Arms Outstretched Like Jesus

I was walking around, looking for something to steal, the precise angle of the sun, the state hospital for the criminally insane, a window so grimy you can’t see through it. There was a baby, handcuffed, searched, told to stand right here, while the bell screamed in the next room. If we can’t create like gods, we can at least destroy like one. Birds fly away as if there were somewhere to go.

The Wasted Lives of Cheating Spouses

I live at the end of a dirt road.

The flowers in the window boxes always bloom,

but only to perish suddenly.

What looks like an accident is really planned.

I live at the beginning of the century,

the thin, empty tree out front ashamed of mankind.

Disintegration Nation

1

Everywhere it’s gray and drizzly

like an ex-con’s faded tattoos

or the emptiness of a Sunday evening

when the next day meant school.

2

Some doors can’t be opened;

others click close behind us.

The heart silently screams.

A true story,

but with some words missing.    

3

The ghosts of the murdered,

whose habitual condition is rage,

gather up bayonets and guns.

You travel throughout the land,

weeping in every capital.