A BANKRUPT COUNTRY AND A CORPORATE WAR

 

delusions of reference

 

with soft rain in the afternoon and

an abundance of green

 

with the dogs all hungry but

none of them starving yet and the

simple fact that this is one way to live

 

this is only the blind man’s dream

of the western ocean

 

st maria in those last pale grey

centuries before her ascension

 

told her i loved her but

it was more like need

 

was cerulean blue and

darker than addiction

 

the highway into the desert

uncorrupted by religion

 

littered with bones and the fragile

skulls of missing children and

i am not a believer in the

age of reason

 

i am a different whore

than the one you remember

 

found new and better

ways to hate myself

 

stood naked beneath the smothering

heat of august afternoons in a

neighborhood of absence

of locked doors and flatness in all directions

no trees

no birdsong

just anemic shadows nailed to dead lawns

and i knock on every door

but no one answers

 

i close my eyes but get

no sense of waiting

 

no sense of hope or potential

 

a week’s worth of rain on the way and

then the loss of everything we’ve

spent the last twenty years amassing

 

the simple joy of despair

 

a small gift to give to my

sons for when ordinary miracles

are no longer enough

final psalm in the book of rusted chrome

 

         

in the crush of

early morning fog

in this country of

missing fathers i am

waiting for myself

 

the dead have

all been born as

birdsong here and the

god of starving dogs

paces my street with a

young girl's blood

staining his

smile

 

i let the curtain

fall back quietly

 

let the light

of the poem flicker

and gutter out

but always a half-beat

too late

 

the house is on fire

without warning

 

the baby is awake and

screaming

and all the doors are

locked from the

other side

 

this is the story i

remember

you telling

 

the final psalm in the

book of rusted chrome

and i never asked

to sing it

 

never asked to

have it sung

to me

 

there is still

so much silence i

am hoping to hear

IN THE KINGDOM OF TRUE UNBELIEVERS

 

THE ENDLESS POSSIBILITIES OF HUMAN MISERY

 

I THOUGHT YOU PROMISED THAT WE WOULDN'T BE LONG

 

cosmos

 

Stars, no stars, no

story without the need for

atonement, no alleyways without the

drunken fathers of sleeping

children.

 

No grace.

 

No forgiveness.

 

The song of empty fields, and of

jawbones.  Animals brought to ground,

covered in blood, blanketed in snow.

Mythology.

 

The continents raised up from the

ocean floor, the oceans on fire.  Filled

with garbage, with poison , with the

bodies of the last dozen holy wars.

 

You win or you lose.

 

Your God ascends or is devoured.

 

All stories end with the

smell of burning flesh.