cherished
filled with troves of  treasure--or trash  
blankets covered with ancient dog hair
still stout enough to stave off
winter’s bitter bone,
crushed cans for cash  
the sullied stuffed animal that belonged
to him, your only babe, stolen from you
by a 1999 Ford F-150, black
and driven by the devil himself
or his proxy, though it mattered not,
not when you could not close your eyes
without seeing him, still whole, still…  
not when you heard the door slam  
eons ago, or a Tuesday yet in crisp view  
your husband leaving, the singular smack  
of hardwood against the frame  
his stone solid goodbye to you, and the pious pang he felt
each time he saw your son’s brown eyes
in yours, eyes now on the cart, the road
that has become your aching ascetic ascent   
where the sound of the eternal wheels
lulls you to walking sleep,
where you can travel back
in tortured time
to nothing

did you see him,
the stranger,
coming  
crotch rocketing  
down your tree lined street?  
did you see the child  
his sandy hair splayed
by his own journey  
flying through the dusk  
pedaling his bike pell-mell to eternity,
or the end of the block  
where his father stood akimbo,
talking soccer, while mother
washed the windows of her SUV  
did you recognize the whine
of accelerating RPMs bouncing
off the safe houses,
the cleansed castles
where time’s dust was chased away  
by growing mutual funds  
and manicured hands
before it had time gather
as dust ultimately must  
did you see him  
coming
to spoil your story  
with a mangled pile  
of flesh and Tommy Hilfiger
so far from the desert bombs  
your labors paid to build  
did you hear the sound
of your own breath when  
you ran to see    
or did the screams
of all the mothers
of all the stars  
awaken you from a dream  
did you sleep that night
without the sight of white death  
in the fields of suburbia  
far from where blood
was written to be spilled
by darker skin under blackened skies  
forever invisible to your eyes?

grease black armies
floating on the blue currents  
your swoops and swoons
a patient ballet
the dull dirge
of the road ****
while we listen
expecting to hear
the sound of one hand clapping
and rush to scribe scrolls
of high born truths,
you know no haste
you descend
through the cool currents
kneel over the dead
tell a truer tale
with talons and teeth
until your gnawing silent ceremony
is blasphemed
by
a
careless
careening
car

don’t tell  
anyone
this letter to the world, came  
from me  
I don’t want the other seven billion  
stone walkers to know  
I am mad
about being born  
though it seems as good
a reason as any,
to be mad
    
I don’t want them to hear my screams  
echoing off the walls of their caves    

I don’t want them to see the blood  
dripping from the Calvary Cross  
from the nails they helped forge  

I don’t want them to see the bloated bodies
in the trenches they helped to dig

I don’t want them to smell the scorched flesh
from the flash of Fat Man  
or  witness the mangled limbs of the children
of the drone drops

for who would want word
of these sights and sounds
with their morning coffee  
who would want such
coughing colluding calamitous colors
to collide with their vision  
of hammocks on sleepy summer lawns
or silent sifting snow on Christmas Eve  

don’t tell any one of them  
this is my letter to the world  
for I would not want them
to stone me for my sins  

or for the good news  
I had to report

I knew Pearl, comely, calm Pearl
eyes as blue as the skies
that warmed her sands
where we walked and talked
dreamed the days away
her voice so sweet on the Pacific winds
it made me forget about home
I was breaking daily bread
dipping it in the
yellow yolk promise of eggs
when little gunner Joe
said come down below
to see the kitty he found
crouched in the shadowed corner
no bigger than the rivets
get her some milk he said
when we placed the offering in front of her
she roared a lion’s roar…
and the roar kept coming
and the young living
thing
disappeared into the darkness...
the stench of smoke
the screeching screams
the fierce rocking of the hull
and blackness
which came too fast to touch
all spoke with equal madness
telling us doom
can come on a sunny Sunday morn
in Pearl’s land
falling,
is something we all know
in the flat land of dreams
in the lucky light of day, and
on that Sunday morn,
in the boiling bowels of our ship
slowly,
with some giant hand in command
the water, the water,
the water we all had grown to love
now taunting our feet,
then our knees
the pounding began
the eternal pounding
the pounding of the hopeful
in Pearl’s blue skies
and our pounding,
the pounding of the ******,
without any eyes
the water
now at our waists
now at our chests
and then only our frozen faces
against the hard steel that had been our home
had the last few breaths of air to breathe
heard the last few gasps of desperation
and the feeble futile pounding
of those in Pearl’s darkened sun…
now we rest in this sunken tomb
the guests roaming above
with cameras and tearless eyes
for they were not
the ones who heard our cries
those who did, do not return
for Pearl is no longer a sunny beach
and a stroll in a dream
but a place where the pounding started
and never stopped
and where the world changed forever
when the first bomb was dropped

don’t you just hate it  
when someone repeats your…

Facebeook comment

because THEY failed to read  
the infinity minus one  
remarks above?  

then all the souls
who read that cherished verse  
will not know YOU
had such a colossal corner
on the market of “truth”  

all the devotees
will follow the newer sages  
(FURTHER down the pages)  
without regard for  
the accumulated wisdom  
you were so willing to share
(provided  
YOUR avatar got the
eternal divine credit)

don’t you just hate it?

what
would you say, if
on your very last day  
they got your order wrong, at McDonald’s  
and when you told the pimpled faced nihilist
you asked for no pickles on your Big Mac (!)  
he stared at you through two gray sockets  
that floated on his face, like the eyes
of time    

what
would you think, if
on your very last day        
conjoined twins were born in Siberia  
and one would be deaf , the other left  
to listen for both for eternity, and feel
the black swell of loneliness,
even with blood of a brother
coursing through his veins  

what  
would you do, if  
on your very last day  
you could buy more time  
to create useless rhyme
and it would only cost…
ten cents    

what
would you know, if
during the veil of night, your heart
skipped a few beats, then thumped
a final time, while you were still dreaming
of a dance, under a gleaming sun,
and cherished daylight  
never to come

I eat flesh  
prowl alone, for four legged prey
in the alligator juniper, on the gray peaks,
where I am invisible, if still, or quivering
slightly from the west wind, snow chilled
in the craggy highlands

the beasts of the plain
scavenge…in packs,  
they devour the upright ones who fed them,  
leaving guilty trails of blood in the bleached sand  
I share their genus, their jackal jaws,  
not their betrayal, nor their lust for the ****  

for me, the meal has no taste, only the scent
of silence, the sound of one hand clapping  
sating me for another sunset, another dark night  
where my ears twitch, cautiously
in rabbit chasing sleep

seared shut by a split atom flash  
the world instantly cauterized from view  

gasping for breath
in the Zyklon showers at Auschwitz

or riddled with rounds from an M-16  
bleeding slowly, with lids flickering
in the fading jungle light  

all enter a new form of night  
where no sound can revive
the once glassy stare    
we all deigned to share  
when the world was still
a blessed blink away

Like the serpent
from the Garden
I get a bad rap
but not for tempting
the infinite innocent
into damnation

I don’t attempt to deceive
or get the children to believe
the fruit is theirs for the taking
and I expect none to be forsaking
the father who gave them life

but cursed nonetheless
for what I spew and spin
but I lead no soul to sin

I only want a bug now and then

blood suckers,
engorged with the sanguine sap of Catholic, Jew,
and for good measure a Buddhist or two,

more multitudinous than molecules
in a mastodon’s eye,
these whizzing winged vampires
leave an angst filled itch
in their wicked wake    

they avoid me, though my blood
is there for the siphoning
with  perverse sense of smell
they can somehow tell  
I am one of them,
without the gift of flight  
yet ******* my own crimson cream  
both day and eternal night

though they are whispering,
and my hearing muted by the years
and the cluttered clang of today,
their voices sift softly through the trees,
a ghost chorus, chanting
late songs from the killing grounds,
wafting warily around the trunks
on the backs of bent breezes
their names come like seeds
in the hopeful spring rains
as if they yearn to be born again
but the earth does not bring forth
their lost and longing faces
new names take their places
not in the choking jungle canopies
among the rubber trees, the bamboo,
the Mekong’s murky, mournful flow
where I last heard their plaintive pleas
drowned by the roar of chopper blades,
and my own metal screaming
but now in the desert, under
the Tigris’ and Euphrates’
unforgiving suns
still, I hear them, a labored litany
through the trees
yet asking to return
to sit with me, as the sun sets
white, on my gray eyes
and new voices silence
their wraithlike song

nighthawks devouring prey
know nothing of judgment day
envy them

I am    
color blind, my kind
number in the millions  
yet nobody has made a secret
language to sign to us, to ensure
we don’t miss the rich laughter
of the living
no filter, no prism
has been divined to bend light  
to our pleasing,
no lens to hug
the eye, to make the gray rose red,  
the black sea blue, or imbue a sunset
with more than mocking,
shocking streaks of white
before the hapless night
I do not  know what
I am missing, for blood,
when spilled, is but store bought paint,
and how would I get the blues
if hues are emissaries
of another world  
one where hearts bleed red  
with songs for the dead  
I am color blind, my kind
number in the millions  
who will never see

I thought,
I was impervious, armor
in place, attached to detachment
my pesky synapses
melted away in
a gray soup

protected,
pain exempt...
but ****, you  
come to me
in dreams

in Morpheus grip
you slip in, those menacing faces
I managed to block, return
to mock me

the jeers to which
I made myself deaf, are now soprano, alto, bass
in my nocturnal symphony

those who malign me
are free to walk on my grave:
to them and all others I am
but slumbering slave

I can not choose
when to wake, to end your reign
but if I could, you would then skulk  
a bit in my skull's dark den
waiting for my weary eyes
to close again

one chunk at a time
he knelt
grabbing each stone
casting it into the barrow
sometimes counting
sometimes not
all to clear his field
for the planting
for tomorrow’s time
while the stones
behind him
silent in the rusted tray
measured other worlds
other time

feces,
of carnivores
should be blessed
and not tread on