4 a.m. (Raised Hands! DON'T SHOOT!)

News hits hard
In the middle of the night.

This silence

Can’t cushion the blow.

Rocks and bullets fly,

Flames reach high.

Dark lives feel the fury,

This story isn’t mine.

Pain strikes deep

In the middle of the night

When blameless eyes

are terrorized.

Truth and madness hover,

Lives in disarray.

Too late to call the doctor,

Hope has passed away.

Time stops moving

In the middle of the night

Men, dead asleep or

Dead on the street.

Daylight moves in.

News moves fast.

Onto the next page,
This is the past.

Leaf Peeping in Union Square

Big tree, you are a dark, old man

With flaming hair,

Streaks of gold,

and the confidence of age.

Your sons and daughters

Mimic you and form

An impressionistic landscape.

I am impressed.

We came here just for you,

But you are heading out,

Fading into the night.

Don't leave so soon!

A black metal rail

Separates our families.

No touching, please!

Let us pass in peace.

We walk on in autumn's hue,

Gathering up what's left of

Brittle life and watching

As yours flutters away.

It's Like This (Teenage Migraine)

So, I wake to a silent film,
Black and white, before the talkies
Like I'm high without drugs.
It's a circus of, like,
Glowing stars
Whirling fans and
Pixel dots
That come and go.
Like shadows crawling up the wall
and dripping down the wall.
And then they, like, disappear.
So, I watch, curious as
My right hand, like, disappears.
Half your face disappears.
So, I turn my head and
my left eye,
The eye that sees,
Finds your face,
Finds my hand.
It's, like, really entertaining.
Until the show stops.
Then thunder shakes my skull,
Blasts my brain
Explodes.
Like, my stomach,
There goes my stomach.
Hurry, hurry, get a bowl!
So, I hold my head,
Grab my gut.
Hurting, hurting
Like, endless, scary pain that's
Like no other.

Holy Relic (A response to Andy Warhol's "Saint Appollonia")

She stares ahead with

Unprotesting eyes.

Resignation takes the place

Of purpose and pain.

She set men's teeth on edge

So they knocked hers out.

But they didn't knock her down;

She holds that tooth high.

She wears a Da Vinci smile,

The Queen's colors,

Warhol's vision

Of a second coming.

The artist details

The cracks in the wall,

The cracks in her skin,

The certainty of age.

But for this,

The icon would fade,

Her soul ablaze,

Extinguished by faith.

Lemons (On the Wane)

You did not grow here.

I carried you in

From a fertile foreign landscape

To grace the table where I feast

And brighten up the banquet

With your gusty blaze but

You languished and

You paled.

Your skin is leather now,

Pebbled

Like an old woman's chin,

Withered from neglect

You are a sunny day gone gray,

A rough leather sphere

Split wide open

To reveal chambers of

Wet flesh and

Soft tissue,

Membranes and seeds

Still crying for nourishment

And purpose.

Filled with

Fluids once vital.

But sour, oh so sour

this nectar that

Curdled the cream.

Silence is Not Golden

Silence is a secret puzzle,
Questions unspoken,
Answers unknown.

Speaks no language,
Has no voice,
No mother tongue.

Shh!

Silence betrays reason,
Writes no lyrics,
Sings no song.

Hides a troublesome truth,
A bride's betrayal,
A bruise or a scar.

Shh!

Silence tells an unheard tale
Of more in store,
Of palpable lies,

Holds rubbish undercover,
With pipes to drain,
Venom to milk.

Shh!

Silence rises up,
like a dark horse
Penned up, waiting,

Conceals a weapon, a tool,
A mother's scream,
A noiseless passing.

Shh!

Morning Flower (Guo Xiao Hua)/Abandoned

A morning flower sprung
From god's good earth
In autumn's dawn,
Its tiny stem then
Fiercely cut,
The bond
So quickly severed.
No celebration, no naming,
No song. Simply
A secret, a seed
Sown afoul.

A sprout transplanted in the dark
Wrapped and relinquished
At the outer gate
Like a special delivery package
Unclaimed
Surrendered like a jailbird
to a false prison
Serving a sentence
For breathing air
In a place where life
Is forbidden.