we

we are great
warriors, great
fighters, engineers,
we build great
walls, great
bridges, armies,
buildings, battles,
scrawling epics on
great wars and great
soldiers, ourselves; we
stand astride, stand
tall, powerful, we
are geniuses, monuments
of academics, scholarship,
achievement: mighty
our thoughts, grand
our many accomplishments,
our brethren and comrades-
in-arms, we are
superior, celebrated,
great; and so
we must break things,
we must destroy, crush,
overwhelm, consume!
there must be violence
in greatness, as greatness
in resolve, tragedy in
severe decision: oh, we few
so great in action, deed,
thought, word, we are great
in many and all things
accomplished and impossible,
greatness having
expended gentleness; we are
weak fathers all,
weak husbands all,
weak lovers all.
oh, what cost.




dec '09

highways

________

i ride the city's veins
glaze-eyed and mildly organic
on pulsing channels of metal blood.
our red lights burn insincere, glowing
bright duplicity in tiled tunnel dusk.
am i the city? no! are you?
not all these many years;
what lives so long as cities?
childhood, standing in backyard weeds
watches this pulse-streaming flow,
flashing red-white continuity, duplicity
astride the city's asphalt arteries. see:
we mistake each other for masses,
totals, altogethers. we blur alike!
i ride the city's veins alone,
jostle with a faceless crush: the city!
while next to me, you too ride alone,
jostled by the nameless horde and i.
we are individual, but denied
and denying individuality.
nevermore! no, i shall see but cells
tomorrow
on side streets
in dark rain.




December '09
January '08

widow

she was a very useful widow;

he'd died young

and childless, but with grand expectations so

she was left with money, land, some reputation--

it pads the nest, but never warms the bed.

they lived with her.  the house was empty

and she liked their beautiful words;

she painted rooms downstairs in colors to match

the noble evening chords they played

to cricket rhythms.

January '10
October '09