Gold & Yolk
I cannot claim to know about death,
but I have seen the way it makes a mother tremble
and a father crack the hard shell he had spent years perfecting.
I have seen it prolonged with the use of drugs
like with my Grandmother when she told me
Myles was lucky to go so young,
which makes me think of seeing him
with half of his skull removed
so his brain would have room to pulse and swell,
the way his body lunged forward to cough when irritated
by the tube sucking tar liquid from his lungs
because of all those cigarettes we would smoked,
the other tubes collecting and injecting,
the way hope was gained when he squeezed our aching fingers
and the way it was lost when the doctors explained
it was likely a bodily reaction, not a conscious decision,
the way his face bloated,
the color he turned before his final expulsion
of carbon dioxide — outside the trees
bent closer to us, perhaps to listen
to the goodbye whispers we were to share,
perhaps to breathe in Myles’s last breath
knowing it contained the power to change lives.

No, I cannot claim to understand death,
only a misting of its effects
like how laughter never feels the same
until guilt can be shaved from its company,
how forgetting to remember is more comforting
than remembering that you forget
with things of distraction and interest,
how legs are heavier as they slunk down the sidewalk
because public wailing is too embarrassing,
how certain sounds spark memories
of the joyous hours
and smells the stronger,
how waking up attempting to acknowledge
this day is the only this day ever granted to us
is as strong as the booze
we drank to forget,
how it is impossible to explain
how death excites life —
We were driving away from the visitation
when the grey slate sky of winter broke
into a sphere of gold and yolk
as if the setting sun’s sacred reminder
that there is yet beauty.

Framing on Liberty [the Journey of Dust]
Beginning from the saw teeth,
the wily bits skip pass the vents.

Fine particulates floating
like a plastic bag in the wind

catch draft from the motors
and blast into a grand journey.

With no ventilation, dust rapidly
drops only

if no bodies move or machine run,
if no boxes flop or forklift heave,

yet the softest breeze frees MDF
particulates to drift incredible distances,

the MDF held together by poisons,
the MDF compressed from sawdust —

the dust of dust is very fine.
Propelled from the saw’s fan

daring particles go airborne.
A pulling draft guides them

through the open door, they quicken
as the blowing duct twirls

them before landing upon her shoulder
from where her hair whip

throws them into her coworkers face.
Too small to see, he breathes deeply.

Into the lungs they go — often —
the dust of dust is very, very fine.

There is Humor
There is humor in the pimp
standing on 14th and Vine
with that giant iguana sunning
cautiously on his shoulder

Humor in electricity
that its illumination keeps us away
from our families
for the factory to keep running

Humor in the newest fashions
often flopping due to lack
of relevance needed to slather
the human body to keep a fabric

Humor in Art
for being such a slut
or conversely a virus
attaching itself to any word or cell

and Humor in Artists
for spreading their disease
into the young willing ones
teaching them addictions

Humor in the pain of birth
being a paradox of word
pain being something never felt
if not felt by birth

Humor in erections
rising everywhere on Earth
in pants and dirt
and dust and idea

Humor in multiple interests
a constant distraction upon wit
and concentration like skeet
shooting clay pigeons

*********

Humor in single mothers
flashing leg and form
dressed in mini skirt and high heel
at the Senate Restaurant

in Cincinnati winter

Humor in Gays
not being allowed to marry
because American Culture
hasn’t acknowledged biology

Humor in Death
how we all get to have it
how Tibetans give bodies
for vultures to eat

[Humor in the drunk
red face] choke

Humor in kittens chasing a butterfly
through tulip gardens leaping
then tearing her wing
she never flew again

Humor in Cotton Mill
powered by waterfall
when women gained
right to work: no vex.

and that that iguana
prefers open air
and a Hawaiian shirt
and a nice view.