Sunday #22

Consume


Feed those eyes on multicolored delicacies
arrayed like parade floats stuck in a box
of cold and glass.
          Feed the fingers, too,
that, grease-covered, rip through skin
and flesh to pluck the prize from dry bones--

And a smile will feed the ego, attentive
greetings and waiting hands to swirl
and serve, to nod and make the whims
of stomach acid alive and sealed in paper
or plastic--
         And those above-all-else egos
will feed the waste bin when carelessness
claims yet another ladleful of soup, or,
unwanted, a small container of grilled chicken
waits near the salad dressing until paid
arms can sacrifice it to the waiting trash.

Consumption fills the air, drives all motion,
plays both gravity and God, even until the end
when the dishwasher gets the last pick
of congealed cheese pizza.

Sunday #21

The Silence of Space


I'd promise not to hear the echoes,
but these walls are unyielding
and bounce the sounds erupted
from lungs long past.

One day the world will yawn,
the walls will crumble,
the whispers, free to fly beyond
the scope of human hearing,
drifting endless in a cold void,
and asteroids will bear
our secrets to the end of time,
where petty lips and cutting
teeth are quenched
by the gap-tooth smile
of the idea of nothingness,
the tug of distant gravity
losing its tendril grip,
and the sparkling end
of a thousand galaxies
like distant neighbors
flipping off their lights
before going to sleep.

Wink away, comet tail--
carry the burden with fire
at your back.

Sunday #20

Secretary of State


Surrounded by
impatience-painted faces, scowls,
blank eyes,
expanding broods, expanded bellies,
the destruction of the idea of waiting.

Fidget.

A hint, subtle, of a shoulder blade.

Everyone's a critic,
pundit,
satirist.

Rattle-pop numbers game,
too fast for old legs.

The blue chair plastic corral.

Lovely, a new smell in the mix,
popping gum, mint sparks,
the scent of stale baby waste,
changed out half an hour ago.

Grizzled grandpa and his disheveled progeny,
dumb looks, words immediate
on shaggy face, displeasure,
his head wrapped in an American flag bandana.

A pregnant mother tells her son
that the long wait is what taxes pay for
as he complains just as noisily,
the father sits without a thought
upon his lips.