The Truth At Last

i hear this life is private
in streets full of english tutors
that replace skin with dragons
& key faithfully, return zero
for actors to call recounts
& put the B’s in subtle
while culturally specific slights
are recited fifteen floors below
shroudless among charlatans whose
experience is an instant message
delivers a borsht belt patomime
concerning cigar store indian poses
i give hypocrisy in your ear
my likeness, my brother

Treat Smoke With Smoke

without nature of wolves
as if cast-off invitations
to see neighbors burning
til bright morning follows
basks an unfamiliar logic
well-read trackers pose
to arrange technologies
agency in sightless counterparts
this life & this car both
ill-equipped for passengers
by design is a broken faith
steeped in local routines
not enough to master
this language of accidents

Now for Something Completely Different

We interupt the usual sonnet project with a shout out to Lisa of Lisablog 's news that it is Emily Dickinson Day. Where i will not post an ED poem. Emily did appear in a dream of mine once, about 3 or 4 years ago. Emily, Groucho Marx and i were on a train together and she wrote this poem. Here is Emily's Dream Poem,

Lost In Place
the rest of the days
slant toward the sea
a cold bright salty star
to navigate by
while other bodies make
each link in the chain
to hold the anchor

more sonnet's later

Here There Be Drag Queens

who cares about thursday?
it is the postcard palace
& suitable drives on movie tours
this storefront with a few days rain
today, examines every small noise
what you expect from exterminations
although here are the amish
far from a joint history of consumption
members only and blue heads at the track
i wouldn’t touch the gold mine
such is the day out matinee
we are any flag you want to be
somehow coerced to listen all night
to out of date girly dances

The Wrong Question

there’s no choosing pills
with adult names for ground zero
behind unconsidered memorandums
with a shift or two in commute
i could kill us all
but that was the nineties
an analgesic of our occupations
they could still end badly
at night in our blood treaties
wiped off enemy constellations
all it takes is sand and indians
with negotiations in girl talk
to recognize as our prospects

A Kid’ll Eat Ivy, Too

in this referral of barelight ghosts
subtropic call starts on a dime
obsessionless unless you mean
lost conversations with the boys
under liquid bullet solutions
and other librarian theories
is this even a circadian rhythm
dodged like invited garden parties
so we cannot tell the time
that steals emergencies away
in our citizen’s band
that no changes record
this is the most public face
that few are bound to see

Cancellations

what lucky number
of falling amnesiacs
thirty-two years of pages
lights brightly the boards
burn through theories
resolve in his own division
this call is right instruction
with single barreled steps
nicknamed in the familiar
only downloaded elephant parts
done over in this wives tale
for pasts that we measure
lost syllables of first thoughts
this is the best road we find