Bent to the Line

We paint smiley faces on Pop-Tarts for greatness.
I can’t read the fine print, but that’s okay
since we’re already screwed.

Nonesuch

This eucalyptus,
with its elliptical leaves

dangling, light and dry
as an abandoned chrysalis,

with its modest bunches
of pale pink flowers

and languid pose,
is my unattainable ideal.

[I Had Three Wishes]

I had three wishes
& I did not ask
for beauty so beauty was not
what I was given

Three Poems

The world wants me to know  
it’s okay to slip into and out  
of her. She likes it.

An Alternate Universe

It shadows you in an alternate universe of everything exactly the same and so like this:
exactly the same corridors into which darkness echoes its own expansion;

Running the National Marathon, Washington, D.C.

The wind erodes our cheeks like limestone, awakes us
to our run. There is more than one way to see ourselves
in the Sphinx.

Odaxelagnia

When I sink my teeth into you,
there is a taste, a satisfaction, the start
of a match, the catch in your throat.

Feel Happier in Nine Seconds

My happiness is twice
your size, gold-chained
to the lamppost. It strains
its waistcoat as it grows.

OF BEING TRANSMITTED ON A SILVERY ALIEN WHEEL

 Last night’s songbird. Tonight’s theremin or kite. Owls, abduction. Alighting lights.

YOU WORE OUT YOUR WELCOME WITH RADIANT ABILITY

Tarred, tarried July above the finger-point
of by-law. Quiet men

are quietly roofing in runic arrests. Progress can be stopped

Two Poems

The lucky hum of plums and peaches.
Or a tangle of
                        lingering. Skin and seeds.

Manifesto

Make a mountain out of every molehill. Roll up
            dirt the way a kid gathers snow around itself
to make a man, but skip the coal, coal in mountains
            a major reason molehills must make do,