Category: Art

in the face of death
the urgency of burlesque

to prove what power
flesh still holds

an endless caress
of hour and minute hands

the silent tolling
of a jellyfish belly

the show must go on
it waits for no man

if we lack an acrobatic chorale
for a closing number

there’s still the time-worn lap
dance of waves

I sleep with the river
in my ears for years

I float I drift
empires rise and fall

clamor turns to murmur
in the temple of my pulse

I wake to a mudlark
crowing over his find

Less than half
human the large
language model
struts down
the runway
immune to aging
as trains derail
cargo ships crash
into bridges and
planes fall out of
the sky (where
else?) while
people who work
with their hands
begin to seem
as passé as
the body itself
a species of non-
luminescent firefly
with its dead ember
of an abdomen
the sturdy stone
in an avocado
having evolved with
giant ground sloths
will still sprout
and bear fruit
belly tattoo expanding
under washboard ribs
the darkness at the heart
of the galaxy wears
a blazing ring.

Sunday again: jellybeans
in a bowl. The golden calf
has sent a representative.
We are safe from the lions
of high noon, who lie
and digest like pundits.
The children must be taught
to pray for victory and not
worry about all the losers.
They must love their country
without thinking, mind
like a weed-free lawn,
pristine as astroturf. Purity
is the object here. If it’s power
you want, get an injection.

you were the lions of empire
captured in local granite

you cling to your perches
as tightly as the shells

that gave birth to cicadas
those one-hit wonders

cultured in the dark
like wheels of cheese

you travel sitting down
or sleeping in compartments

raised on air quotes you lift
an eyebrow to the breeze

if a cocktail or paving stone
can become ordnance

the sky’s the limit to what
feathered lead might fall

a rampant weather fit
to exterminate vermin

a caterpillar fallen from
its tree hurries past

the ground is a leaf
without end or underside

where to shelter from birds
and menacing clouds

you can hide on a plinth
if you’re still enough

convert all your unspent
currency to skulls

the ground is a mask
with too many eyeholes

how to disguise yourself
as a shadow or a hedge fund

if you’re made out of water
you can take any shape

says the fortune cookie
crushed by an impatient fist

behold the beast
its gape its gap
its utter lack of spark

this rabbit
what had it been doing
under my hat

step right up folks
the body politic won’t miss
its absentee head

for my next trick
I’ll deliver a baby
and whisper a number in its ear

As if all the night’s eyes had flown open at once and were trained on me—and who can say they aren’t? Given that I am suddenly unable to move, some paranoia may be justified. But those dull throbs must be my beloved’s heartbeat. That’s the cat purring at our feet. It’s all just a nightmare, not some untimely end for the head of a regime. I expect to wake up at any moment.

Perhaps I have meditation
all wrong, and it isn’t about
finding the off switch. The way

trees swaying in the wind
stay so firmly seated makes me
think I too need to delegate

all decision-making to mushrooms.
Collecting sunlight could be
my whole vocation; never mind

the masked vigilantes running riot
in my imagination. Not every trip
unfolds according to plan. But

I have acquired an apparatus
dearer to me than any pet
with which to concentrate the mind.

So sleek a device—plastic married
to metal. If only I could remember
how to turn it on.

oh this rabbit heart
these mosquito lusts

how to keep
them in line how
to make them fit

from jackrabbit
to jackhammer
from blood to clutch

i have defaced
the mirror on my wall

spoiling its pure
emptiness with
my presence

i shall work harder
at vanishing
into rage