COCOON
I saw my externist today
and got my prescriptions filled
for a well-curated array
of armor auras and pills
to protect me against weathers
and germs. And also to blunt,
like a cuirass wrought of leather,
the intimacy of hugs
and the taste and touch of kisses.
In this invisible plate
I can discover what bliss is,
now that I’m inviolate.
THE ENGAGEMENT
Every man must embrace his war.
Our crown and temples we must defend,
our missionary positions enforce.
Ignore our sacrifice of semen.
We engage body against body
for the future sakes of all the children.
Until a little peace is rendered
we expose our privates at the front;
we bear arms but only to surrender.
A ROPE AND A PIPE
The sharpshooter’s father
learned to dance
when he married the ropemaker’s daughter.
“No saddle
instructs the horse to prance.
The lesson is always in the bridle.
Nothing is so efficient as a gun’s
violence,”
the marksman taught his son.
“The bullet
can establish your best environment,
find your foe and kill it.
Sing to me when I die
if you wish,
but know that music’s a waste of your time.
Don’t get drunk,
and put down that damn flute! Be like the fish,
who only dance when hooked.”
And the son followed his dad’s direction.
A trigger
captained his affections.
But his flute
and humble philosophy and liquor
led him to peace and truth.
BY INVITATION ONLY
No. Lacking your exact welcome mat,
my poems/your name cannot attach.
Not entitled to your writhing nights
or flash-thoughts of unsari’d thigh,
a-thirst I stand at the Well of Unrequited.
THE SHIP
Oh, the mariner is like the moon;
perfect the once in the month
when my land concedes to your sea.
Our boat was, before, a forest,
leaves like sails, winds
like a petrel’s exhale.
Anchored by a stone that once
hugged earth, like mom and son.
And the sea, the sea. The basket
of stars upside-downed, so all
its flowers scatter everywhere.
HOLOCAUST AND REGENERATION
Fires hibernate in the trees.
The forest flowers,
red and gray,
race through underbrush,
uproot wild life
and humanity.
The burn tattoos the earth.
But growth curls within the rain.
Balmful sky rivers
swell heaven’s banks
to soothe scar wounds.
Seeds find footholds
for a newer green.
Creatures settle in.
Havoc hides inside the grain.
Fields uncelibate themselves.
We clear space
to celebrate
to dance to drink
to lure relief
from the caress that grinds.
