Adversarial
who died this morning
who broke
who was unready
I walked up and down
above and below
the questions answered me
how lewdly they talk
and how poor a pit
is the belly
Anxious poems
Anxious poems — a collection of the best works on PoemShip.
Dilettante
as a kite I could be impertinent
to the weight of numbers
the weight of cellars
where night is spoiling
I fear the atelier
if we must have hands
Standard issues
this day of the sword
I look after my knives
having not a penny
to pay the sea
like an ungrateful lover
near poverty
who is scornful about
playing a bad hand
Men in cloaks
undressed by order of the crow people
an ill usage of land they neither heard nor saw
their sick kissing unmissing the plague
King of clubs
how great and sudden
is a chance hand
sitting in the sea
a king may lose his office
lose his own head
to the state of play
Pastoral Symphony
the flutter of a violin
over the fields
what secret armies come quietly here
where it storms
Citizen, lunatic
tired of the war lies
growing every day
I am given to unquiet
like the sea
and wonder at the deadened
glory of a moon
which I shall not think safe
out of my sight
Origins of horror
a new home
below the present one
wants the world
that they love least
like nature gone
to iron and money
in the damp cellar
long things grew
little fingers that must
be rubbed with blood
and would not eat
and cried to be a doll
Homeland security
in some safe country
I am poor
for want of disorder:
loose paper
mad eyes
frequent attempts to pray
In Babylon
Dust. Flies. The sour smell of exhaust.
Muskmelons sliced open in the street.
Pools of green shade in hidden courtyards.
Blood-stained flagstones.
How does this butterfly missing half a wing
still fly so well?
A sound too deep for human hearing
makes the towers sway for a few seconds
before returning to their heat-struck shimmer.
Car alarms start up all over the city.
The butterfly doesn’t miss
a drunken beat.
Notes on the Economy of Scale in Tegucigalpa
Hotel Agua Azul
Held captive for the diversion of furtive
couples on weekend flings,
below the terrace a spider monkey
swings by his tail, kicking off
the tree trunk with one hind foot
while the other clings to the chain
dangling from the collar. He keeps it up
for hours, as if driven by hidden
gears & springs. But draw a chair
within range & the pendulum stops,
he clambers onto the deck & slings
a hairy palm in your face, importuning
food, trinkets. Whatever brings relief
to a life of boredom, you think,
searching your pockets, going through
The claw
Snow annealed by sun
on a tin roof, followed
by a cold night, holds
together the next day
as it slides off
the edge & begins to yaw,
curling under the eaves:
a white claw. I think
of a Siberian tiger
with corrugations for stripes,
hell-bent on breaking
out of its fort. The icicles’
dagger-tips drip with
their own fluid —
saliva of a sort.
A wavy sky always denotes
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