Writing
The Lines
Read
There has been talk of maps lately.
Maps on the news
about where the blood sprawls into the dirt.
Where ruptured veins freely vein
into fractals, into open branches
into bleeding trees of life
before they dry
and dust returns to dust.
Behold the border here.
See, this blood is tragedy.
Look across the line,
this blood is necessity.
The map makers have always been clear
that souls are interchangeable
but the lines,
the lines are holy.
So Much Has Disappeared with the Night
Read
We went to sleep with the sea on fire
and we woke up post-war.
Pacific highway
broken on the beach.
So much has disappeared with the night.
Each gray flake
was an oak
was a church
was a photograph from a bedroom wall
So much has disappeared with the night.
And the sky is poisonous
and mountainous with sorrow.
And the hazy palms break their backs
choking on the wind
and we wish that prayers could turn
into water
or an old God of the canyon could be
beckoned back
to see us and spare us
as sons and as daughters
but the hell in the brush
burns blindly black.
So much has disappeared with the night.
Each gray flake
was just Christmas
was a vase of flowers in the window.
was your mother’s garden
I cannot recognize the roads.
So much has disappeared with the night.
Sing me a Song of a Pump that went Wrong
