The body, slight and infinite, lies prone
on steel, too vivid relic of what came
and went, and will not come to life again--
The name it wore. The blood that stirred the bones. ...

Fifteen years ago, when old Irv
was still hale, he told me
when we come to see him a second time ...

I was driving along the freeway today
listening to MPR’s debate
on the threat of ISIS, terrorists enlisting
even from this state of Minnesota nice

when a Dodge Caravan speeding past
rolled down its window
and out soared a single shoe.  ...
 

My new Chemex coffee maker is built like Sylvia Plath: all cinched
waist, broad shouldered and hipped. Steeps the dark,

the bitter. I invited her in to try a cup, black but sweet: I found
sugar cubes. I invited her using my Ouija board. I hoped she wouldn’t hear  ...
 

                        For Derek Walcott, 23 January 1930 – 17 March 2017

You have to be half awake
Precarious as vernaculars
Of light  ...

a St. Sabastian of darts and terror, escaping
the slaughterhouse for the street, its gauntlet
of slow moving cars, lights flashing.

He flees past green lawns where he cannot
stop, chased by those determined to finish
the job  ...

I feel the owls gathering with the dark,
and holy words beyond translation
coming from the synagogue next door
through a thicket of white oleander.  ...

Once, I tried to make a poem into a gun, wanted to stun the world

For a moment, wanted to feel the powerful, cold heaviness of it in my own hand –

But of course, you know, it refused.  ...

Lara Holmes is not a drunk.  She seriously objects to labels which reduce individuals to past participles. Lara would hardly be capable of saying “past participles” if she were drunk – ‘a drunk’. She never drinks on week nights- not since last week’s scare on the bypass; the blue lights jerking her out of early morning autopilot ...

5AM, a spattering of robins and wrens
chattering about the coming light

                   and the dangers of the waking world
in a balding ash.  A television blares    ...