This is Just to Say

I have eaten
the baby shoes
never worn
for sale

and which
you were
likely selling
for real

Forgive me
They were gross
So plastic
And so chewy

Sonnet #214

The ghosts are made of water, we just
think that they are lights, but they are
damp, a chill that cuts to bone, an aura
In the air, like a vapor of what was lost
Accumulation of the spirits means
the cloud of life collects until
the soul, crystalline and swirling sloshed,
And this is why we cry as if
a piece of soul is torn out, lost
as if a tiny piece of spirit drifts
away into the clouds, first faces crossed
to oceans crossed to gills of fish
Until the souls rise up to clouds across
the sky, our pain up there, rain spirit's kiss

Sonnet #213

Performers are not supposed to talk about the guns
That come in the night, those thousand tiny
injuries that mark the skin, just make fun
Dance for the camera, smile and be friendly
Pretend that everything is going to be all right
When the gunmen come in the dark to take
People who made the best choices out of bad, night
comes, good people lie awake in dread, wake
the artists up to help forget that they are afraid
In the same way, the keepers of guns want to forget
The twinge of guilt that hardens like a pearl laid
 black in the back of their mind, where lie regrets
How dare anyone make anyone remember the gun song
all stories sing to the gun song, who holds the gun belongs

Sonnet #212

The big, black, ugly bird that clings
to rooftops in the city, long of wing
And long of neck, naked, warty thing
That swoops out of the twilight, singing
Songs of ugly hunger, early death
Where lost breaths are swallowed breath
by breath, we walked in city streets, enwreathed
in sidewalks, green grass and oak leaves wreath
the idylls of we who pretend until the bird
black bird cawing in the break of dawn, a word
of darkness, swoop upon the rooftops, heard
in bedrooms still dark, waking to a dead word
A kitten half-eaten by the dogs of moonlight
The wicked tooth, and vultures own all twilights

All Roads Lead to Rome

Baudicia will tell you this about civilization:
It happens to the body, first the women
Experience the effort to civilize
Where the glory of the empire reaches in
And hammers down and whips away
nothing is left to her own devices,
Then, as if that isn't enough, the men
Must help or die - their bodies
Will be civilized, too;
Then it keeps happening over and over
Until no one even remembers what
Was before, was it even possible
To stand alone in the forest
And feel the shape of destiny guided
By the wind in the trees, the fish swimming
Up the rivers, trapped in the weirs and plums
Dropping in early autumn

This is the story of Adam and Eve
Where the apple of knowledge was a metaphor
For the way it always begins upon a body
Inside a body, and who controls the body
Before it was a paradise on earth

When the braceros came north to work American farms
They were deloused in sheep vats, fully immersed
In ddt. Burned with it. They screamed in pain
When the lettuce and strawberries were more
Valuable than human spines

Many of the children don't remember
How it all started.
It hurts too much to tell them
How we got to here.

Sonnet #211

They call the place Cathedral Rock
The Balcones Fault rises to a balcony
A large bluff, they say it was holy
Where ceremonials were held, we walked
A long trail, the live oaks were green
New growth in buds and dead leaves
Drifting like autumn, the quiet breathes
In the space between hills where mean
City noises do not reach, where even birds
Their music and cicada songs drift away
The silence made by hills where the word
Itself becomes a memory and the sway
Of leaves descending holds the language
That makes whole, without majesterial baggage

Sonnet #210

All the steps it took for one day's weather
A pretty day, a cool breeze blowing, light heat,
Was made at the dawn of time where tethers
broke and all the cosmos scattered in a heartbeat
For millenia, the atoms clumped and scattered
Until a solar star emerged slowly among the scores
And emerging rock with life resilient and battered
Kingdoms rose upon the bones of dinosaurs
And of the days, as momentum spins the rocks
Of endless tiny patches among these galaxies
A little green where we, in smallness, walk
A pretty day, a perfect day, a dawn so perfectly
It's all connected, hurricanes become a breeze
Supernovas push at matter rustling leaves

Sonnet #209

Tyger, tyger die afright in the
headlights of the cars, the cops who shoot
at boys from fear will quiver in their boots
With every flicker of your growling teeth
If fear can kill a child, it can kill a king
Slayer of giants, kidnapped from temples
Fed hamburger meat in some crowded rental
Enough is enough and the doorbell rings
All the bolts click free, Run! You, gorgeous!
Run into the forest, the city is all trees
All useless beasts more curious than nervous
Until the headlights come; the people see,
Shoot to kill, and brag forever -- Tyger, Tyger,
Stolen twice: They only get to hunt you here.

Sonnet #208

"I've come from the future," he said
He sat down at my table in a rush
"We need to talk," he said. I shook my head
"I can tell you the future already, so hush
and don't ruin it for me. We will all die.
All of us will die. It will be fast or slow
or in a crowd, perhaps, afraid. We try
to live, but it ends. It always ends. So,
in between then and now, we do what we can
to make the world a better place, make babies
Teach them to do better, and try to make a plan
In case things don't get better. Whatever you say to me
doesn't matter," I said. "Have a drink and go home."
He nodded. "Death, they say: All roads lead to Rome."