A Living, Breathing Being

A leading word from you,

a call from your clouds,

would flood me,

dry in the valleys

without you.

 

Eating smiles,

You leave your central home without thought.

You do not need shoes.

The world is bearing your hardships,

with broken kingdoms flapping in the wind.

 

Your heart considers me,

My high gloss weeping and homey pleading,

And donates your medicinal attention

elsewhere.

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The clinging skin of hunting dogs
As they trespass on the neighborhood
hungry.
Keep me humble.
Food is an escape artist,
so I have built a gold vault
To secure it while I doze recklessly.
Not everyone has the materials
to do this.
It took me years.
Not everyone has the time.
Some homes shrink to caskets.
Some nations sink to graves.

The faces of the unfortunate
become corn seed.

Pharaoh

Red river conveying women’s hearts
in baskets.
Through windy reeds, a foreign song.

Will the king open up the window sash
to let the lonely wail of bereft
motherhood curl up at his fire
like an unloved cat?

Sitting on the riverbank,
the queen of carnage
sees one glitter.
Wades in.

Misery and Company

My private demon is winning

My wine hazy spirit.

The sunset cools

on a small snowfall.

 

The shining light,

it’s always washed in bleach.

Endless beach,

tears.

Sometimes we cry for our own sake,

cold,

and there are no boxes to contain

our needy mouths.

 

We all have been an empty harvest.

We have not been sown.

It’s easy,

to breathe tears into the body,

eyes to see.

In the fireplace,

every representative of the land.

 

Wintry Culture

At the sea level a polished ice.

Under it,

two polite humanoids that cannot pass,

Their painful courtesy increasing

against the cold crusted water.

 

I have the urge to cry.

I have for years.

 

The storm swirls deeply,

Blurring boundaries between

The dead and the sea.

 

The winter will sail

beyond borders and shore,

an elegant hole in the warm web of living.

 

For now,

nude humanoids,

Scratching at the well-kept surface

Of a national ice.