Volunteer
bury me in the spring garden
empty me of use and art
and people me with plague
for all the news is that we must go to war
so I may prove I did
what I could
Anxious poems
Anxious poems — a collection of the best works on PoemShip.
Summit
a solemn day for lying
when the truth dropped
what do they shoot
at that time of day
how high is high
Holidaymakers
we kiss and do not tell
how all things end
profess great kindness
at a plague house
I hear that pretend mouth
the evening sea
Industrial park
over all the mills
a white haze
is this holy water
this form of plague
Night out
my head aching with too much night
I hear nothing but owl
meet with nothing but wild stone and woods
Mal vivant
doubt flowers in each place I drink
each quiet home with the misfortune
of having me within
about my art
about my purpose
and I rant till past two
Liability
my mind full of fears
were it not for our mouth
I would be glad to be rid of it
Jet lag
up in the all-
day night
the upper-
weary bed
Defector
come back to the gun
mother
come out of the country
of the deer
Exigencies
time is too great
to make use of
hived in glass
you may be making honey
not love
a beautiful woman
cut off her own breast
out of convenience
Abuzz
busy morning
at home in the almost
midnight ear
Vacuuming the beetles
Hundreds of ladybugs huddle together
in clumps in the corners where wall
& ceiling meet. I point the black tube
like a magic wand, a reverse rifle,
& the beetles disappear with the briefest of rattles
down the vacuum’s plastic throat.
This is nothing like hunting, no meditative wait,
no tense silence or rush of adrenaline.
Snuffing out these house invaders, I feel nothing.
I am alone with the sound of the cleaner,
which cancels out every competing thought.
If there were sound in space, a star
would howl like this when it collapsed into itself:
detritus from the ceiling, meet the detritus from the floor.
Bright clot of color, flame,
here’s a sackful of dust in which to gutter.
Describe a feeling — we’ll find a poem
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