NIGHT AND DAY

The moon and I
spend our nights
on fish and tequila.

Then dawn comes on
with welcome
oranges in her basket.

At times like this
we cherish
the gifts of our healers

and yet recall
how eager
once for a casket. 


WHAT WANTON 

Which village chemist took us from his shelf
and mixed us with his pestle,
     put us in pots,
and sold us to customers with their milk?
(they took us with cereal
     and died in knots)

And which astrologer played with ourselves
his odd game of celestial
     connect-the-dots?
(he made the moon turn the tides into whales
against glittery crystal
     chandelier yachts)


DOWSER

Once I was proudly regarded
as the foremost geographer of You:
I surveyed the careful topography
as I mapped your features anew,
measured each promontory encountered,
and charted every defile.

Many times had I plumbed for your treasures
and glad had continued my earthy research.
And I knew I could move
my stretched willow out
to discover the sweet waters below.

But now that I live in exile from You,
now that your landscape has gone,
I find it was not your true geomancy I'd learned.
For though I'm sure that it was your well I discerned,
I never divined the source.



FIX

Not by any charms or karma.
We all are ruled by lips and arms.
The best arms are keep under sleeve,
phantom limbs we almost believe.
Lips must be always in action:
proclamations propaganda
posters slogans podcasts broadsides
downloads headlines broadcasts soundbites
to entertain alarm arouse
justify distract and excuse.
Terrorists! Fascists! Immigrants
Steal Our Land Our Jobs Our Women!
Innies! Outies! Leftists1 Righties!
Liberals! Mobs! Neo Nazis!
Prosperity Or Poverty!
Our Freedom Or Our Slavery!
Criminals! Our Open Borders!
Infidels! Monarchists! Trade War!
Stolen Elections! Deviants!
Antisemites! Spies! Jacobins!
Family Values! Lies! Misfits!
Epidemics! Nuclear Threats!
Divine Order! Thieves! Bolsheviks!
And thus we’re judased by a fix.



BADGES

Wedged within your fresh crotch --
this now is all I own.

The pasts are buried bones, arrowheads, broken pots that belonged to other lovers, to lost cultures.
Wastelands conceal the nests
of their long-gone futures.

Keen time dines on butchers’ scraps as well as sweet breasts.
Their pasts are buried bones.
This now is all I own.

Calms punctuate the storms
that chart activity.
We were not and won’t be.

Lover – to this culture we belong, not others.
Hedges and not bridges
demarcate these towers.
It’s not in our power to swap campaign badges that chart activities.
We were not.
We won’t be.