Internal

No empire’s really
An empire at home.

The London alleys
Of Victoria,

The Appalachian
Hollows of Reagan,

They contributed
Bodies for soldiers,

Observed holidays,
Sang the loyal songs,

But they weren’t empire,
No empire in them.

Empire’s an outward-
Facing behemoth,

The leonine paws,
Talons and sirens

That fall on your world
And rip it apart.

Down in the bellies
Of those beasts—Roman,

Persian, Han, Mauryan,
American—lives

Stay small as elsewhere,
Small and as unfair,

And Leviathan
Roars somewhere beyond

The ordinary
Internal affairs.

Swerves in Your Eyes

Bend in the way waves
Pile up in the dark—
A change in the waves,

That’s what you go on.
That wave bent this way.
This wave bent that way.

Each bend hints a point,
A thing, fact, mass, quant,
Bump guessed from the way

The waves changed their shape.
So that’s that. The rest
Comes down to the names

You give to the swerves
In the dark, in lives,
In want, in your eyes.