Caulk like chalk lines
Drawn on a brick wall
draws blocks together
like ionized particles;
and so the dust whips
up from the pavement,
onto the flat mast
of a tricolored flag
which rests in public space–
but not without movement,
but not without tension–
would fall without knots.

And so our good people,
held by conviction
prescribed by no doctor
swallow a large dose.
Fellow faces they crumple, yet
it’s poor taste to mention that,
and so the tongue is tied;
we speak not.


White cloth like chalk lines,
Red strips like bricks fall
Three-fourths down a half mast;
good people feel sad.
Hands over mouths breathe
through cracks in the radio feed,
like freckles on a sunburn bleed
when cancer starts to spread.
Good people see the bad
and so white faces turn red,
the tragic intrudes on public space
and yields nothing said;


With chalk drawn in broad lines
Knots in arteries tie,
And so I share in death
with all passers-by.

Chalk traces human shapes
—hollow forms on the street—

a dream in waking,
immutable quaking,
beneath a a flag where all colors meet.

It’s possible to speak too much to remember what your words mean.
And so is the two-fold danger faced by writers.
Danger is to pace a hole in the floor.
Danger is to stand until you can’t move anymore
like when shallow waves **** your feet into the sand.

So I try not to stand when I write.

I keep a narrow tack
without too many big words
which pedants use to dig great holes in the ground
–moats to keep others out–
or make you think they think big.

But anyone who reads knows about Icarus
and anyone with aims must beware:
to shoot directly upwards is to strike your own head
when like fate the arrow
returns to source.

You’re only as good as your mind,
your characters only as strong as you are.
—at least, this is true in so far as you know.
True in so far as they speak.
For to test them you must torque them
and twist at their cores,
and make opposing forces meet–
but only
as hard as you can.

This makes writing a hill slick with oil.
Insecure. Potential energy.
Potential failure
seated
in all of that grime
that cakes your toes like grease that coats
the teeth of great industrial gears.

So I try not to stand when I write.

But whether the better take comes when you plunge
and you slide and dissolve like so much ice,
I must say I don’t know,
the thought
seems nice.
But the same
It seems like those who let go
Are the ones
with the least to say.

I can't decide
either which way.

All I know about writing is
most sentences are punctuated wrongly.
The period is certain,
but writing is undecided.
It is the figuring-out, a quest-bound troop
that moves with all its own fanfare.
Question marks curl up—
invisible smoke on a summer coal fire:
heat twisting the air like irons in stoke
giving sign of the transformations there withheld.
For fire mediates matter,
so writing stands ever-between.

But I’ve spoken too much and I don’t know what these words mean.
And so I fold like there’s danger in writing,
while danger is imagined like borders on a continent.
Danger is thinking
I'm dangerous enough to keep silent.
Like shallow waves,
given way to sand.
So avoid letting voids form
where the mind dismisses confrontation to more capable smiths.
Writing is –at best– an attempt.
Even with shallow structures
in rhythmic din,
the silent breaks by force of pen,
and all because of the simple fact
that quiet refuses to bend.

All I can hope is my writing upholds these unknowns
while I try not to stand.

But you ask about writing?

Vacationers huddle on tour
-history of a statue-
I'm not so different from they--
Watcher in a foreign land.
Shift my shape to grow to my seat.
A student laughs, kisses her boy
-were I not so different from they--
It could be sunny,
if not for the clouds. Though,
I suppose it could be raining.
Leaves lilting, to and fro,
Organic matter, decomposing.

A lion's tamer am I, am I,
Of lions who lay with no teeth,
Who sit with their nails clipped,
Yawn while their tails flit,
Gums drip-dripping at me.

The circus is awful mean.
Just laughs where I swear should be screams.
Still no applause for a whipless, witless tamer
of not-so-fearsome beasts.

Watching the lights blare,
Whisked fitly in the sound of sirens,
     Vacuum between two worlds
     Breathless little thoroughfare
Basking in this unsilence.

Day closes to an open window–
A sill, a still rest for my spent legs;
Torqued over to face the breeze, welcome chills
Swing the brush with each croak of my knees.

Laughs crane over amber roof clay–
And somewhere behind a white fence
It’s someone’s birthday, a dog brays, coos rouse a baby
Who cries off-key with the family’s song

A dark cluster shifts in the sky,
And the moon emerges from nil.
I’d forgotten my eyes but to see like this…
So long since the night kept me filled…

Spark lights strung in beads on a rope
-Chatoyant, chatoyant comme diamants–
“Brille et brille petit étoile” string the notes
of a mother’s rock-a-bye song

My squeak of a refrain pitters into the air
-Cassant, cassant comme verre-
No love from eclipses we sing to,
No peace from mullings in prayer

Then a fairy book glow sweeps this vision–
Its air thick and sweet to the tongue–
My glance caught by shimmering scales on the back
Of this Ville like a dragon in slumber
—oh, to dance on that spine
—to leap from his eaves into air!
—to fly with these legs where I don’t have to sleep
—and days don’t sit brittle and spare

But fingers to the pulse in my cheek—
To a cauldron of wicked alchemy—
Trace an infection spreading like dragons’ wings
Where beasts may be best left sleeping.

Painfully pretty, the light grows ever fainter,
I should drink it in while I can still see—
There’s a reason art’s left to the painter,
And my brush colors sorrow on everything.


But I’m not sorry now, nor sad, though my eyes water
And wobble the world ’til I blink;
With my back towards the concrete, grounded, this altar
Casts a reverence over everything.