Poem for Waiting

The days stay, the hours cower,
The cares scare, the fright upon sight,
The mind unwinds, rhymes in time
with the sigh as it dies.

Jornada del Muerto (VERY rough draft)

Clouds in the dusty stratosphere form the circumference,

above us a sky the color of Cobalt-60

and a star beginning the asymptotic phase.

We float in a cracked bowl of uranium glass,

the rim carved in the shape of San Andreas at his crucifixion,

desert wind blowing his untidy beard,

jagged, wrinkled face burnt and hardened by collisions of nuclei.

I tumble the shards in my hand, wiping away the sand

from this shattered visage, attempting to burn the letter X into my palm.

An igneous obelisk rises in remembrance of lives not lost,

a published excuse, the Jinn of the Arabs released from his hydrocarbon vessel,

auguring lethargy to be measured on the Richter Scale.

Gypsum seems to develop a language of its own under these conditions,

a quantum suicide note scrawled in Enochian script across unknown tracks,

which extend for miles to no end.

Now we are all sons of bitches.

Alamogordo, New Mexico, 2011  

Untitled 3

The only transmission was encrypted.

The key had long ago been forgotten,

and none of this mattered,

since no one could tune to its frequency.

Wading through dead air, shaping, modulating,

Passing tunes with two chords from the throats

and lutes of motley troubadours,

who sing the same songs which once felled

that mistress of the Spartans.

This poem will not be read.

It will be forgotten like the words

to the tales on the walls in Montignac;

it is fancy, an impressive attempt,

but shy, disputed, belligerent, disturbing.

These sketches are in crayon,

a cute demonstration of fine motor skills,

proof of progress toward the Hellenistic ideal.

These songs are bar-room lullabies,

just slightly out of place coming from sober lips.

These questions are a lingering excuse for ignorance.

These answers are reason to fall apart.

Dichotomy

The sunset, rather than majestic, feels colder.

Rather than orange and purple, it shines dark brown,

a color matching the tarnished brick walk-ups.

A given row of four buildings is likely to feature

an Italian restaurant and a liquor store.

There are bars on all the windows

but still half of them are shattered.

Streetlamps are yellowed or broken.

Illumination comes from billboards

advertising the newest razor and latest fad.

Three university students stand under an awning

smoking unfiltered cigarettes. They speak about nothing.

The pharmacy on the corner boasts a soda fountain.

It has not functioned for twenty years.

There is a clamor in the alley.

An old man has been mugged and shot in the head.

The shooter walks across the street,

staring down cars which motor onward.