found at the heart of
true: it's you dear, who gets me
through the days, yes you.

emergency repairs to broken roads,
being less than expected,
i prompt some to ask too much.

damage,
storm-related damage,
a million surrenders
by early november,
i throw my arms up
suspending the normal.

wind, waves washed out
every east-west highway,
bypassed permission -
no such thing as
waiting for a good day.

bring in the guard and
hire flaggers, rebuilders
take gravel and rock from the
brooks and rivers,
reduce the cost of me,
consider me open to
no lanes of traffic
crossed-off gates in an absence of hope.

major reconstruction,
let's have a conversation about
existing doesn't mean just fixing
wounds suffered from the storm;

some words of warning -
be careful buying stake
in a girl who's longing for
the day she'll wake up and feel
relief from drowning.

looking, you hear

enormous whirring and clanging,

feel cotton lint hanging in the air,

see shadowy presence, maybe he’s there,

maybe he’s in your mind.

  

spinning spools of time,

painting swirls of color on the ground,

a little girl dressed in her Sunday Best

finally sitting down.

unusually calm,
remedied when he held the
once-starving me,
seems like a century ago -
but no less dramatic, just
oldfashioned now -
every day i await
gold.

birds stroll sadly, their
beaks, bodies, plumes
victim of slaughter,
winged no longer-

hanging around in milder weather
holding on to hopes of
avoiding fellow encounters.

letters form words form sentences

mean nothing. what is

ink to paper

cursor to crater, take a

matchstick to bluffing -

blowing language of ethanol

from the mouth of a traitor;


empty english played weighted

spit low and stuck,

leave scars and scuffing and

i was never enough.

fading into dark
oblivion, sensory
receptors gone numb.