She attacks public school teachers

dappled hair slightly crooked

boyish grinning muscled thighs dimpled

in sitting she bursts out laughing backing now

some dreadful spin spitting 

propaganda christened self who,

looking plenty good unburdened, wrists thick

cords tanned as tennis pennies polished and angry,

blame stains of greyed out tutors

stupored to the point of bloopers

while her supple song blares and stares

into the sun of misbegotten rungs

public education hung on, desperately

legislated into air and propagated into oblivion-

tax-lacked contrition in cul de sac backed

banks, inundated with peeling paints

exorciated by testing dates and all while

pressed styles of capital still stung tongues

in the house where she was young

i want to tell her

do not blame your teachers

for years of disinvestment,

blessed testaments to times whipped sand

in their squinting still standing

panting punting processes and ignoring hungry stunts these

growling stallions uncouth clopping amidst well-fed prowling

constitutes sure footed daily scowling into planted branches clipped

to creep in granted private trances of prostituted ideals, chances are

you will not make it out or in alone

but better broken blessings bore you

to this place for the children, 

so in good taste,

replace their plastic plates

refill cups with new tough stuff

and waste no more breath

on bombastic bait

loons, are you still out there

I do not intend to be deceived.

It is dusk. The mountains have gone

grey. Everything is drowned by the sound

of crickets, excep semis spewing dust along route 5.

Where are you now?

Whese nights--coming back to 

old hallowed ground-- the ground is just ground,

with tree stumps eaten by grubs

and moss filtering rainwater.

These days, i go to cemeteries 

to feel the wind carry me, 

closer to death than before.

searching.

I howl in some rough approximation of you,

but nothing responds.

A great horned owl. Grand echo.

Have you been hunted?

Did you not come back to see us like this?

Now it is black.

Stars stand in the wings behind

thick clouds, i know, but

mostly the whole world hangs between

the inhale and exhale.

Where shall we put this desire to see each other so clearly?

To play, when so clearly we have war ahead?

What shall happen to our souls if there is no morning,

no great siren keening, cracking the night open?

Shall everything be a bill to be paid?

This week, i worked from the dock,

laptop set and eyes blind to the wild

foraging presence all around me. But then

i came here searching, knowing

i would only have brief moments

above the water to look for you.

The ripples go out and on,

connecting the cold, deep water to the milky way.

We are all swallowed eventually by this,

a place just being a place,

but i wanted to hear again

that someone is crying for what has happened, 

that what we have lost is more than attrition,

that a world pregnant with something warm

thrums just below or above this surface.

Maybe…

Is that you calling? It sounds

more screech than song.

I do not intend be inconsolable

 

falls

oak varieties are turning red first. tannins dye the river. water, 

in slowly, patiently

getting where it must

be, becomes cacophonous

the moment it is allowed. 

the opening is all.

thunder on a cloudless sky.

I know you are weary

and promises of a wind

to carry you seem far off as spring.