2 poems

bryony privacy fence


thick green vines across
a face, inhaling yellow
ingredients for a thin
festival, vet-able by what
was seen in a tar vomit trance.

i read rimbaud and rilke in the original french
then move over to my language. roots begin
to intertwine like soviet poland.

this is not to say i can translate
while they talk across the distance
everyday two pages of an open book.

the somebodies and someones, the sometimes,
the verifiable inaccuracy of a known measure.

the herbalist insists on trial and error
even with the toxins-she uses
herself as a vase. flowers and thick green
leaves plucked one at time and swallowed.






&




burn chameleon colors



turn down the old familiar streets
the same facades lined up along the sidewalk
as if the jacobsons still mixed
martinis in their back yards to take
over to the parsons grilling
steak on the newest gas grill and the oneil kids
run thru spraying them all
with super soakers instead of semi
automatics with the scent of columbine
making red flowers bloom instantly
in torpid summer nights .

every inch of the present throws off sparks
that rise , fireflying angels aching from gravity's
pull, rushing toward the lightmaker.

but wait, there are bars
on the windows now, and old
men's toes grasping
the concrete laid down
when they were young.

a broken tricycle lays limply
in your front yard; its tassels ,memories
burnt by too much exposure.
you wait for yourself to come out of the front
door. you wait for your wife and your mother
to stand at the door, beckoning. you wait
for the milk truck's delivery,
the clink that died before your birth
you want to watch as the empties
catch the morning sun
whole, melting slowly. your socks are black
and sag around your ankles as you walk thru
spllinters glittering in the asphalt like a pond, dancing
to vivaldi. there is a flag on the porch.
it has no stars or stripes. you knock.


when they let you in, you walk up the stairs
run your hand along the bannister, the groove
you made with your empty pen in seventh grade
gone now, worn away by the passage
of countless hands over the warm wood.

at the top of the stairs you look up
and there is the attic access. you pull the string
a ladder drops. you've come prepared with a flashlite.
behind you the man and woman are whispering
and you thank them again, saying this will only take
a second. crouching under the sloped roof
count 17 boards from the door, take out the screw
driver and pry it loose.
you hold your breath as you lift to see the white
spine and rib bones, the crushed skull.
your first victim. you think how foolish people are,
like this couple, just letting you in like that.
you move over to the corner, hunkered down
bent double your gut is squeezing squeezing so
you take the pill out of your pocket, place it in your mouth
put your finger on the cold metal and squeeze
yourself out.