?Jihadi??

Orange sand

Raw sewage

Diesel fumes and burning flesh

Screams and the black blood boiling

This is Sadr City

It might still be mourning

Time for prayer

Imams calling

Even now
We hope for the night

In darkness, we lose our reasons not to hide

Between the sirens and the screaming

We still dream
Our dreams

Involve silence
Not the detonations

Ripping closer and closer

We dream of thick re-enforced cement

Faltering drones

IEDs that fail

Strong hands on friendly weapons

And somewhere a door that opens on home

Warm food, open arms and home.

I smile, run, jump, happy, shudder, cry FLY FLY
Don't want to learn to do anything else
Have no reason to do anything else
If no one else does, that's there problem
But never again am I going back over those mountains
The mountains that keep those insane, flames from reaching these shores and trees and birds
Beautiful birds
Physically and vocally overflowing onto everything around them
And why would I want to be away from that
A place where that golden mother up in the sky is never hidden
I will never ignore you or hide from you behind my ceilings and grey
I will never try to ***** you out with smoke
You are all I need
Protecting me from trying to understand/undermine your glory
These shores are ours
And every morning when you wake up and illuminate as far as my eyes can I see
I will show you gratitude by diving deep into the blue

i.
we bundled in the car
wet wool and *** roast
the car that my father
brought home as a surprise
a big 1970 Buick Electra 225, four door sedan
     in pale yellow

ii.
winter, the sky an eternal black
the stars all about us
the woods, my parents silent
as if they, too, know
not to break the spell,

iii.
only the whine of the tires
all the way home from
my grandparents, down the
long rolling road, cozy
my sisters and i on the
back seat bench, the heater
blasting the car to an
     overwamth

iv.
feeling safe and loved and
knowing we could ride
     like this
forever, chasing the full
moon all the way to its
     home
but we all knew that spring
    was coming

a sliver of
         moonlight
causes the buddah
to cast his long shadow
     across the garden


amid blown down
          limbs
of ancient maples
bare against the
     winter chill


the obituary
appeared in the Saturday
and Sunday papers
          with a picture
and a name
     i knew

Slow as tomorrow uncreated
I've wandered down the empty roads of time
Waiting to taste your laughter
Waiting to hold your smile

It seems an enormous hour
Since I've felt soft patterns like your mind
Knowing those faint perfumes
The scents of your words touching mine

Alone with you is like the sunrise
Glowing through the new warming earth
The sadnesses of unknown sorrows
The pains of time I've long forgot

Music of our desire freezes
A quick lilting tune without end
Though I know I'll never hold you forever
Feeling that I'll never taste you again.