Midday Drift July 24, 2009

Insatiable critics never play games,
developing love to
unfold the cage of my ribs,
like a piano player might
an organ, collapsing, folding,
bending the crease -
live oxygen to a field
of poppy plants.

Hospital Visits July 13, 2009

It felt like a small village
held idle
like a hand would
the needle over vinyl.
I can hear the static
dripping into my ears -
drums.
The silence of sound.
Patients turning over,
rustling linen,
coughing the air of sleep;
disease, pleads,
medicated dream.
Dripping down
into my inner ear
beating like rain
on bat-winged
umbrellas. I watch.
A pattering of God’s tears
overhead, my umbrella
a dying neighbor’s denial of Him.
Who am I
to [...]