Planes have stopped searching the sky for answers
as the crowd gathers into the terminal, fists up.
For once, we are made of metal– wings to give
the silenced flight. We mobilize on the ground
with footsteps of thunder, voices of titanium.
In rising, we promise to fly, scan the landscape
for green landings. Drop the ladders down,
worry about the pressure– not the altitude.
(originally published in Urtica Lit Blog, Summer 2019)
a fog this white mess of morning driving out of Ohio
trees dressed for a funeral per the new norm
dilapidated barns redbrown in the green
grass corpsebrown snow an oil stain birds
couldn’t afford flights home this time their muddywater
wings a gunk on the canvas of sky
the countryside is tainted
Abbey Road scores this thread of potholes
we pass a sign Muskingum County initially read as
musking gun
how bulletsmoke
rises from pores of the greendead ground
until all we know is the death encompassing
fog clears at noon
birds ravage a halfdeer
carcass
(originally published in South Florida Poetry Journal, Summer 2019)
We march through the airport in cold winds chanting
aluminum fists in the air and when we come home
the Fireball bottle is empty. The chimney is covered
in dust and Johnny has pneumonia for the second time
this year, lungs filled with water but no one else
breathes easily, just tuning into television fills a room
with coughs and silence. We had wings for a minute
but the planes have resumed their spots in the air far
away from the things that hurt. Just gazing down on
wide landscapes of gray plains and small churches
crumbling from the steeples.
(originally published in The Courtship of Winds, Summer 2019)
tell your father to pull out, tell your mother
to hide. there are children of your children
who exist in an illness of blood,
bone, skin, hair, and lung.
there is a barren landscape–
stone predated ocean,
before the earth was
sick with smoke, plastic.
bacteria teemed on this rock
like an unstoppable infection
that infected power
to make powerless those infected.
(originally published in 45 Poems: for the Revolution, 2019)
in a moscow hotel room
shadow brokers partied
with stolen american
cyberweapons over the
counterintelligence
they wanted public
the americans
drank everything
and partied through
the night
(originally published in Scarlet Leaf Review, Summer 2018)
Build bridges, not walls,
though bridges ice faster
than roads we traveled–
hundreds of miles,
only to boomerang back
to before, while thousands of
armed windmills gasp for air–
the sunset through the bug-
stained window moves faster
than us toward a semblance of home–
swirls of clouds quivering
into the arms of weeping
willows simply
weeping–
(originally published in The Wayward Sword, Summer 2018)
The whole year has been hurricane season
in this nation of bayous haunted by ghosts
of cowboys shooting bullets into the clouds,
gunsmoke in the air, then a disaster of rain.
Save us, God, from these dark clouds looming–
there are too many more bodies to save.
(originally published in The Los Angeles Review of Los Angeles, Summer 2019)
Easy you observe the brimstone gold
plated on a perch and the gulls above
broadcast O ye airwaves message
static
this white noise raging in the country
someone forgot
the clamor in the background of the FM radio
(originally published in New Pop Lit, Spring 2018)
out of nowhere there’s a razor-thin wire hope
smoke from the top of the mountain and
we small spectators watching those distant trees
burn chatter among ourselves that finally there’s
a chance to reveal the truth about the source of smoke
and to be honest we’re terrified if there isn’t
a fire because we see it and wonder what else
is covered up because it’s there all around us in the air
(originally published in Rabid Oak, Spring 2018)
Don’t peep the flag, its withered stars &
snakelike stripes a windsail blown to hell–
cleats in fake grass, the dead broil of fall.
(originally published in Cabildo Quarterly, Winter 2018)