Vostok, draft sketch

There is a lake
under miles of dark ice
warmed below by an anxious earth
It hasn't seen a sun
for fifteen million years
What will it think
when spring arrives
and a hole from above
leaks our wonder
into its privacy
alone never again

Covered

I would go to the smallest places with you
tiny, before they get big
we'd hide in their crevices and
wait out
the rain of our lives

Poems about other people

I’ll write about the same people

in different places

the places of people

I have wandered to

Truth told

I have not worn home

for ages

An afternoon alone

tastes just fine

until a single word

ruptures through

broken news

of other people

in other places

 

Entails

Everybody has an opinion about New York

They tell them to me all the time

Never asking for mine

Well I have one too

I think New York has left

and it never said goodbye

it never waved

it never missed me

it’s not turning back

And my opinion is

New York is not going to have a good time of it

Unless it figures out

that it owes me an apology.

Everybody has an opinion about New York

They hear I’m from there

They tell me about my home

Who am I to say they’re wrong?

It’s not hard to be right

But I have an opinion too

I think New York is stealing things

money, sure, always

but also

letters

language

light

and more

It has stolen everyone I’ve loved

New York has been at this for a long time

I can’t imagine where it puts all its treasure

It must have a huge garage in New Jersey

After all

I don’t think

I am the only one with this problem

But let’s be clear

I let New York do this

It’s our arrangement

for its opal eyes

tell me its nature is different

and secretly I love New York

So ignore my drama

The fault line in my opinions

Like everything else

Lies through me

Anyway, sometimes

New York trades stolen pieces back to me

in exchange for darkness

But when I wake up

They’re always gone.

Everybody has an opinion about New York

It starts

Oh

you live there?

I couldn’t possibly

Or

I would love to

Then I know what’s coming

New York is this

New York is that

Watercolor accounts

of this four hundred year old city

of eight million people

ten thousand cabs

seven hundred thousand buildings

I understand the motivation

To summarize

To answer

To tell

After all

I have an opinion of my own

I am just waiting

For the right question.

Once Upon

The white knight
is at the gate
knocking again
right on schedule
But at this point in the tale
I think it's important to point out
I am the hinge
on the door
I am the ointment infected
in the handmaidens vanity
I am the ghost
haunting the hall
I am the rot
beneath the cellar
I am the breath
wasted white into night
I am the stone
the beam
the fire
the smoke
I am the castle
ever after

Invalid Cookery... Molecular Gastronomy

I don't want to eat this. Every ounce of every thing I've made. It comes near my mouth, I send it elsewhere. I send it back. Back to the plate. Back to the oven. Back to the refrigerator. Back to Africa. Aren't children starving there still? Go feed them. Leave me alone. I am done. Dinner, you are relieved of duty. I leave the table. I fish my mouth open and run, my gills wake a galaxy of pollen and yeast. The air is filled of food. There are miles of oxygen and hydrogen and nitrogen and, from what I understand, that's most of what I am anyway. Why have I been bothering with all this unnecessary complexity? Why have I wasted so much time making something for it to become nothing? I am going to eat another way. I will eat at the master's table. I will eat the master's master. I will eat the beginning.