Not Even a Title

There were those days, usually
Saturdays, where, weather good,

You stayed inside anyway,
Waiting for something to change

In some unexpected way,
For a strange light to descend

As dome over the bedroom,
Maybe a violet glow,

You couldn’t say, anything
To indicate world off track,

Sparks, sudden grinding noises,
But nothing ever happened.

Empty Words

The proof of a hollow
In every word only
Needs God to sanctify

Abhorrent emptiness.
Sometimes you stare at words,
Your own insides swimming

With sickness and wanting
To come clean. Absolute
Vacuum’s another thing.

The beetles go trundling
Down the page, shiny, gold
And not quite capable of life.

The hungry bird, hungry
Lizard know what’s in there.
The reader never will.

The City at Evening

Maybe stop asking
What the world’s doing.
Can you find someone
Who articulates

Precisely problems,
But doesn’t lay them
At the feet of those
Defined as a group

Defined as hateful
To the group defined
Or implied one’s own?
What could get people

To step back, aside
From collective fights
Fighters celebrate
As the champions

And lyricists sing
As the surviving,
Heroic victims?
Unkindness was not

What locked you in this
Body, this barred bed,
And unfairness may
Have played a role, but

It’s rare unfairness
Can be evened out
Without unfairness
From the evening.