One polishes a car.
One cracks an egg.
One sprays ammonia
on a cabinet of glass.
One sweeps.
One wipes.
One mourns.
One polishes a car.
One cracks an egg.
One sprays ammonia
on a cabinet of glass.
One sweeps.
One wipes.
One mourns.
The man with a saw
will cut
what?
Transcript of the shadow
Their eyes apologized as they spoke,
two earnest men, smiling,
backing away as I opened the door.
We’re having an event, we wanted
to invite you.
When they were gone I read of loyalty,
God’s to us and ours to Him.
I saw the next door
and the next eyes.
Later you figure things out,
you can’t blame her for fearing to lose
what you’re hoping to gain.
At the time, however, on your monk’s bed,
you believe having promise is enough.
Where you come from, that’s more than almost anyone’s got.
But there you go.
That’s how poor people think.
By reading this poem.
Or actually, no, sorry,
by reading this you’ve in fact injested
poetic cookies, which are non-material,
semi-nutritive enzymes that excrete a
phosphorous-like substance in the brain.
While benign, these cookies do produce
occasional light shows in the cranial cavity.
If you are against cookies –
if you are really sure you really
do not like cookies and will not
accept out cooky policy
(but who doesn’t like cookies?),
then you can remove them by simply
returning in time to before
you hit the jackpot.
It seemed like a fine plan,
writing Himself into His own work,
to taste and be tasted –
descending in scarlet,
sinking to flesh –
but who knew the life of man
was a brutal current turning,
slow and wide
then swifter and deeper
till the sky
became
a little white circle climbing
Poetry is my protection against terror.
It fortifies no wall but collapses the one
behind which I find myself cowering.
I’m embarrassed to find myself there.
Poetry is every word in the question,
What are you afraid of?
It leads me outside.
My love has held nothing in place –
and has itself, some of it, gone
to where love and time decompose
in a field of stars and glass.
You’re not made of sugar, she says
when it’s raining.
She can see me not melting.