devil

mama says to dance is the devil
so I look for him
at the hall
to the brass
in my squeaking shoes
 
papa says the devil’s
in the shaking hips
and parted lips
so I look for her
in the caresses
under the sheets
 
I say the devil’s no verb
no noun
and I look for it
in the adjectives
and adverbs
 
be gone, be gone, be gone

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games

Tomorrow
I am pushing and pulling
the bill of my cap
tossing it spinning ‘to the air
and I will feel the tickle of spiderwebs
on my forehead
giving high praise
to wind-born beings
half-flesh, half-heaven
to their whinnying brethren I long
to belong
Today I skip
across the chalk-line squares
they tell me I play at games
and I say,
what is life without games?

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let there be light

I am contending
that underneath every single
lamp
post
yes that ugly thing of iron and spray paint
there lies a thousand
and one
angels all covered in dirt
maybe even some shit
and worms in their hair
 
and some say
they illuminate the goddamn world.

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An Unlikely Vision.

Oh Lord
idolater that I am
I once fell on my knees
a crumpled body on the chilled, evening sand
I waited minutes, an hour total
for your recompense
 
I thought of a man who
saw a trembling shoulder 
a tilting altar
sprang forward to touch the gilded
wing of the sculpted cherubim
 
Struck him down dead
dead like the fallen log
rotted
gripped by fungus fingers
 
die die die
dead [...]

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rejection.

A white rectangle, without mass,
without dimension
I rip the edges to get at the morsel inside
hoping, but also knowing the stench of rotten fruit
A form letter expressing rejection called
regret
A blinking line at the end of an email
“unfortunately,” he says
“surely,” I say
“I cannot-”
“you can”
It is not the letter, not the email
not the disdainful eye
the critical comment
but the [...]

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Autumn.

Rolling a maple leaf between my fingers
a dusty page of a life well-lived
Ezekiel, these auburn bones,
can they live?
a simple breath tickles through my toes
I spill my glass
and wonder when
she’ll come home tonight

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Fallen

A fallen dream
is not a failed one
an impossible one
just because you taste the dirt
the fresh, metallic, wet smell
seeping up your embarrassed nostrils
don’t mean a thing.
momma used to take
the fallen buttons
and even though she used the wrong colored string
my clothes still closed
hung the way they supposed to
you see a moving fist
a trajectory of soft cartilage [...]

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Kettle Corn Dreams

silly crunching on pockets of air
stuck in starch explosions
an unraveling hem
of a passing skirt
I shall not let go
inspire
me

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Ode to McCain and Palin.

First I was angry
moments when I would shake my fist
and throw balled up receipts at the glass face
of my television set
then I was afraid
needing to put my pen to paper
lift up a needy prayer
to a supposed common Friend
I need not cross Atlantic or Pacific
to meet, to negotiate
diplomate
the enemy is within
our gates
then I was bewildered
trying to [...]

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Batting Average.

I swing a bat and I
wonder, will you be back
still the weight
pulls from my toes the earth
transfers to the swing
of a bat and into the wide,
wide air
littered with freeform splotches
they say it is much easier to miss
than to hit
the missing lines a thousand
to one
yet when I consult the back of
my shoulders, the muscles taut against [...]

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