Two Poems

Especially if the Cops Come
for Brahm

in my house there are green walls
it’s terrible, the things we do to stop thinking
today, it’s you all over the stereo
the problem of how to live as explained
in the routines of a vaudeville troop
on its way to Sioux City with noise
guitar, a hip-hop dj and percussion
prepared as we are to listen
the universe expands without us
we keep playing one step behind
the tune we found in the organ
full of california poems in that monotone
voice i have, i mean- damn i miss you
in the house behind burlap curtains


In the Blood

what i most want to know
is speech involved in the human cry
how children can grow in organs
such wisdom in insurgent texts
how cooing originators
in small doses are a homeopathy
for seven centers of power
straight across the chest
how sweeping the doorway returns
a babe to a nap on grass mats
on a day so endless and humid
can find a pool of water to splash
how far off this can be from time
we can rip our clothes and dive