Monday, July 31, 2006

a quiet room at the end of an unnamed war

waiting for rain or
for snow

for the house to fall

minutes then hours then years
spent sitting at this table while the
days refuse to get any warmer

wars ending and wars
beginning

the ocean on fire

the animals deformed or dying
or not the animals

the children

this girl born blind

born without eyes without
arms without skin

twins attached at the skull

separated with great care
and then dead

buried or burned or eaten and
the baby asleep

his room
painted in soft colors

his tiny perfect hands

he will wake up and know
what it is to be loved

a generation

July, hot as blood, streetlights on midnight
leaves & I had just emailed a friend,
had asked her whether Creeley was alive
or dead, was sitting in a chair next to
the bed where my children slept.

Was writing down thoughts and lucky numbers.
A list of songs. Suicide poems for seventeen
poets I’d never met.

It was easy, knowing how little
they had to live for.

PLACES YOU NEED TO BE ON THE INTERNET

MK CHAVEZ POETRY

BURNING WORD

LAURA HIRD


no excuses. go now.

Sunday, July 30, 2006

sorrow #1

your childhood home on fire
and yourself a child
and then later
a man in your daughter's bedroom

takes her and rapes her and kills her
and then the war ceases to matter

the past becomes a a hole and
the future is a shallow pit
and these streets all dream of rain

these wires run from
house to house

the silence of
sleeping electricity

the young boy with this
dog at his throat

ask him where his father is
and all he does is bleed

Friday, July 28, 2006

these forgotten days

the things in your life
you've lost
and the ones you never had

can you be defined
this simply?

can i tell you i need you?

not without fear

not without the trees and the sky
and the idea of buildings on fire

this man who drives to an
anonymous grove of trees in the
pacific northwest

buries his son
then drives back home

buries his son
then drives back home

you can close your eyes and
sing these words
and make them beautiful

you can push your hands
into the bloodsoaked soil

can swim or drown in the
bowels of this mindless machine
but you cannot control it

you cannot take away the
voices of the dead

what they sound like
in the end is
everyone you've ever loved

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3 electronic chapbooks gathered up in
one collection

circular saw

you will be hated by someone
and for any reason or
none at all

there will be a cross
or a bomb
or rows of ovens waiting to have the
human soot scraped from their
hinges

and there will be soldiers
and there will be alcohol and
women to treat like dogs

your wife
who will be made to crawl
or your daughter
who will be fucked by
a dozen faceless strangers

and wherever you are
there will be rain
and then crushing heat
and the corpses will bloat

your ideas of beauty will be
smothered by
thoughts of revenge
and you will hate for any reason
or for no reason at all

you will drive home the nails

without beliefs
we have nothing