Ballad of the Class War

This is a bad marriage, the posh

and the poor. One takes the

bed, the other the floor. Tethered

by seduction, threats and lies, it’s

a wonder they’re still together.

.

One collects the money, the other

makes the bed. One wipes his chin

and belches, the other’s barely fed.

The voice of one’s an order, the

other, an addled wreck. One

demands “cash only,” the other’s

paid by check.

.

All the coins rise like the bubbles

in champagne. Try to hold them

down. They disappear in spite

of what’s been said. One man

spent his life to save them. Now,

like B-movie undead, they claw

their way out of the ground.

.

The boss is an octopus. One

arm holds a paycheck, the other

is in your pocket. We’re told to

lock it up. We’re told to burn it

at the mall. Good advice when

the TV turns practical and takes

a break from shouting.

.

In the middle of all the canned

hysterics, car crashes, planned

weeping, imploding casinos,

boasting and whining and screaming

violence, some can afford to wall

themselves in silence.

.

The sum of all our nickels is

gigantic. The idea of all our

brains together makes them

frantic. We’ll play nice, alone. We

won’t dispute the price. We won’t

haggle. We know nothing’s free.

Our measly bit falls in the pot.

It’s like pissing in the sea.

.

Until there’s no more to

be found, the hours tick away.

Half the day’s a slug, the other

half a bee. Like everything else,

our time’s divided: on the clock

and “free.”

.

Even good and evil are relatively

measured. According to official

morality, we’re supposed to sin

selectively. We’re quiet about

meetings in the obscure motel.

But burning down the bank is a

bus ride to hell.

Touch

For some life is like a stone,

holed up in cold homes

craving touch. Unwritten

laws counsel so much deprivation.

Skin starves.

.

Feed it fake food. Make attempts

at affect. Swallow the pill still

unsure of its effect. Break the

rut. But to cure the wound you

need the knife that made the cut.

.

The body’s need keeps barking. The

dog runs a square path inside a square

fence. It shakes like a fire howling at

nothing. Driven wild by desire it lost

its sense.

.

The globe is tense, rushing through

the void, heaving under terms of

defense and attack. Pet his hair. Kiss

the side of her neck. With your

finger trace the letters of your name

on his back.

.

That one’s day was a python and

its constriction grows. Break its

grip: put your palm to her forehead

and watch her eyes close.

Decant

This was submitted for the jigsaw poem prompt at Poets Who Blog.
.

.
Our office building has glass

walls that reflect everything and

become invisible. We stand outside,

.

the lowest things in the mirror. Here’s

the slightly distorted self and the

anonymous parade of traffic. Cloud’s

hair slides across its silver

face. A falcon wings beside itself.

The windows throw

.

light. Our pupils clench. Entrenched

inside, people make decisions. We

bob and sink in their wake like

capsized boats always losing the

horizon. Inside, amber files

preserve carefree accusations, births,

names of the untouchables,

.

conversations. Inside, elevators rise and

fall, chasing each other through a

fog of electronic memoranda. Here’s a

hydroponic garden of cubicles. Here’s

the open office plan, rooms where

orders are issued. Here they type

our papers, our blood, our brains,

our tissue.

.

The building claims to be ours but

we belong to it. It’s alive in the

swing of a walk, the weight of a

voice, a quivering taste bud. It

lives in water, the wild, the wed,

the dying and between the fevers of

the passionate.

.

We’re timber cut for lumber or

saved for cultivation. The building

shouts our names with sirens. We

twist and look every time. We become

.

reflections. We find the line. We sign.

It reaches into us like poured wine

reaches the bottom of the glass.

The War in the Gulf (revised)

This is submitted for Read Write Poem Prompt #39. It is based on my reaction to an incident from the first Gulf War that came to be known as the “Highway of Death.”
.
The movie in the morning shows us

the roads, the rows of buses,

black, flattened in still circles of ash. I

saw your face. You were on the bus.

.

Farther away than you could’ve ever

afforded to travel fresh cash folded

from wallet to hand to wallet. Coins

chattered from fingers to palms while

bombs shattered every piece of glass on

sixty miles of highway.

.

You thought you could get out

but every path burned. Every

atom of air turned to fire. Though

a few tried, there was no time, no

place to go. That oven’s alchemy

left only a carbon statue of the way

you died, screaming out the window.

.

You thought you were going to a

new house. You thought you were

going home. Instead of reason there

were planes. Examples were made.

.

This is the century of lovers without sons.

This is the century of forensic science.

This is our century: the lost are writhing in the sand.

.

A bright row of teeth smiles up at us from the dust.

Look out the window of the bus: the flames fly forward.

This Side Up

Cash

buys the ground, buys

the benzene

in the ground, buys

the work to clean

the ground, buys more

benzene.

.

Cash

buys the assault rifle

for the 12-year-old soldier,

buys the 12-year-old soldier

for the assault rifle, buys

the refugee camp, buys

more war.

.

Cash

buys the oil, buys

the oil refinery and pipeline,

buys the bombs that burn

the oil refinery and pipeline, buys

the oil, buys

more bombs.

.

Cash buys the

pesticide that causes tumors,

buys the drugs to treat the tumors,

buys more pesticide.

.

Cash feeds the market and

the market is progress.

Ten Meditations

The room is absolutely black. Memory

fails. A drunken groping in the dark

catches air. An ankle hits the chair.

Faster than thought: “Fuck!” A poem is born.

.

♦

.

We spread thick blankets on the floor,

pull blinds, lock doors, let the light

dim, make peace. Release the day’s

corpse into the river.

.

♦

.

The sky is jade. We’re made of coins.

We walk with purpose through cities

of polished glass and crumbling stone.

We’re all on the phone with ourselves.

.

♦

.

The police reports record us: the

ignition of passion, the thrust of

despair. We are there, down to the

last rock thrown, the last hand’s

fist, the last small stitch that closes

the wound.

.

♦

.

This mess, these connections at

every angle, entanglements of

names and gestures, they strengthen

the way the sleigh slides faster toward

the ice, spinning, flipping, throwing

the rider sideways.

.

♦

.

We’ll make laws against impossibilities.

Make it illegal to levitate, travel time,

truly please another. When fingers fail

we’ll tie our hands, make the mind free.

With the power of temptation, all is

possibility.

.

♦

.

The morning’s wide breath pulses

across the table. Paper scatters. Young

lines lie on the grass, get lodged

in plants. Their order is shattered.

It’s better.

.

♦

.

The ants have a daily banquet. They

broke in under the front door and near

the window by the kitchen sink. At first

I think “They have some nerve.” But no,

they own the world. We serve them.

.

♦

.

Nothing’s uncomplicated. I’ll give

thanks for forgetting, hard-working

guardian of the mind who’s never

good enough. He returns each day

with trophies - stuff I don’t want to

remember.

.

♦

.

I’ve erased the word “indelible” but

its outline keeps a ghostly presence on

the page. With age these persist: intentions

caged in stains.

Dissection

The examiner slits the sheep’s

eye, a jellied globe of smaller

circles. The sample’s cornea

is lifted as the blade traces its

edge. A tiny ledge leads inside.

.

Forty younger hands follow her

example. All the scalpels glint

like jewels. The tools wait expecting

use. Without warning some students

shudder in disgust or sink into their

chairs. Naive reactions, an instinct for

.

mourning. The probe moves the

fatty tissue, exposes the optic

nerve. A wide black spot stares

into the palm of every hand. Fluid

oozes as the sclera’s cut. Every

mind is led to understand the thing

until just the lens is left.

.

Newspapers line the desks. Beneath

trays and instruments stories

stare up: who’s slain who, a train

wrecked, a town destroyed by

storm. Flesh is flayed. A few, bored,

look down and notice ink and page.

.

How many took the eye, picked it

up and wondered: Did it see the world

cut into squares by cage walls? Did it smell

concrete, dust, grass? Was it cold on

the truck? Was there a moment of sun

before the stifling shadow of the factory?

Clockwatchers

It begins the moment the infant’s

mass is measured, name recorded

with a number or two, heel inked.

A story’s started, hours and parts

are officially linked. Very few escape.

.

Soles still wet and blue, we’re

added to the roster. The timer,

still new, starts ticking the

minutes we’re brought to

market. Our

.

homes are museums of this

persistence. All the things

we bought, the shoes, TV,

soap, that just-bitten

strawberry - the fossilized

hours of earthly existence.

An art devoted to the nickel

and dime, each living room

is a graveyard of other

people’s time.

.

We’re sleepwalkers,

clockwatchers, bodies

kissed and pummeled,

a long list of ailments

sad and true. When the

startling voice shouts

“Hey you!” we all

stop, swallow, turn

to look. But no one’s

there. In the moment

we’re betrayed we

become ourselves.

We’ll always

turn. This is

how we’re

made.

Collaboration

In this neighborhood they play a game. Like

ants they follow the odor, wandering kitchen to

kitchen tasting dishes half-prepared. Some go

with hesitation but to refuse is rude. For some,

others’ food adds to the pleasure that is shared.

Everywhere the group goes the home’s cook

leaves and someone else finishes the recipe.

.

The squeamish pack a suitcase of plates and

utensils. Most bite from what’s within their

reach: a piece of foil, a plastic lid, palms and

fingers. Each

.

stop’s a spastic rush. Plates are tossed, smashing

on the table, the crash of pans rings in ears. There’s

bleeding into paper towels, children crying, a

fire on the stove.

.

With tears diners shout demands. A few

whispered secrets are overheard. At the end some

aren’t sure whose soup they’ve stirred, whose wine

was spilled, whose line was crossed in the

collaboration. But each is offered as doors are opened

a stained shirt, hunger’s end, a continuing education.

Kept

We present it as our pet, obediently

happy, curled up under our control.

Stuffed in its hole and trotted out

when needed. We scold

.

its affections and punish its transgressions.

When it gets enthusiastic and runs in

other directions we snap the leash back

hard.

.

We bind it. We keep some in reserve. We

preserve it in a jar in some cobwebbed

basement corner. We tie it up like that

mannequin in that store downtown.

.

It has its revenge against confinement: tiny prisons

make it grow. In dark storage it bursts with brightness.

.

Once while we slept it got free and rolled in

wet black earth. It roamed the world, running

its fingers through the hair of a man waiting for

a train in Kyoto; caressing the back of a woman

stepping into the bath in Baghdad; twisting in

the knot of a couple’s limbs in Chicago.

In the morning, with all our strength, we

hammered it back in the box.

.

Wear it like jewelry in the board room, in

the ruins. Set it down to run the streets, be

picked up, set down again to stray. Its

energy is endless. We’ve been lied to.

We can give it away.