poetry,
the staring night series
10:54 PM
Posting a little late
A 14 February heart
a pulse into the 15th
propeller of birthdays
mechanism inducing age
push slinky "what
walks downstairs
alone or in pairs"
momentum of the years
collapse, coil,
collect deep at 11:59 pm
& expand out at 12:00 am
the birthday compression between
the force and the flick of the hands
poetry,
the staring night series
7:35 PM
days of shouts delivered in casual emission
visual and accidental puffs like cold days' exhalations
days of shouts hanging desperately to teeth
days of locked doors and eaten keys
a smirking contemplation hiding under the bed
days locked in the first rainfall the Fall met
poetry,
the staring night series,
travels
7:27 PM
We never stepped on the plane
that trip handed over to parallel what-if rifts
a boarding pass jammed up a gumball machine dispenser
murmurs of the potential and hypothetical
boiled down to a syrup, matted sticky congeal
we still have each other; a flat weekend vacuum-sucked
a bottled best regards catching the dust of the inert
poetry,
the staring night series
8:35 AM
She was plentiful and sacrifice
gave everything to us
She ripped out her hair
as wailing mothers do.
Each stiff strand fell strong
into wheat stalks.
The milky tears hardened to rice.
the anguish matured into our grain.
Running her eyes over us
in one last time ritual
pinnacle of maternality.
She plucked them out of her head
pressed them in her palms
and released two dried dates.
One to fill each of our hands
before reaching within herself
pulling from her warm cavity
a glistening swollen honey pear.
pulsating where she no longer did.
our last taste of what created us
overindulged without reverence
and with too many hands at once.
the last bites' mouthfuls
a fraction of the first
but outlasting memory's deceit.
We try hard to remember her
as left, bereft children do.
A maintenance of impressions
and anxiety that her face
will become blurry
even if we close our eyes
and press them shut hard.
poetry,
the staring night series
10:15 AM
as I look out through my bedroom window
at the city lights' multicolored glow
tinkling like Christmas lights smiling at me
but they are not that. they are other things.
MacDonalds sign, red hospital crescent
lights of the crane over the apartment
decorating all the highway networks
perched mistletoe on the construction work
cranes like candy canes, neon holy light?
the glow trespasses on the silent night.
Bethlehem some hundreds of miles away
Falluja-closer-in the other way
and here is where the tides forgot to come
a place that loses itself to become-
the most desolate of my Decembers.
poetry,
the staring night series
8:52 PM
all night I passed the seconds, turning the pages of a sleep skimmed through, rest ill-read
not quite understanding my condition
in the morning the glass rod clacking against my teeth as the mercury hovered in
yesterday I wore a wet dress for too long, thin as filo dough, but a strong sail to catch the winds
in the water I stepped on a hard metal something that the rescinding tide revealed to be a rusty oil barrel
an oversized soda can beached on the sand and fixed discarded garbage thrown down by the Gods
inside its damp, salt-rust belly, my fever, incubating darkly from the inside.
poetry,
the staring night series
9:22 PM
camel travels along
like smog - softly,lightly steps
a wisp, a stir, a spit - softly gone
poetry,
the staring night series
2:15 PM
i have always been so sloppy brushing my teeth
foaming, rabid fluoridish froth dropping down the sink
splattering flat snowflake designs that
ornament around the drain uncontrollably
like tea leaf patterns at the bottom of a porcelain china cup
the fate of my future drooling loosely from my slack mouth
all night I passed the seconds, turning the pages of a sleep skimmed through, rest ill-read
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