Arcturus again nights in the city a bus sighs, idling, sounds of passage, low tide traffic and the distant warmth of disembodied lights from a great enough distance things become clear a deserted rooftop everything coursing below and it isn’t lonely at all, somehow
Preamble, indictment, denunciation– grievance is our provenance civic incivility nobody better take it easy because it never has been
spooked by a shadow the sun came out slowly low voices speaking behind a closed door cautiously, sequestered, measured– oh look at the hour it stays light out so late now you forget how late it really is
the grass outside the federal detention center dry and sharp and hollow as a hypodermic needle doctors in lab coats cloud-bright under overcast skies carrying placards two uniforms on the roof watchful, but less like eyes than the windows below narrow opaque the wall’s blank face and those behind it– On the metro, each stop, more, compressing into the car held soley in place by curved backs and bellies and angular shoulders one large body […]
today’s word is unhinged no smooth swing the door is open or blocked but that’s not what they meant meaning a tacit agreement apparently implication impermeability cast the first stone and ripple effect impermenance I said once fallacy stet a half-truth is true partially check the partiality formulate the response and reach back hurl at plate glass fourth wall and fourth estate land a blow and deflect blowback not a defect by design blood thicker […]
eerie tinge to this sunset cold and diluted a misplaced day say six pm in mid October it was summer a chill sets in the lights go off and on in the office tower golden bands the crane’s open elevator making one last run up the construction site even from here it’s clearly not tethered
With civility but forcefully an unforecast downpour weather systems, augury, mandala– return to the theme dowse in the flood tattoo rain on the roof riverbank, seawall, all constructs– a boundary is only as good as it is
hold still the x-ray tech said taping a metal ball to my skin to mark the pain to show what the human eye can’t see whole spectrums ! what hubris to say animal tongue slick with contempt as if any better as if a predator we fail from within our teeth blunted when we need them most
even sunnier finally a day without construction birdsong even in the slight morning breeze and the burbling of distant indistinct conversation non-threatening some man singing and well the sky pressed blue paper a formal invitation we graciously request your presence the gingko mumurs in assent
would rather some opaque lines on the weather but this sky is just blue featureless no purchase and this feels too heavy to be limbo
OPTIONAL POETRY 