Posts tagged poetry

But you are Rome

Same-thinking individual minds
Who do not protest, but bend
To the whims of the throne
Like wet grass
 
Who cheer the lion
Toss him the starving bodies
Of foreigners, slaves, and believers
And stroke the pungent crust
Of his knotted mane

Ignoring the worms
Crawling from limbs and torsos
He was too bloated to eat
To the tender, skinless place
Where you shackle his neck
To the iron gate  

you lick your lips driving home from her father’s house
and you know
if you could have her
your body would be truthful
and all the terrible things that followed your birth
would be negated—
even the flaw you will not admit is always on your mind

You sharpen the tip of spear

with your teeth,

while your wife plows the ground

with jawbone of an ox.

She is a great, black fire.

The old blood is drifting up your throat

and the witch-men sing all night

of melon-breasted women in rival villages,

but the spear is wilting in your hands.

When you are standing in the river,

you grab a fish,

tear its flesh open with your teeth, and hold it,

until the bones in your fingers break up and fly about you like moths.

The river, a fish, your fingers, moths,

the war song churning in your belly.

-From Cruelty by the poet Ai.  

moon, palm trees and sand 
we are hidden here in stripes- 
bad blood dissipates 

sun is obscured

by thick layers of gray cloud

there is no shadow

swim with the others

jostling trout vie for rank

my morning commute

migrating blackbirds

take residence in a tree

ruining my nap

we orbit the sun

which orbits the galaxy

which orbits what, dear?

the grass grows wild now

soil heaving turning under

unknowably slow