poem

Apologies to Galileo

Hurtling around the sun

as if we had something

to say about it though

that never stops us

from trying, surrender

the only real choice,

submit to gravity,

coalesce around

a molten core,

encircle our fingers

with summoned light,

completing one

another’s mumbled

incantations, hearts

bound in shared conceit.

Suburban Barricades

Suburban Barricades

In a box someplace there’s a photo, black

and white, me and some others clustered near

the curb in the standard garb for that place,

that time, heads like spuds under waxed crew cuts,

dead ringer I was for the kid in the

ad on the back of the Marvel mags, the

grainy one for Grit, doughy and pealed (who

answered those things anyway?) all of us

arrayed around the knife man squeezed into

his three wheeled ride, a rolling phone booth, a

giant boot, dirge bell giving him away

blocks away, giving our mothers time to

gather their dull blades and dance out the door

brandishing boning and butcher,

paring and steak, carving and bread knives, shears,

dull steel in need of honing, headlong for

the street, in another place, another

time well-armed partisans rushing to fill  

a gap in the barricades bristling with

arms, our glorious mothers repelling

the final charge while we look on askance, 

Phrygian caps hiding potato heads. 

Cheney's Heart

It was the first time he was offered a transplant in the 20 months he had been on the waiting list, and Dick Cheney, the former vice president, decided to take it, his principal cardiologist said in a telephone interview Sunday, the day after the successful seven-hour operation.

New York Times, March 27, 2012

What, exactly, happened to the old one?

§  Vladimir Putin received the heart in exchange for consulting with Cheney on circumventing national presidential election laws and consolidating power.   

§  James Cameron carried the heart seven miles to the bottom of the Mariana Trench in a special submarine where he jettisoned the organ into the harsh environment for scientific research purposes.  Almost immediately millions of gigantic bottom dwelling sea slugs with death ray eye stalks bowed in allegiance to the heart and moved off behind it in the direction of Hawaii. 

§  In a surprise move, Lloyd C. Blankfien of Goldman Sachs, was replaced by Cheney’s heart as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.  Blankfien had come under criticism recently for displaying a glimmer of humanity. 

§  The National Baseball League is expected to rule soon on whether or not to ban substances containing molecules of Cheney’s heart.  The National Football League, in contrast, mandates linebackers receive injections on game days in a bid to increase television viewership with a more aggressive playing style. 

§  North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jung-un announced the successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missile designed to carry a payload of enriched slices of Cheney’s heart.  The world’s nations immediately bowed to his demands for a case of 25 year old Macallen scotch and a Facebook friend request from Sigourney Weaver. 

§  Cheney’s heart retired to a gated community in Florida where it joined the local neighborhood watch organization. 

§  Cheney’s heart signed a six-figure deal with the Fox network for a reality television show called “Four Chambers Plus An Over And Under”.  Each episode will feature a B-list celebrity who will be “accidently” shot while accompany the heart on a hunting trip.  Viewers can interact directly using a mobile app to select shell load and location of wound. 

§  The Obama administration decision to authorize enhanced interrogation techniques subjecting detainee’s to Cheney’s heart was condemned by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.  A UN spokesman urged a return to more humane techniques such as waterboarding and the severing of limbs. 

§  Nevadan’s living near the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository protested a decision to store Cheney’s heart in a lead lined cask at the facility, chanting “Hell No, Give Us The Plutonium Instead!” 

§  Under heavy guard en-route to Yucca Mountain, Cheney’s heart managed to slip away and elude capture.  It is thought to be living in a series of Tea Party safe houses funded by the Koch Brothers.  Citizens are cautioned to be on the lookout for the renegade organ, possibly disguised as a rage-fueled elderly white man. 

§  In a cost cutting move, the Federal school lunch program replaced the filler known as pink slime with pureed Cheney’s heart.  School officials reported an immediate increase in bullying, torture, preemptive attacks, duplicity, verbal and physical threats and playground drilling operations.  A USDA official, asked for comment during his lunch, replied “You can go fuck yourself.”

poem

Large Hadron Collider

It’s a complicated process

an understatement

if there ever was one, buried

bending magnets, cold

shoulders nudging pinpoint proton

beams into flawless

contrapuntal orbits through deep

velvet vacuum veins,

ropey blue rivers on God’s pale

wrist, slender, adorned

with fine Swiss movement, all this dense

science to explain

the simple transformation of

two colliding souls,

a marriage say, shedding glowing

particles, part and

parcel of our enduring turn, 

lap after sweet lap. 

  

poem

Birth

Enter screaming, first

raging breath stokes cupped flame, blaze

whipped, night set alight.

Poem

5^th Hour, Academic Success Center

The first United States Government was

        fill in the blank

                from this list of

                        disparate terms

                                both of us flummoxed

                                        short, bald, fond of sweets

                                                my best guess, kept to myself

I fail ‘em all anyway, the bald truth

your answer, a line from a long running

play straight from the heart your mantra.  

                               

poem

Walk In Closet

The chatter ebbs and flows throughout the day,

Hindi, Vietnamese and Quichean-

Mamean mainly, with a smattering of  

English, old muttering Chippewa boots,

pockets of cottony conversation

overlap along sectarian lines,

insularity bred of prevailing

organizational contingencies,

a caste system, shirts on top, pants below,

shoes occupying an outlying nook,

untouchable Gemini’s, words of

serene acceptance on their tongues, coded

rhythmic work songs, soulful spirituals sung

soft and low, even the chinos, if you

can believe it, picking up the tune, hung,

helpless, humming along despite themselves. 

A Litany of Punches

A Litany of Punches

He could take a punch with a caveat

the asterisk mine, crudely chiseled

into imaginary granite in the

interest of full disclosure.   Body

blows, less than a Grant if you’re

counting corporal punishment

on the business end of my father’s

belt or the drilled wooden paddle

that kept the lines true in eighth

grade drafting all run together, one

faded flag bled of color, buried

in an unmarked grave near all

the birthdays I’ve forgotten, gone

because none of them featured a

memorable shot to the head along

with the cake.  I’ll never forget them,

bookends to a shelf full of mixed reviews,

the first delivered by Dennis Ross a

short black kid, miscommunication in

the lunchroom, he dropped into his

stance while I swayed, arms at my

sides, towering over him, marveling

at the stars.  Another school, years

later (clearly an institution that’s

bad for my health) another student,

mine, provoked by gods or demons,

a pair of solid one eighty round house

blows to the temple, the first one

a sucker while I tied my shoe,

the second punctuating his

declaration of independence,

me in the role of Mad King George

dazed beneath my cocked  

crown set spinning like a

mirror ball, a reign of blows, a

monarch who could take a punch*