A Couple In Couplets
Two short poems from my new manuscript which may or may not be called LAND HO!
THE FIRST DYNAMITE FACTORY IN AMERICA
It is best to be believed
By your beloved, your various
Tall tales & copper prayers
Given credence on the porch.
Or it is best to be perceived
By your beloved, trusted
To be real, proof in flesh
To be realizing one’s pain
& stipulations & haste.
Or it is best to be deceived
By your beloved, hacked
To soul’s shred to get led
Out of one’s own fiery
Breath. Or perhaps it is
Best to be grieved by
Your beloved, a piece
Never started or parted
But gone away much too
Early, even though she begged
You to stay & you couldn’t.
*
PEOPLE ONCE THOUGHT SHORTS FANCY
Back when everyone worked in factories
You could get away with wearing shorts
To a fancy French Restaurant. I’d call myself
An idiot in a past life. I’ll call myself
On the telephone in the future. The rapidity
Is dizzying, my breath is catching up.
My friends turn 29, then 80. I have a dream
About a camel. I can’t keep track of you
In your plastic undergarments. The scream
Is coming from inside the house I have made
Of my carcass, my torso & legs, my meat
Suit hovering in outer space. I’m a thief
If you are a lion. Good grief tangled in dark
Cashmere. Casually, the planet grows warmer.
Neither of us panic as I button up my swim
Trunks in January. Who would’ve guessed
Any of this? I didn’t have faith I would turn
Into a good person, might as well have gone
Pumpkin. Plump is your reason, but so too
My loins. Bury your head wherever you’d like.