from its feathered
self
Round Coyote paws
in the snow, meandering
away from Rabbit
What if they were there
in chorus, stepping toget-
her, chasing, falling
But that is an If.
here, Rabbit will never meet
hungry Coyote
take a straw in your hand
and shove it in my eye
twist it around, around
perhaps counterclockwise
or without direction
carving a hole into
my eye, my sloppy eye
no jackknife, just a straw
how creative you are
your plastic urethra
digging itself into
my iris, my center