On an Abraham Lincoln Statue
Honest Abe and his jaunty top hat
were not suited for working with scat.
Now his dull head is bare,
just a nest of gray hair
onto which a bird promptly has shat.
Honest Abe and his jaunty top hat
were not suited for working with scat.
Now his dull head is bare,
just a nest of gray hair
onto which a bird promptly has shat.
everyone in this room could be dying
more than all of us already are
the lights are bright
the chairs are hard and too small
the staff smile and make lightweight small talk
about freshly washed, unruly hair
or mid-work-week reliefs
the patients talk small with them
smiles trained and stretched across
unrelenting pain and weariness
this place is a chapel
the religion, a sincretism of drugs and prayer
these are not elegant drugs
all sledgehammer and crumbling skyscraper
I want to kneel at all of their feet
these parishoners
and hold their hands tightly in mine
and ask them if they are going to die
ask them what they will do
if they live
ask them if the innermost want of their being
has been realized
or if it crouches snarling within them
daring them to delay any longer
Oh my name is Jesus Christ
and I’m here to say
its fun to rap
in a righteous way
I like to use magic
turning water into wine
I’m the best guest at your wedding
everyone is feeling fine
I’m really not that picky
I’ll be anybody’s savior
So listen up to Santa and
Be on your best behavior
like my dogs hanging
out the car windows
on our way home
while I play some
funky punk folk song,
and they lean into the wind,
unbothered.
(Golden shovel from morning mantra prescribed by a kindly monk on a peace walk)
Today
so many will
fall to our greed. Tiny one, may you be
held safe in the strong pine, not to please me or my
kind, but for caterpillars and rain, for peaceful
morning sunbeams, for your summery Chicka-dee-dee day.
told me that a blue bird
landed on his porch
last night
one time he told me
that if a butterfly landed
on you
then that was good luck
and another time
years ago
he didn’t want to
be alive
anymore
i hope he heard it sing
i hear that
if you listen
and if you’re
quiet enough
they make such a
beautiful sound
Way down South, at times, you’ll taste that metal
in the mouth. It rises up—burning gall—
in the back of the throat, while the blood swells
and turfblack bakes in Kentucky sun and smells.
One can hear ringing in the ears, death-bells.
It ain’t dying! Let it bring you alive.
Make like those saintly martyrs, soon to die.
Taste taints of metal, crack your teeth and dine.
Break your face off in between the white lines.
Haste it like you’ll die, seek and ye shall find.
Take, give, fight. Just fucking mean it. You’ll be fine.
Aches, those pains, it hurts because you’re so alive.
I hid from Death
underneath the covers
of my new old top bunk
while my brother lulled
peacefully beneath me.
birds in tall grass peck
