"radon" poems
Fireworks were cool. Framed metal chairs with woven nylon Americana on watered lawns on the outskirts of the edge of Los Angeles. Hairy neighbors, Miller Drafts and dog **** Sally ****** Jim on the corner, and Jim drank, or started again and wouldn’t stop, but was good with a flat tire and chain adjustment. His kid had a glove like a vacuum. His daughter was a ***** Sally afforded a Mexican gardener.
Tim always had fireworks. He had gasoline and willed fireworks into his driveway. He had rope and a keg.
Schatzky keep her cool. She had to. She worked the 5th and taught everyone’s kids. She taught their parents too, 10 years ago.
Her son Donavan and her husband Keith lived for the 4th. Little pink houses and Jack and Diane kind of **** So they watched fireworks on flag hill while their neighbors ****** and got ********* and burnt their eyebrows. Donavan was ecstatic.
Each year the hill was gilded in gold for Donavan and Keith and and Schatzky, because each 4th brought fire and explosives in a way they could never afford.
Keith was more patriotic than most. He waited and enlisted and became a hero. Donavan watched on TV. Schatzky watched too. We won the first gulf war and everyone knew it: https://youtu.be/4gNhs2SRacs?t=1m10...
They celebrated the fourth in baseball stadiums. They celebrated life and heroism and purpose, and they celebrated with F16s and the best explosives the peacetime nation offered.
And Keith celebrated and embraced purpose. He even became a leader in the 2nd gulf war.
Sally stopped ******* Jim. Jim wasn’t married anymore. His kid lowered Tim’s basement and didn’t steal the copper.
Tim’s house was worth a fortune but it had a radon problem.
Schatsky was accused of drowning her dog, but she didn’t do it.
Jim still drinks; he’s smarter now.
They all meet on flag hill every 4th. The fireworks aren’t as good. A lot of build up for a finale that feels like an accident.
Water seeps through my jeans and no one can see my face as I limp home with a broken rubber sandal and a bucket of ice, a dog tied around my legs, and a kid face first on the grass, a wife whose friend drank our last beer an hour ago, a phone with two-percent battery left and my mom wants to show me what fireworks look like in California.
Jul 5, 2016
Jul 5, 2016 at 2:12 AM UTC
Her blood is cyanide
She cannot seem to hide
She is light as helium
She's strong as aluminum
She is graphite carbon
As subdued as boron
Abundant as hydrogen
But toxic as nitrogen
She's precious as platinum
Her skin is thallium
In her lungs there is radon
She is as rare as xenon
Helpful as iodine
Whose life is astatine's
She is soft as lithium
Her eyes are beryllium
There is nothing I can do
Already the tumor grew
Apr 28, 2016
Apr 28, 2016 at 6:57 PM UTC
Visions lost in cracking air
dirt and crumbling sidewalk
I drag my feet homeward
one more time
I dream the dream of dying
I wake gasping
I am locked in
this chambered hell of body
I see fire under rocks
I smell smoke in the bathroom
The night breeds evil smells
they float into my nostrils
Hope is lost, it flew away
I woke up laughing with the dead
Give me a safety pin
I have to pin myself together
My body has parted
was it a distorted mirror?
I touch my eyeball
and it sinks
I spit out teeth
with blood
My fingernails
have fallen off
Tired, I am so tired
i wander crooked streets
Shadows on the grey walls
my only companions
I am daughter of radon
I laugh as my hair falls out
I am so hungry
hungry for life
This steel landscape
of bed pans and commodes
The chill enters my toes
I wake up screaming...
Aug 4, 2010
Aug 4, 2010 at 6:08 AM UTC
Your love is pure, your heart is true
And every time I look at you
I tell you that I love you too
All you want is to be near
My dear friend, I feel the same
The look you give me, those big brown eyes
Are a blessing in disguise
I wish I knew what you are thinking
But instead you will just lick me
We play a game of "Bite the hand"
And then I give you a command
Your brows go up, you are confused
That scene just makes me so amused
I rub your ears, give you a kiss
You lie down near me in a bliss
You fall asleep but still alert
In case your nose smells a dessert
It's not that time, you need to sleep
Recharge for next day's little treat
You are the purest soul I know
My furry friend, most loyal creature in the world.
Oct 27, 2019
Oct 27, 2019 at 6:44 AM UTC
for them to write a haiku,
for us is to write A, or B, or C -
if our form of encoding
sound wasn't as it already is:
we wouldn't have chemistry -
say Na and sodium,
Rd and radon;
they write haiku like
we write A B or C, to them haiku is
our version of the alphabet,
the succinct -
hard to orientate
units of encoding
as complete meaning /
majestic -
we just find
it hard to spell /
put the puzzle back together,
the puzzle is still
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p
q r s t u v w (x y z)
v.i.p reservation
for mathematics (in brackets):
now... the mystery of life,
primarily? put that puzzle back
together. is it a puzzle in
the first place? how should i know?!
it's all fair game:
they write a haiku we write an A,
they write another haiku,
we write a B, the ****** puzzle
is there for the taking:
all you have to do is take some
play-dough on your little camping
adventure and come back with something
remotely needing boxes and shelves
and libraries, and university lecturers;
perhaps a few cannibals to boot too.
Oct 29, 2016
Oct 29, 2016 at 9:59 PM UTC
Within the mundane confines of
each woman's work, you show up.
As toxic as the radon they stick in their mouth,
you give the next victim a sickly smile.
Not convincing enough to make them unaware,
but with a sweetness present enough to trust
You slowly sink into their heart stream
similarly enough to the eventual build up of chemicals
within the precise bodies of the mechanical clock painters
May 2, 2016
May 2, 2016 at 11:29 PM UTC