Wasted
1.
On the darkest days
of pandemic
I avoid the rooms
with the tools I could
easily use
to kill myself.
I’ve almost certainly
witnessed a few animals
die of their own
volition.
Squirrels, insects,
a...
Didn’t I Fuck You Once?
I’ve left the old Juilliard building,
am waiting for the #5 bus
in the dusk of my first October
in New York. Strolling by,
three trick-or-treaters smack me...
A Day In March, 2021
Such a windless day,
you lie on our driveway,
after sniffing on a forest trail.
I sit down, put you on my lap.
Your red curly coat glows;
your...
The Red
The red of the port
scar near her heart
of the Citgo sign’s glow
when I turn to the window
of my eyes from watching her
in the infusion...
The Most Portable Instrument
I am learning there is
a single horn growing
from the top of my head
Because it is invisible
no one can take it from me
When I walk down...
Love Song
“Like a swift migrating fish, the word cellulite has suddenly crossed the Atlantic.”
—Vogue (April 15, 1968)
Come, sea ripple. Come, ocean swell
of the world that...
Missing
Late spring, nights still cold, the stars clear
as spotlights, people I love keep dying.
Every week a different shocking loss:
cancer, gunshot, embolism, suicide, on and...
Diagnosis
In the beginning there was no name for the soft slippery thing
inside me — but it demanded to be held. Like a child
that could...
Battle of Silicon Valley at Daybreak
In a countryside green as a dollar bill,
with the much handled commercial vegetation
from around mall parking lots or in freeway divides,
in a landscape where...
Exposure
When I asked you to take off
+++++your neon orange trucker hat
to sit for a photo between two trees,
+++++I did feel embarrassed for you,
awkward to...
To Stand Down (And To Stand By)
A Pangyrus selection for Juneteenth.
ancestry is all i have / the only artform that
remains / how else to explain this oscillating
darkness / my id...
with what letters remain
“...because even the soul is a creature...”
- Meister Eckhart
you’re here,
telling me how
a disease survives
in saliva & blood & water
& it’s swift mutation
to rancid wine...