condemned to select order from Uno

so he's a research scientist trying to get on at a new university, with an offer of visiting status. his research-seminal - is ancient history. she gets upset with the state of politics on modern day campuses and leaves for industry early on. this night , the nuclear power industry is on the search engine. spills of tritium, mostly harmless, are coupled with samples of strontium ninety in the soil. not to worry it's only bad if you inhale it and tritium's just a heavy hydrogen so just don't drink too much .  you can have 7 picocuries a day for decades and only have a 7/3000 chance of getting cancer.// some must sacrifice for the common good, the good of the future- nuclear power!/ she declares in nazi propaganda film voice.decaying matter is  close to their thoughts these days. mirror like, those nuclear plants daddy built in their youth are crumbling and it wasn't their mess but  who's gonna clean it up? congressional  boomers look  to early retirement,  so don't count on them. it always falls to the youngest. face it tweeners, no early retirement for you, you're gonna have to struggle with the ailing family business that needs a desperate rehab before it burns entire neighborhoods down,that'll be repopulated with three headed frogs and siamese deer that stand in both sides of the road to chernoby.// strontium 90 for your cereal/ she sings  from the bathroom //top it off with tritium soup. come and dine on all things nuclear, have yourself some cesium brie //he's impressed she knows the word, asks her to spell. it .when she does, he falls in love all over again.

--traditional memory

today's the day for fallen warriors
 but not the ones they killed, we mourn
the ones who held guns, not
 those who gave bullets a resting place.
 i'm just thankful for a first holiday.

 clouds gather above smoke rising from grills,
 the American celebration
 redolent with burnt offerings.
life prints a portrait of the new
 unknown soldier for every war
that takes enough of the right kinds of lives.
 the kinds that matter, lost
 points on the winning side.
 your brother, just graduated, my niece-adrift
 in unemployment your son, raised to respect
tradition, my son raised to be fodder
 for your gun.
pacifism is a game of loss. no room for that
 in revolution. turn the world
 around again, the sun rising
 in the east.again. revolt
 revolting re volution. how bout a new volution
nuvolution. i hear
 the crows all starve there. i hear
 prisons are empty there
 i hear pipes and drums sing
anthems to fallen forests,the drowned, the lost
 in their minds. i hear it in the  bombs building
 on the horizon in  a derecho. i
hear the tornado of righteousness
 blow through the trailer park of vermin
built in kafka's lair.
 i haven't read it but i hear
 your holy book speaks
 in tongues of GOd and he
 is yours not mine at all . my war is your
  simple extermination
. yes i hear it in my cochlea
 in the ten fingers i wave like flags
 as i drop to the earth of birth,
no longer mine, but yours.

ac hum lights up the clouds

early evening the lady behind me sweeps her stoop, clouds in the background striking pink postes with shots of lightning i'm on my red porch in a new part of my yard hoppoing rain will water the plants even tho i did it a minute a go. puled some weeeks. i haven't eaten all day. i wonder if i'm near as hungry as any refugee from situations that strike from the top like these clouds do. a breeze rushes toward the vaccuum left by discharged ions ropes of white whip through the cumulous tracing momentary paths, and inside it looks like palmyra. i hear a voice on under the various hum of machinery it;s love, coming round the shed, daughter in his hands. sometimes i miss the way we didn't raise our chidlren together, how yours arrrrrrrrrrrre yours and mine are mine the last pink of the sun hits the inner clouds creates a cave tlightning discos to . i fdream i see a piece of it fall like a star down the front a wish comingn to ground, an angel beingborn. at least we can witness these small beginnings together now, grandchildren and rain to ease the parched flesh. crickets fiddle off key, rotondu, ppppppppppppercussion punctuatioton to the air condddddddddddditioners that sing together, aaaaaaaaaaaa cooooooooooool lluullllllllllllby\

bees

you begin every conversation about
colony collapse  disorder with
a lecture. it's something we've hidden
for years among science and industry
but when you can't get almonds for
the traditional green bean casserole
who will you talk to then about the one third
needed about the 1/3 dying about the one
third of the world's population that will
follow suit when the bees go into hiding.



















(*())*



one hundred days ago we swam warm currents
over a scented sea. our legs were strong, our wings
a blur of motion keeping us cool, together, one mind.
gather the nectar, store the pollen, serve the queen.
we had no need for police, this business of errant
eggs bustled out of the hive, pheromone id's, things
not tolerated before rumours of age, always unkind,
took a bitter turn in her dark  mind. i've seen her

panting and exhausted after giving birth
two thousand times,plucking gametes
picked for color and transparancy sometimes
for opacity. she liked surprises. it was sad
when they killed her, so many police at the scene
swarming over eggs no one cared to discard
or shield. we left after that, most of us. some say
it was the itch or the way our lungs filled with water
panting in the foraging fields under sun
spots that drown us in  a blinding faith in light. .








*(

the queen's tale

my first  clear  taste of power
in the womb. a  waxy portal opened
daily   warm bath fresh from the harvest
poured over my head. inhale and exhale

in the waxy womb, a portal opened
poured power into my gulping mouth
poured it over my head, inhale, exhale
till i screamed each time they sealed the wax

power poured into my gulping mouth
my womb cried out in fullness
i screamed at last when they unsealed the wax
  they let me out into the sun. i was stunned.

my womb cried out in fullness.
sniff the drones strong flower
while i wait for wings to dry
then i fly among them, coy for while
sniffing, choosing, then tapped
i abandon to their styles. this one fed
on honey dew from nighshade, that one from
a patch of peonies. this one had an orchid
for a bottle, that one had roses for a daddy.
i felt the press of these damn eggs for the first
time and flew back to the hive. when the first
one passed, i wish i'd died, but it got easier
and now i' wait for a pantoum to break in here
and rescue me or a barb in my abdomen anything
besides a quick starvation. it's just so, ignoble.

Lily reads the augurs

a  flock of roadrunners scuttles rudderless
a regatta on  rocks riding merciless sun .
these windless days i wait breathless, inhale.
brew  toxic mammaries, hang the laundry


The alphabet of Ben shira gave me pause-
i was supposed to be
someone's wife? just what did that mean
in the year of my birth? give  or take

a century from prophet's, i took a look
had to book. desert, dungeon-same to me.
 my hair's from sumeria and my feet
from mesopotamia, my howl is my own.



0, i knew him, i remember the shape of shale
 before formative  fingers . he forgets, fatherly,
falls into fable , paints me lizard, serpent, bat.
 babies die all the time,i really couldn't eat another

 bite but curse my name ,  stir up a new scirroco.
a hawk spies the bobbing boats, harvests dinner
from the unaware. wife, i never was. inconstant
as the voice of an owl, standing on a lion.

love is just sex misspelled- Harlan Ellison

On the downhill sounds.i have no mouth and I'm a scream.

cuz freddy''s dead,

Why can't we brothers
Protect one another
No one's serious
And it makes me furious
Don't be misled
Just think of Fred --curtis mayfield

me and my bro on north ave, we see
trouble, look it straight in the eye
danger on bikes in packs of fours 
no time to think, we turn and run

trouble's the man whose eyes i meet 
i can see he has a gun and badge
we dont  think.we turn and run
safest thing i know to do

i can see he has a gun and badge
that's never been good luck for me
the safest thing i know to do
just makes the dogs chase after us

i never get good luck, my bro
he got away, but now i'm stuck
treed by hounds, caught ,leg ironed
thrown in a van  for a pocket knife.

i'm stuck, i'm struck don't go away
man, something's snapped it hurts
i'm thown around this van , a knife's
 buried in my neck please. god. help.

something's snapped, it hurts. hey man
my neck's knifed. pleased? only god can help.
danger in packs of four have buried me
come on! I was just walkin on north avenue

I,if not away again making subdued comments, actualize artistries.

A to -the -hilt knife buried askance; reminder swallowed unknowable.

I- on the last giant ferris wheelie- whooping absurdist afternoons.