Data Spill (telegram)
Under the briny assumption
that
every imported anxiety is
in fact
its own love child,
Can we not
all concur
that every
data spill
is
in fact
a slow motion
fuse
to a body
about to
what?
Take a turn?
Find a muse?
Birth a nation?
Burn a flag?
And that
despite
our best
try
the fish fry
unravels
in verse,
verdict,
and villanelles
given the grace
to tell.
Liberal, Kansas
They were gonna kill Somalis
’cos who’s better at immigrant rage
than jerk-off white guys
goaded by God w/guns?
Pending domestic charges and
’scripts they can’t refill ’cos
the God-damm government checks
ain’t in.
They were gonna kill Somalis ’cos
that’s what patriots do: Kill those who don’t
look like them. Talk like them.
Believe like them. Eat n drink n
piss n fuck like them.
They were gonna kill Somalis ’cos
they’re douche-bags and
America’s like that now:
Ignorant. Inhospitable. A backwash town
on a washed-out map. Lined w/refugees
coast to coast.
Fish Talk
Born in Paterson
(New Jersey of course)
Marie Poland Fish
heard tadpoles tattle
like her neighbors
on Kingston Beach.
Commissioned by the Navy in ’46
to pry into all manner
of the marine heart,
Fish insisted kelp could talk.
Codfish frenzy after spawning!
Whales sing! Krill pertain!
They called her Bobbi
after her ’do
(its dark sharp bounce
so picaresque)
The living make a common scream
she often would reply.
Two Miles North
I know by the dumpsters
at the garbage yard
that my town toggles
boxed wine and take out
from Imperial Geisha.
Two miles north on 29
where another black kid’s
gone down.
Fuzzy Circles
Brooding, waiting to cross correct
the poem that ran out of ink
has a deep, rich backstory
you can dance to and
a new last line
I’m rather enthralled by.
(remember us the better who we are)
Humor is essential
given the times we’re in.
Blue tarps bungeed
along the East River.
Shiftless study
pursued w/o looking.
Self made men
(and women, beleaguered)
Holding the venom between us,
your American recollection
differs from mine. I get it.
I just can’t cotton how
you get from A to B
w/o God, the cartographer,
drawing fuzzy circles.
(and the skies are not cloudy all day)
Renovo
In the switching yards
of Renovo, Pennsylvania
the men have nothing to do
but watch the weeds
grow under their wheels.
Their women keep house
boldly, supporting their men
despite the idle whiskey
that stains their lips.
The children play
as children always play
whether Daddy has a job
or not.
Third generation railroaders
who laid the tracks
that made America move
No longer
hear the whistle
nor the brakeman’s shout
of the great freights heading west.