Poetry

Just as a swarm pours from a hollow rock
In one long beeline for the wild thyme,
Alighting in clusters on this purple and that,
But is stricken with a mass amnesia
That disorients the compass of the sun,

My room’s the shape of a cage
The sun crooks his arm through the bars

My enemies used to annoy the hell out of me with their fake cheerfulness, their pathetic need to be liked, or their drive to dominate every conversation. 

Do you know the poems of Max Jacob?
Do you know Talese, Gay? Swenson, May? 
Do you know Goldfinger, alias Gert Fröbe?
Do you know Robinson, Sugar Ray?

When you parted the muslin curtains, the white branches of winter trees became the arms of girls in their spring frocks in April and May.

I teach them to behave just like the rest.
They’re marked as absences, take up no room.
They only raise their hands when others do.
They never speak, even when spoken to.

the wind carries 
its empty package 
through the streets

The cloud moves off the escarpment.
The man is seen on the granite face,
A spider, hanging for a long time

What did he say, coming out of that cave
After a hundred forty days, and the world
Still skipping past the stars, the sun