Everywhere

People read poetry every motherfucking day
they don’t see it ‘cause its always in the way
Advertisements are
poetry
text messages from your wife
poetry
the tape on the roadsigns
poetry
the shape of a coastline
poetry
next lesson you learn in life
poetry
smith and wesson and a knife
poetry
even mistakes of mine are
poetry

for God’s sakes poetry dies at doomsday and no earlier

Full Moon

A full moon suicide
a boon for the few girls I’d ride
and overstay my welcome
while they mentally plan
for the times after me
disastrous catastrophes

no strophes
could release me
from the disease ridden empties
trophies
relentlessly tempting me
hopelessly

Justice

Nobody writes acrostics anymore
Obviously they're annoying and poor
Bloated and cloying and stupid and sore
Objectively worthless and scores upon scores of
Dog-dead acrostics, compiled and left to expire
Yielding ashes in the wilds of library fires

Writhing and smoking like chimneys or tires
Ripping and rippling and rasping smoke higher
Into the atmosphere, dithering, dissipating
Tithing and withering, falling on unanticipating
Editors and forgettors of verses lost to our poor forms
Stupid and bloated and cloying and annoying and worthless and sore

Actually I'm rather beginning to like this
Call me a liar but I think I could write this
Resurrect a whole form through my pen
Or maybe not. But I won't tell you when
Suppose acrostics fade to black then finally end
Time to bring it back, like a grade-school friend
Inspiration and in the day it made you grin
Contemplation make you feel that gooseskin
Suppose you never read acrostics ever again?

Professor

“Professor” holds such weighty connotations:
Professional prose profferer,
profile of prolixity,
proveditor of verbiage
for a
paedarchy of privileged pupils

Intertext

Whatever sound I set
it signifies something
tugging at my heartstrings
getting my blood pumping

a little text
nimbly prepared sets
of finger pecks
characters from whereabouts unknown

I pray that they’re hers but I haven’t yet checked my phone

Apply Within

For this position

the best applicants are animals
cannibals who handle well
vandals on orangutan swells
sandals clad in carcasses and shells

We accept resumes

written in a foreign tongue
fought and wrought and slowly sung
bought and fraught with lowly rungs
like ladders matter to the young

Joblessness among black male youth

reached 35 percent
government subsidence
victims innocence
missing like this month’s rent

money spent

Citron Clouds

The clouds were eerily orange all night
despite the insistent bluewhite
of moonlight

there is always orange and purple
rummaging among the clouds
however, at the height of citrus season

the oranges marinate,
saturate their
moist brethren with a citron glow

unmistakable this time
winter:
apricot,
auburn,
bronze,
carrot,
coral,
Dancy,
electric,
Fanta,
ginger,
Hyssop,
Iyokan,
Kinnow,
lemon,
lime,
Mandarin,
Meyer
Nandina,
orange,
peach,
pumpkin,
Rangpur,
salmon,
sandy,

and finally

Tangerine.

Prison

secret infidel hedonism
breeding isn’t even
on my mind but reading is

seeding this vixen
eyes unwinding my mission
comepletionism,

Christmas.

Love.

and fucking

Prison Systems.

Success

Is it sexist
that successes
are measured in
such excesses?

No Accident

I know that that
“I love you”
was no accident
or force of habit.

but what of love
hidden under sewer grates
and flown tied onto ankles
of carrier pigeons?

love like blades
lurking beneath cloudy water
ready to butterfly
those who dare wash up

this love or less
more or less
painful than before
a dutiful, beautiful mess.