& thanks don’t speak

I rise—mist off the pavement
no, a cigarette reversing from a puddle
back into her lips—carrying on—
why do you cry? I don’t—no,
I haven’t—forgotten conversing—if
you call it that—I was speaking once
skipping honesty—running on—an
incomplete sentence—& thanks—how am I
supposed to write—what was barely dear,
wrenched underground—sense—dull
other’s stench—you brought them here?
better start thinking—of your own
excuses—I’m sick of finding them
for you—“sleep is the best medicine”
but I don’t dream—but I don’t pray
be thankful—I don’t remember dressed up
pretty words—can always finish later
cutting out, careful editing—why stop
a line?—say it spit spill over my face—
physical shape—syllables drowned—in
liquor giving different names—can’t get
the story straight—you told me to get an iron—
what does that mean? I produce, I distribute
—I shit & can hold up better than the rest
—I shave & kiss softer than the sleaze
—I shank in the dark & don’t speak

Television and Art

Maybe I don't write
with the largest
vocabulary
or with a sense
of art
but this poetry I read
the abstract and a-linear
plays out like free jazz:
it might sound great
but what do you think when the record ends?

Does it make you think of politics?
Men in blue suits and red ties shaking hands and starting wars.

Does it make you think of sex?
Two bodies rhythmically connected.

Does it make you think of art?
A bohemian in a black beret and an apartment in lower manhattan.

I get sick of pretense
fast.
Does that make me a savage?

Multicultural Dreams and Snow

My bed’s been a canyon and I a God among its cliffs. Where avalanche and switchbacks stain everything a dull shade of Indian red, I descend to the determined creek below, evidence of a movement that permanently shaped the globe.

- - - -

I saw two young white girls clad in bright blue and green uniforms lollygagging in front of an all black Chicago public school. They were pressing their palms together, mimicking that elementary “London Bridge is falling down” game.

They were twins. Same height, same hair, same eyes, same bright white silk tights and they were right out in front where the black kids usually yell and fight.

I sat and thought, stewed and laughed, and still don’t have a clue as to why they felt the need to writhe and giggle in the middle of that Lincoln Park city block.

- - - -

Before drugs and epidemics, war and tonsillitis, icebergs left scars deeper than the sea is blue.

A Death or Two

At the end of things, I suppose I was just relieved (maybe somewhat ecstatic) that it was finally over. You were the first girl I assigned the word “love” to, and I had watched as everything I “loved” about you disappeared, as if I were sitting on a front porch in the sleepy (read: comatose) southern Minnesota farm town where my father grew up, watching as every light on Main Street burnt out one by one without being replaced, watching as the bowling alley burnt for a second time (insurance fraud was suspected in both cases, but never proven) and Mr. Klingbile escaped with the money. At the end of things, I suppose I was desperate—more so even than old Klingbile—to get out and not look back.

On the Roman Empire

Think about a battlefield
eleven miles wide
think about the blood and horseshit
that soaks into the ground
and how fertile that plain will be the following year

The peasants will plant corn and barley
to share with one another

The following year
during harvest season
another battle will enrich more soil

I hope someone reminded the peasants
to wash their crops well.