sick day

Across the street small men in brightly colored hats
put finishing touches on a block of modern flats

too costly for a move, too drab, too pointedly
brand new to be moved into anyway, the free

espresso for potential future tenants not
withstanding. Absentee developers have caught

themselves in their own snare of advertising: Close
To Everything—just not quite something on its own.

But young urban professionals will bring enough
of their own character to bear, will pile stuff

against thin particle board walls to insulate
their quiet lives from neighbors and the clubhouse, race

to call the elevator for themselves alone,
that this five-story glass and sheer fascade will show

itself not flat and lifeless, not a concrete pall,
but suitable for any kind of life at all.

howard carter discovers cup noodles

When first we broke the seal
a dry wind scattered dust
out & from the makeshift
opening we had made
carried but a hint of
riches beyond measure

howard carter discovers femininity

Why do the breasts of this
figurine swell so when
being made of stone
they are utterly with
out feeling cold & not
in the slightest useful

howard carter discovers downton abbey

What an exceptional
specimen New Kingdom
To be sure a costly
facsimile & yet
that vase does capture the
spirit of the ancients

howard carter discovers true love

I would shift the sands of
this whole Valley for a
place beside you I would
clasp you like a scarab
amulet to my heart
& never stop digging

tardigrade in space

Is this all
there is? Small
claw-fingered

arms and no
thing to grab
onto? In

another
life I trod
water

unseeing
all the day
in a pond

I endured
I was one
of many

Now I look
out onto
the stars

soliders & sailors

I.
As propaganda not less useful for
Arriving straight from central casting more
Than fifteen reconciled years too late

As for its placement one block south of “that’s
Too far to walk, let’s go and eat,” one passes
Solitary, numbed in winter, plain

Exhausted in the summer, by the tall
Senescent landlocked stone memorial
To Soliders and to Sailors of this State,

Which not quite meeting roughly drilled-out eye
To eye refuses confrontation, sighs,
And looks to urbanine sophisticates

To say, as any soldier ought to know,
You mustn’t hold your Love out like a Rose.

II.
Too like the sailor with his manly grip
Upon the rigging of an absent ship,
The overardent Lover risks his footing

And the self respect that comes of all
Promotions: might maintain his pride, stand tall,
But only in imagination looks

Himself to his superiors. Without
A cool detached reserve to hand to rouse
One’s interest, he plays it by the book

As long as he can stomach it. He makes
His hammock, lies in it, and then he begs
For recognition. He denies he took

For granted fashions were no more than clothes
And wore his tribulation like a Rose.

III.
But I was never asked to die for Love
Protests the cantering thick-bearded rough
Rider. You have my indignation — why

Should that be insufficient? It was more
Than surfeit to you in a time of war.
A gentleman when bested only finds

The patience to acknowledge it the once,
And then to rein in possible affronts
To come he buys a horse one hand higher

Than what he had before. I bought and burned
My sacrifice, gave you a chance to earn
Your Love and save it in the charge: a price

Too like the wild stallion I suppose,
Who cannot help but trample on a Rose.

IV.
The Lover carries like a cannon shot
Reverberating on the bluff, and hot
Upon the ear of bystanders appeals

To natural law for his excesses. War
Is not the province of the weak of course,
So he has never felt the touch of fear

Nor ever been waylaid by patient doubt
Which waits beside the lesser-travelled routes,
No: not this far behind the line, concealed

From knowledge of the enemy or thought
Of anything beside his tent, his cot,
His mortar’s trigonometry revealed

In subtle arcs and sudden lights opposed;
A distant scent, a charred, a burning Rose.

laurence

A gilded tree in flower or a rose
bush gnarls upward far beyond in height
in girth in execution any posed
and underpaid life model toward the high
glazed skylight in the corner of the room.
Constructed of a living wood, hand carved,
dark polished, like the living it assumes
the sun life giving still, and bears the hard
grained scars of its invention underneath
gold filigree. It is intended to
be set straight on against the wall and seen
for what it holds: its branches by a rude
and obvious art supporting coals that writhe
St. Laurence of Rome upon his pale gridiron.

Gathering their rope
and tackle two men
speaking Spanish lift
themselves to point out
gaps between red bricks