Monthly Archives: October 2010

The moon
does not blame its silence
on smaller stones.

–anonymous poet on ahapoetry.com

Cycle Time

At the end of the Edmund Pettus bridge
in Selma Alabama
where they beat
Martin Luther King’s marchers
until some were unrecognizable,
now sits a coffee shop
where you can get
a great latte.

Where they castrated and hung
the striking IWW workers
from the bridge
in Centralia Washington,
you’ll find a mall
of discount stores.

And at the Foxconn factory in Taiwan
where they built the iPhone
I am writing this poem on,
and where the bosses hold rallies
to try and stop
even more workers
like Nan Gang
from committing suicide,
you’ll find the factory
where they built
the iPhone
I’m writing
this poem on.

Sitting under the arbor
at the Samovar tea room
overlooking the Yerba Buena gardens,
the fountain
and the well-muscled buildings
surrounding–

Suddenly we look up
from our moroccon mint
and Earl Grey–

To a sound that seems louder than creation–

An urgent thrust of sky filling, infinity shrinking roar
rattling the cups, scattering the pigeons, scraping everything before it
like a bowling pin setter from hell,
rolling down the office canyons,
a hot arrogant wind…

….again….

…and again…

..and again…

It’s the fucking Blue Angel squadron
in town to show off
our collective prowess
at reminding the world
our dicks
are big and blue
and spray death
like the nozzle of God.

Erasing Edna St. Vincent Millay’s The Plaid Dress

Strong sun, bleach
this dress, violent plaid,
the yellow stripe,
the flashy green,
the recurring checker,
the serious breach of taste.

I fear, this garment–
strip it off!
Send me homeward eased and bare.

The hair,
lining the subtle(?) gown
is not seen,
but it is there.