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RV Feb 2018
let us gather
blessed broken
people seated
closing ranks
around the table
over sounds and
smells of plenty
arm ourselves
with forks and
smiles and silence

let us pray
for those invited
those who come to
spite the invited
those who come in
spite of the invited

let us pour and
taste the wine of
kinship cultivated
vows kept and broken
words weighed and found
wanting seconds
pass the potatoes
let's eat
let
us
let us
RV Feb 2018
did you know you snore?
of course not
you're dreaming of
birthday parties and
kitties and imagined
primal terrors too fuzzy
to do you real harm

your breathing is just
a bit too fast to rock me
to sleep, the rasp and whistle
of air through tiny nostrils
just irregular enough to
bring me back to
the room, the night,
the day we just had,
the trip your mom is on,
the pain in my knee
the long arc of your life
the rush of my days
spilling like coffee beans
from a rent sack

will there be a night when
I don't hear you
will my senses stop
reminding me that you are
breathing
somewhere
I hope
you
keep breathing
I need you to
keep breathing
RV Oct 2017
he the wayland
on the morrow
fry the fish head
fetching sorrow
spilling coffee
water closet
magic muffin
easy does it
mark the doorjamb
twenty minutes
spellbound silence
random spinnets
fifty-second
gully washer
**** the ******
mustard slosher
rabbit puddle
prancing pony
slap me sideways
steve maloney
etude
apologies to steve, if he exists
RV Oct 2017
When they lay my body in the ground
I want a tree to spread her roots above me
within and around me
I want the atoms I've borrowed
to sail away as bits of pollen
to visit all the places I've walked
or seen or dreamt of
lying beneath a tree on a summer day
or watching trunks pass on long rides

I want to creep slowly through heartwood
until the day comes
for our limbs to be split
and sent aloft
as a bonfire
on a starlit night
RV Oct 2017
Shining square apostle
stands in silent salut-
ation scans the path the west-
ward pilgrims pass ev-
ery morning I
see and draw
comfort

Good morning
Is it good?

Well, I know it's
morning at
least I can see sunlight re-
flecting on his gold-
en many eyed
face framed by my wind-
shield like burnished brass a light-
house above a quotidian
sea


I nod and accept her
benedict-
ory expression as
hands reach through the wind-
ow exchange bills for coins
and cursory good-
morning
and thank-
you
and I am
sent on the
way

Am I sent?

Well, I know I
am at least
I pass this
place I see this
face I recognize my-
self in familiar
scenes through
glass placed or
sent either
way I find to-
day I am
here
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