Lyrics in the aftermath

The eyes are the first thing to go,
melting back into the head…

W-a-t-e-r, said the teacher
to the child, tracing the word
on her palms while holding
them under the pump.
What could we show
our grandchildren
of a world that once
held some forms
of decency?

We grow so comfortable within our walls
we no longer believe we’re in prison.

Time does not take
all things away.
Weeds colonize
the garden.
Ivy, unchecked,
grows rampant
up pillars.
How would you feel
if you came home
to your dorm room
to find your roommate
had built a border
of clothes hangers
between your side
of the room
and hers?

Evil is such a growth area.
Why would I not see, hear or speak it?

My (brown) friend, slight of build
and kind of face, wrote today
that as he got off his train
stop in San Francisco, a (white)
man stepped directly in his path,
sneered, and did a mock salute.
Before coming to America, my friend
was a cardiologist and film critic.
Here, for many years, he has worked
for the homeless as a social worker.
He lives in a tiny apartment.
Many years ago he made me a meal
of noodles in a small dented pot.

Whatever wings I once dreamt I had
have dwindled…

I wear my heart
on my sleeve.
All day I weep
intermittently.
I also wonder how
the tomato plant
on my deck
has pushed out
three new fruit
in the cold,
this late
in the year.

Where I live, you can’t see the horizon, but the harsh
croaks of ravens echo wonderfully.

What gives me
insomnia: stumbling
on the story of the blind
Bulgarian mystic Baba Vanga
and her predictions
for this year
and afterwards.
North and south
divided again;
The Shadow abroad,
bent on redrawing
the map of the world.
The first black
president as the last
president. By 2130,
civilizations
living under water,
with the help of aliens.

There are words no one has a word for
and things no one has a thing for yet.

It is hard to sleep
for thinking of such
a future, a place
where I might still
want to live,
even given that
it doesn’t
yet exist.

 

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