Dimensionstor

Night Muse & Mortar Round

She shows up in every war.

Basically the same, maybe

Her flowing white gown’s a little less

Erotic & she’s more desperate.

She’s alwaus near a bridge.

This time the Perfume River.

You trace the curve in the road

& there she is

Trying to flag down your jeep,

But you’re a quarter-mile away

When you slam on the brakes.

Sgt. Jackson says, “What the hell

You think you’re doing, Jim?”

& Lt. Adonis riding shotgun

Yells, “Court-martial.”

When you finally drive back

She’s gone, just a feeling

Left in the night air.

Then you hear the blast

Rock the trees & stars

Where you would’ve been that moment. 

-from Dien Cai Dau, Yusef Komunyakaa

-For Three Days, He’ll Down Pour-

“If they were ideas?’ ‘because, sir

things which in my mind blossom will

stumble beneath a clumsiest disguise, appear

capable of fragility and indecision”

           -excerpt from “the wind is a lady with” by ee cummings

For three days, he’ll down pour

from Ashes,

Phoenix

Other weather patterns form too

So many fiends so easily gods

& the dimpliest wish, make me sleeves  

So many sleeves, a massacre in the making

But violence is swinging so patently

 

A hug & a kiss & a punch in the throat

Which is which

We were a penny short, Roy tells me

Thursday when I got to work,

“I had to put a penny in yesterday 

an I ain’t doing it tonight.”