poetry

  Butterfly feast, hillside on fire. So many   bright things dulled   in the wind. This is how we pass, unnoticed.

  look, my monologue has broken off I don’t know who’s guilty maybe my own brain allured towards another light by the little beggars who tug on your sleeves   small change echoes in a soundbox

  she told me to color my hair and cut it I want to stay wild as in my childhood when the trees were god’s lungs and the stars the yellow eyes of a frightened beast I step over roots … Read More

  leave me alone with my head under the pillow so I can’t hear you when you talk in your sleep leave me alone in my darkness at my flag stop where two trains pass through each other without colliding

  To touch the indentation, purled and pinched, centered in a swale of flesh between bone ridges, point   where tissue was severed, and we were torn from the beat of blood-music—to crown, to slip the caul, to cry.   … Read More

  a man who covered his body in tattoos, tattoo, its root in seventeenth century Dutch for “turn off the taps,” prolonged bugle call to tavern owners so soldiers would go back to their barracks. Tattoo, the word itself elongated … Read More

  两龟乘犊车， 蓦出路头戏。 一蛊从傍来， 苦死欲求寄。 不载爽人情， 始载被沉累。 弹指不可论， 行恩却遭刺。   Two tortoises on a cart pulled by a young ox find a sudden drama on the roadside. A demon insect crawls in from the verge and begs like the devil … Read More

  少年何所愁， 愁见鬓毛白。 白更何所愁， 愁见日逼迫。 移向东岱居， 配守北邙宅。 何忍出此言， 此言伤老客。   Why is that young man upset? He’s scared to see white hair. Why does white hair spook him? He worries as days rush him on. So, he moves east to … Read More

  智者君抛我， 愚者我抛君。 非愚亦非智， 从此断相闻。 入夜歌明月， 侵晨舞白云。 焉能拱口手， 端坐鬓纷纷。   The wise shun me. I shun the fools. But I’m neither foolish nor wise, so I break off contact. At night, I sing to the bright moon. At daybreak, I … Read More

  Dear furred tongue, dear slack tongue of the coach, dear set piece in the apocryphal lore of a mad philosopher, you were flogged mercilessly at Piazza Carlos Alberto for refusing to pull the angry cabbie’s fare along the Via … Read More

  To hack an ode from a 40-year-old tree, you must spare the lower branches so they can care for roots while the new variety takes hold. Scions dislike the day, so slip gloves over your skin and seal their … Read More

  and the clouds keep coming   and the brook is overflowing   and raindrops keep falling   on my head but it’s no longer   the same tune and I feel like   weeping myself and how   do … Read More