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It’s in the sitting, the unstudied control 
of your bent frame for the light, the eye

batting hair unblown 
the aerobatic housefly’s 
derring-do, unswatted 

all the world zigging, it’s all 
in the sitting, the sitting

for the generational blessing
of a stern visage with flock
unattended, ten minutes

of unsmiling photons 
weaving silver waves, clashing 
on copper plates, a one hundred

and eighty year wait 

for just a shade
of your face

Friday Writings #200: To the power of 10

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Unpenned

you could say we lost our child
or heaven gained an rogue, or parents’ bodies
doubled and shaking mimic the broken stalks
of a species native to hell, or say Christmas 

cards languish unpenned 
in shamanic silence, tucked 
in a box of locks 

you can say we gained a PIN code
pecking out grief’s numerology, attached 
to every account, every transfer reborn 
and wet like fine hair freshly emerged

but, whatever you say, say enchiladas 
are still enchiladas, and music
is still loud enough to stir the ash
and see the moon and say, “the moon!”

say statistics are coughs, and say we
are side-eye dancing, glancing 
into oblivion, you could say

when hands are held tightly
to keep ourselves up, it’s the guts 
that punch back, or you

could say that is a bold face
for a lotus in December 

_________

Friday Writings #199: gut-punch 

Allhallowtide

On the horizon, thin and without reason

October scribbles across the sky in empty limbs

        a pinch from a preseason tyrant—the month                 coughing like a blade retracting

behind a black curtain, disease haunts the stage

shadows long, so certain, so long, everybody 

        burning summer’s sickly sonnets

                in fires barely hot enough to choke smoke

the children contemplate half-emerging skeletons

on the beach, they do not know their parents

or which few of them will pull through

        as the tide pulls back, October reveals 

                bony white reflections in the salty water

there is no votive, no hymn 

for their wordless struggle

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Friday Writings #198: October Writes

Tools

we’ve all been goat-shrubbed
bearded with salt, brothers in gray

eventually the night will be enough 
to delight our empty bowls
after all, what’s left

for four common subjects 
who will one by one step off
this green pedestal
from which we peered
into each other’s years

dad’s yard fading to beige
what did those tools do anyway

who will hide his keys
the snub-nosed .38, now
who was whose keeper

Friday Writing: Poets and Storytellers United

September Clocks In

ants go side-by-side, ark style 
across the sink, called in
 
by the autumnal deluge 

of their little ant genesis

a nomadic gulch 

twig-shadowed and dank 

carries the fluff

of the last goose

the hayrides of tobacco, mugs

and blankets trot across the bridge

the football boys are 

pushing fire and stolen

cabinet liquor, the ritual

of binge-watching a leaf 

nature and cinnamon rhyme 

like dawn and apparitions

the fundamental work of powerline 

squirrels is the last real industry 

until winter hijacks 

our mortal ears

(Friday Writings #196: Hello Fall!)

Excite Your Palate with Meat Mania

when the flavor of the highways

and beelines gets too much

and the salt of wandering lines

crusts over your tongue

beg a little pepper off the sun

a sufficient bubble 
will break forth great rains

and sin will ice your veins
leaving you hungry
for a palate of two 

by two and glittering
giblets by the scoop

a common heat spells out the cuts
of pigeon grit and sidewalk guts

and when you stand on dry ground
face the heavens and throw up

your resounding grace 
for a scraped gray plate
and bowl bursting with
everflowing returns

of a meat soaked meat 
and eyes scraping
barren fields
for daily wheat

 (Give Us This Day Our Daily Spam Feb. 9, 2025)

Y0UU HAAVE BEEEN PAlID 1OOO.OO DlREECT T0 Y0UUR ACC0UUNTT

your bread so abundant you must

dangle it like a price tag to the kingdom

but I’m not buying it, my hands

rest palm down, for so long

receiving was always a whisper 

of last night’s moon

I’m past that, promote whatever 

funding hums, it’s your paper 

balance your gift

in the wind, we know 

your payout is a glare

so forgive me if

my silence is thick, stacked

with side eye, ain’t nobody

ever gave me nothing, keep it

that way, your transaction

idles, nothing comes

from nothing and nothing

will come of it nohow

that is how

my bread rolls

down my street

unpaved on account

of nobody

(Give Us This Day Our Daily Spam Feb. 8, 2025)

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Thinking of resurrecting my Give Us This Day Our Daily Spam project where I use my email's spam inbox as a writing prompt, using words from the email in the poem and the subject line as the title. We'll see how it goes.