15.

Hikers

A forest of siddarthas
and the trees they're
wrappped around.

Wander the woods
and catch a glimpse
of the gardeners.

There's no need
to be the best
boat in the water:
you just need to float.

I've never hiked.
Well once as a college
traveller. A buddy and
I trailed along behind
goats. We whistled and
stole their bells. We

worried about the
shepherdess but she
never appeared.

My son said
'We'll win the rain'
Who wins the rain?

#weeklypoemandpic
​

12. Laptop

The age of consent
for pictures is zero.
You wearing makeup.
You wearing cowboy boots.
You pouting past your bedroom door.
Whatever you’re doing
is what you just did.
Your sister can't say ok.
You will not say ok.
It's not about me and
it should be about you.
I'll take under consideration
that I did not have this to consider
when I was your age.
I was a lightweight.
You are a computer.
You have been documented.
I’m sorry Felix
for being unthoughtful.
I was unthinking.
My thinking was nothing
next to your thinking.

#weeklypoemandpic
​

10.
​
Decisions to be made
1.
I’d forgotten she’d
lost her foot.
How had I
forgotten
forgotten.
How
had she
lost
lost it.
She walked as
though she had
her leg in a
coffee can.
The two of us were
being kicked
out of our hotel.
Broken windows
windows
and a big
mess.
Underwear and
liquor on
the piano keys.
Clear the room
she said.
There are
decisions
to be made.
2.
Beneath the
base of
each mountain
there are
spools from which
unreel all of
the ropes
for climbing
and for tying
placed there
in prehistory
unwinding and winding
and kept untangled
by uncertain mechanisms
of handlike machines
But we know
from victories
and deaths
that there
are still
decisions to
be made
#weeklypoemandpic

9. Will he never be still

He required a lap full of rabbits. His mother was mad as she had nothing with which to pay the Attractors or at the very least some advice for getting the soft things to come through the hedges and the high grass to sit on her son’s legs and hold him still. He twitched like an alien. His choreas seemed evolved as defense against being eaten. Directionless as escape from a paper bag. He calmed when carried but his movements allowed no tenderness. He will incite riots she told the Doctors. These are the spasms that urge the world to violence. There is no medical precedent they replied. Hence the rabbits.

#weeklypoemandpic
​

Number 8.

The news is not meant to be hopeful.

​A.
We were informed that the foreigners wouldn't play the match on the chosen field. Our coach said this is ridiculous. It's a good field. An old newspaper was sent over in a brown envelope. There was an article that reported on a massacre of peasants at that address. The venue had to be changed. My wife said call and rearrange. I said no it's your fault. She said you're better at this sort of thing. I said that's fine but make them something to eat. They're bound to be hungry.
B.
The tornado hit a single powder blue house. The investigators returned things directly to the family that had lived there. Bottles of children's elixirs and leftover pain medicines found four miles away. There was no one else to whom they could belong. No need to go through channels. Yes, the mother said, that's ours. Might as well take it. You never know.
C.
The sharks will turn those of us capable of love into dolphins. To make us safe, you know. Although we’ll have this place for longer, we won’t have a sense of smell like we did and we’ll think of flowers, remember honey and sadden. We’ll relearn singing. We’ll keep a wary and playful distance from the sharks but they’ll have saved us and we’ll be grateful.
#weeklypoemandpic

7.

This is
not a prelude.
This is
not
an introduction.
This is the
way things are.

A. possum

the morning's
sweet little birds
are killing me.
peck.
peck peck.

B. elemental

wood is my
favorite element.

paper is mine.

it’s not an element.
it comes from wood.

C. what to wear?

another bad dream
(gaping maws
yellow gears)

and he awoke
determined
not to have
another.

his head: cold.

remembering
all his hats:

my hats!
where
are all
my fucking
hats?

D. we used to talk

this place is the
opposite of that.
it's where they
clone insects

E. sniper

long
long
arms.
he was never
dismembered
in a former
life.

someone held
a gun out
in the dining room--
a big pistol--
and the
gangly man
sprang out
from within
the china cabinet
hands up
and pleading:

it's not true
that I
could be
anywhere.
I have to
be here!

F. the end

this is
not
a road.

this
is not
a tree.

this is
not
milk.

this is
not
a shoe
a dog or
a stump.

this isn’t
a game.
tell me

what you
see.

#weeklypoemandpic
Art courtesy of F. Shils.

love letter 13: epidemic
​
he went back for his sister.
he'd thought to
leave her but could not.

she rocked in her chair.
she put her hand to
her mouth and
cawed like a crow.

he thought he finally
understood her.
the caw wasn't a call for help
or a laugh or a comment.
it was the sound of the
last person on earth enjoying
the vibration of her voice
against her hand.

he said 'you're not alone.
I'm here with you.
let's go to school.'

even though there'd
be no school.
there were no more teachers
and there were no more students
but it was one of the words
that got her to move.

'take my hand,
walk with me out the door.'
'caw' she said.
or didn't say but
placed into her cupped palm.

caw.

where are all the
birds he thought.
the cawing birds
dusting the ground
clean with their wings.
'caw' he said
​and she arose.

#weeklypoemandpic