Poems

confirmation bias

at least in our waking life

most commemoration

doubles as force

since even

the most benign

zodiacal conceptions

are tinged eurocentric

when brown women die

Marshlands

A thin wet sky, that yellows at the rim,

And meets with sun-lost lip the marsh’s brim.

The pools low lying, dank with moss and mould,

Veronica?

What's it like at the centre of the AGO?

Hmm. Imagine being coloured, drawn, and placed

in a wooden frame, another hung woman, positioned

just so in the middle of a landscape surrounded by rocks,

Holy Ghost

We had no paper

then, or we had

no pen, or no words. How

to say it. We had

no voice. No listeners.

Just deaf night

Declaration of Intent

let the colonial borders be seen for the pretensions that they are

i hereby honour what the flow of water teaches us

the beauty of enough, the path of peace to be savoured

I As In

    i as in sow a muskrat tooth back into jaw
i as in dented pumpkin memory
i as in deflated basketball consciousness
i as in anaphoric internet parrot projection loop
i as in holding uterine lining above a toilet bowl

I Am the People, the Mob

I am the people — the mob — the crowd — the mass.

Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me?

I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the world’s food and clothes.

A Noiseless Patient Spider

A noiseless patient spider,

I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated,

Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,

From Silvija

If you can’t speak / write in a fissured / alter-language

Of nerve-matter / dura mater / orbit of the central axis

By a crevice / scattered / venous lacunae / lamina code

Moment One

I remember my birth

like it was tomorrow, the unholy sensation

Sun Bear

yesterday at the Oakland zoo

I was walking alone for a moment

past the enclosure holding the sun bear

Internet Safety

My dad taught me to never give out my real name, age,

address, or photos. This seemed obvious to me. My fake

birthday entry was always my crush's birthday plus a

When I consider how my light is spent

When I consider how my light is spent,

Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,

And that one Talent which is death to hide

Scab Maids on Speed

My first job was when I was about 15. I had met a girl named Hope who became my best

friend. Hope and I were flunking math class so we became speed freaks. This honed our

Constantly Risking Absurdity (#15)

Constantly risking absurdity

                        …

Sonnet LV: Not marble, nor the gilded monuments

Not marble nor the gilded monuments

Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme,

But you shall shine more bright in these contents

Spacetime

We Twitter, Tinder, Tumblr through eternity. Loquacious

text messages flit from fingertips, waves of data spill

through our skulls. Every cm² of oxygen overflowing

Praying Herd: For Safe Journey

Draw a line through our scattered bodies. The pattern of fallen calves in this meadow will mirror

the constellation above. Look up. We whip our tails to a silent song:

In Jerusalem

In Jerusalem, and I mean within the ancient walls,

I walk from one epoch to another without a memory

to guide me. The prophets over there are sharing

the history of the holy ... ascending to heaven

A Red, Red Rose

O my Luve is like a red, red rose

That’s newly sprung in June;

O my Luve is like the melody

Confessions

What is he buzzing in my ears?

“Now that I come to die,

Do I view the world as a vale of tears?”

La Figlia che Piange

O quam te memorem virgo...

Stand on the highest pavement of the stair —

Lean on a garden urn —

Inner Life

Those tweets I sent about Duke Ellington

While my mom was being evicted again

According to what ethics under the sun

Can I possibly have been speaking? A

Kind of private feeling I can’t even place here

The Visions of Stone Carrier

    Stone Carrier was my grandfather, my father, my brother, and
my son. He was a good and brave man, and he taught me many
things. He shared some of his memories with me, memories

Blousy Guitar

Blousy guitar   I don’t want to count the beats   Hey Hey

My pen     I have bed hair in the best way    Daughter

of sunlight and air     and I’m glad you were born

Heirloom

My father bequeathed me no wide estates;

No keys and ledgers were my heritage;

Only some holy books with yahrzeit dates…

As Kingfishers Catch Fire

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;

As tumbled over rim in roundy wells

Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s

All About My Grandmother

Wheat daughter, prisoner of sneaky pigweed, mother

to the five corners of the world and your three hectares,

beak-nosed carpenter’s wife and the potter’s lover,

Experience

The lords of life, the lords of life, —

I saw them pass,

In their own guise,

Duras (Poverty)

“The link with poverty is there is there in the man's hat, too, for money has got to be brought in, got to be brought in somehow,” M.D., The Lover.

A Satirical Elegy on the Death of a Late Famous General

His Grace! impossible! what dead!

Of old age too, and in his bed!

And could that mighty warrior fall?

From the Catalogue of Cruelty

Once, I slapped my sister with the back of my hand.

We were so small, but I wanted to know

how it felt: my hand raised high across

the opposite shoulder, slicing down like a trapeze.

The Dictator’s Message

The Dictator’s Message

O poets

return,

we have swept

your homeland clean

of thorns and splinters

O writers

return,

to make a record of your works

from Cross River . Pick Lotus

9

How to describe sea

To someone who’s never seen it?

He lives to ninety-nine, he wants it, to see it

To walk on its glass surface, to blow the seven trumpets.

Fire Watch

Hello, listen, I’m on a field phone, do not speak until I say “over.”

Repeat, don’t talk until I say “over.” Over. Do you understand,

Thou Poem

Thou poem of lost attention and half try,

do you fear more the inner world or outer?

I do…

Invitation to Love

Come when the nights are bright with stars

Or when the moon is mellow;

Come when the sun his golden bars

Drops on the hay-field yellow.

Come in the twilight soft and gray,

The Flea

Mark but this flea, and mark in this,

How little that which thou deniest me is;

Me it sucked first, and now sucks thee,

another set of instructions

we are asking you to trust your hands. put them on your heart. trust

your heart. hear what we are saying. trust what you hear. we are

asking you to build a circle. always a circle. not almost a circle. face

Chicago

Hog Butcher for the World,

Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,

Player with Railroads and…