10 November 2024



 

 Armistice Day, 2024

 

"At their inauguration, public leaders
must swear to uphold unwritten law and weep
to atone for their presumption to hold office" 
                                                        -- Heaney

 Mister,

Finally, you have frayed every
length of human oath sworn
out by your own vain terms.

These are indeed late days
that drag your lame rule
into that frugal republic

where, with curdled privilege
and pockets bereft, you must
wander through a purpled world

of ducks that only dip, poppies
tramped beneath your knees and
oranges beyond tongues or fingertips.

So toddle on to pasture, inured
of scent sweet thyme and colocynth,
bitter gourds won't salt your lips.

Thunderstorms won't swaddle you, but
hale unceasing rain of last little beats to
peen upon your own pharaonic heart.

Signed
even this will change

p.s. How dare you betray poetry

08 November 2024

Postcard 215


Speak plain. Speak true.

Pulling into rockyard to
pickup two cubic yards of
decomposed granite, DG.

Unease onto this subtle path
of earthmovers, oracles, and scales
-- a stone culture that confounds.

My request should be clear
of the woman at the window,
My words concrete:

Portland cement, limestone, half ton
aggregate, sixty pound paper sacks,
finger ripped and seeping.

(salt water is its ancient cure,
a riddle carved within
manstone that endures)

And I, at a loss, drive blind,
wrong way headlong into
a fearsome masticator

Please. I need to lay a path.
There cannot be enough lye
to cover all these bodies.