THE LONG WAY AROUND

The religion of flowers,
Hollow yet full of seed,
Speak of bumblebees and laughter,
Agitation and a stretching of skin.
Did not Luther call for the death of all Jews
And Calvin the end to free will?
Did Noah’s son not catch him drunk and dangerous,
Muhammad not marry a nine year old,
David not rape virgin children and Jesus
Did he not know an intimacy with prostitutes?
The chamber connecting heaven to hell
A thin film of ice and the road leading to it
Harsh and unrefined.
Shylock walks with Antonio.
They seek shelter from wind and ghosts.
“I was wrong,” he tells Shylock again.
“No matter,” Shylock answers. They are friends.
Antonio carries the parcels of both men.
In the distance they spot an inn.
The bell at the door screams profanity
And a two headed madness gives them a key.
They walk into a room of cut glass and rust,
Shards of bone and black wisps of snow.
Sleep is never easy in the corridor of hell.
Morning finds madness calm and bleeding.
Antonio and Shylock leave refreshed.
Blood lilies litter their path, leeches hang on leaves,
Huge peaks fill the valley with daggers,
And there are wonderful waterfalls,
Ice canyons, the injured smears of followers
Hard at work to free their kings.
How simple everything always is.

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THIS IS HOW SHADOWS LAY ACROSS CEMENT BLOCKS OR HOW MIST CAN BLOCK THE SUN

How he walked away had everything to do with everything.
How she held her breath without knowing as he left,
the view through the window off color somehow, more green than blue,
a haze over the mountains, the door closing,
the sudden nervous smell of concern and worry.
One day everything will be made clear,
a bird perhaps, a dog, maybe a giraffe.
The landscape will no longer be layered.
The light before the thunderstorm will make her brave.
Her hands will cease to open and close when she thinks of him.
She will know he was not the right tune hummed in the night lights..
She will understand the hypothesis did not favor the result.

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THIS WAS ONCE A LOVE POEM

Go on; enjoy yourself. I'm not returning
home this winter. I don't want to make the mistake
of another year, Missouri a long way off,
full of superstition, omens, and witch's meat.
I'll miss the ripeness of soil, the grazing river,
wild turkeys, possums in the abandoned car,

the red fox living beneath the house, voles
camped in the hills. Some things need endings
more than others, superstition a heavy master.
Splitting poles, spitting on the broom, Sankofa birds,
pockets hanging inside out near running water,
the fourth floor, a sneeze without a bless you,
how the new year begins at midnight.

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