1. archives for upside down trees
my alien reads Al Jazeera comments
like love letters while I squeeze oranges
for breakfast, a Kenyan scientist has
invented new protocols for diagnosing
cancer, thin muslin cloth covers my glass
preventing pith from contaminating the
liquid, missives kill Palestinians faster than
doorways, cameras pick up knives to join
the upraising, everybody in the living room
is smiling at the war imagery on the
screen. Before Israel Arab land was barren
& useless now is real the highest producer
of citrus fruits in the world. I drop my
glass. Quick, someone blame the juice!
my alien reads Al Jazeera comments
like love letters while I squeeze oranges
for breakfast, a Kenyan scientist has
invented new protocols for diagnosing
cancer, thin muslin cloth covers my glass
preventing pith from contaminating the
liquid, missives kill Palestinians faster than
doorways, cameras pick up knives to join
the upraising, everybody in the living room
is smiling at the war imagery on the
screen. Before Israel Arab land was barren
& useless now is real the highest producer
of citrus fruits in the world. I drop my
glass. Quick, someone blame the juice!
***
2.
like Beatrice my alien is a screen to truth,
sometimes I muse over the quality of grief
through love, in spring my fingers depart
for greyer climes so unused to pointing.
I give up my passport, its iconography of
strange itineraries & depart for Mars immediately,
yet at the consulate an official offers a business
card in case I need assistance while I am abroad.
If I have friends who want to work in the US,
they can apply for a special visa. I follow cracked
windows not doorways. At the next booth an alien
is crying, they close the window. I give him
the debt of misreading. I don’t need a job.
The cost of the application is 250 dollars
***
3.
my alien transmits his letters on sunlight.
The invasion he writes has begun, humans
are colonising Mars with SAMS & cameras
turned to Earth like mirrors. The canals are
swelling with saltwater & dead rovers. Curiously
the signs are ominous. The beagle has landed.
I protest this intrusion of bacteria. I pull pages
from my passport to disclaim place & ownership.
Exits pursue me everywhere. Even the dirt tracks
old spirits, the rocks remember the slow heat of
lost vikings. The faultine of this time is vernacular.
Soon increments of data become another thing
to glorify. Meanwhile the thinness of the looking
glass offers another shallow ledge to fall on
2.
like Beatrice my alien is a screen to truth,
sometimes I muse over the quality of grief
through love, in spring my fingers depart
for greyer climes so unused to pointing.
I give up my passport, its iconography of
strange itineraries & depart for Mars immediately,
yet at the consulate an official offers a business
card in case I need assistance while I am abroad.
If I have friends who want to work in the US,
they can apply for a special visa. I follow cracked
windows not doorways. At the next booth an alien
is crying, they close the window. I give him
the debt of misreading. I don’t need a job.
The cost of the application is 250 dollars
***
3.
my alien transmits his letters on sunlight.
The invasion he writes has begun, humans
are colonising Mars with SAMS & cameras
turned to Earth like mirrors. The canals are
swelling with saltwater & dead rovers. Curiously
the signs are ominous. The beagle has landed.
I protest this intrusion of bacteria. I pull pages
from my passport to disclaim place & ownership.
Exits pursue me everywhere. Even the dirt tracks
old spirits, the rocks remember the slow heat of
lost vikings. The faultine of this time is vernacular.
Soon increments of data become another thing
to glorify. Meanwhile the thinness of the looking
glass offers another shallow ledge to fall on
