Climate Change*

Studying the ice age in 6th grade history
a girl writes an advice column, pen named Ms. Mammoth
(better luck to current columnists than the mammuthus primigenius—
at least they still get Disney).



* Courtesy of Poems 350, seeking 3.5 line poems about climate change.

The Distance An Ant Has to Crawl

The distance an ant covers is infinite
(compared to it)
me or you
could take a few strides,
but in whose steps can we
become?

Young boys choose dinosaurs
to compare
refusing the ultimate
distance
blissfully unaware
of the end.

The I-Beam

To build skyscrapers
higher than possible
means quickly
erect

pursuit replaced by speed
skylines
no thought of sunset.

Bay Window

To provide the illusion
of a larger room.

To increase the flow
of natural light.

To escape
the room
(without actually escaping) it
still
sitting inside
stuck
behind
a window.

Spire

Tiny winding staircase
rarely scaled.

The occasional tourist
Searching for something other.

Temporarily
untired
from aspiring

to reach higher.

Lean-to

I.
Three walls and a sloping roof (sometimes tacked on).
The reverse of a peninsula (a hat).
Shelter enough (for a snack).
An add on.

Invented space,
made of parameters.

II.
To lean on
as opposed to stand up.

To relax
in contrast to continuing.

To float
instead of treading water.

III.
To see
as opposed to analyze

To be
in contrast to competing.

Lean-to joy
to gratitude
to mercy.

Flying Buttress*

The image of a dog
comes to mind
cold, wanting
for supper,

or the secret that stays
your eyes
post jack-in-the-box
renewal,
demise

the inside-outside
dichotomous desire
to fulfill
(accompanied by the useless
mechanics of wanting
toask—
an assemble it yourself kit
missing one critical
washer).

A three
fights gravity.
Images spin and twist
your already flipped vision.

Appreciate the vaults of cohesion
and the way space intervenes.

* A counterweight outside the building.

Steel Reinforced Cement

Where is my steel reinforcement
I plea brittle and needy
of an architect
to determine
my maximum capacity.

Why am I not an elevator?
My worst fate then
could be plunging
to a scrap metal lot
where things just creak
and no one talks.

Arch and Keystone

I am the keystone
(of four parents
an isosceles arch
parts
diametrically opposed)
where my psyche dangles
from vital voussouirs
and when they battle
I decay.

I wish I were a limerick
so there was
a clever solution.

The Habanero Pepper *

Take a bite
all teeth in.

Challenging
senses
to slowly explode.

(You can handle more
than you ever know
just by taking a few risks alone).

Sit back,
Relax,
the house is not on fire

(our mouths soon
will fill with flame)
when we go under cover
love one another
no sense
too intense
our dreams
unincensed
in trusting spice
never fades.



* Beware what you touch
(afterwards).

Spray Paint

A picture is made
(like sand leaves a hand
in a rush).

Fits and decisions,
triggers and deliberation—
why does what spread where?
How can you
contain that thought?

The marks you make
stay
pieces of paint
permeate permanence
particle by particle
paving
towards the future.

Flecks of kindness
chips at cruelty
patience
pursuit
etched
in each moment
inked
(nothing wasted).

Musica

There’s this face you make
when you play—
the world has gone
away
your eyes
an unfocused lens
seeing a part of the picture
we cannot.

You become
the sum
of a child affront the television set
plus actuality
(seduction and fulfillment combined)
transfixed
a system inexplicable
to those not neurons
running in your synapses.

Oh to be a string
reverberating
in your passion.

Carol Kaye

Play
in the underpinnings of pleasure.

Be
the strings that quietly conduct
calm
commonality.

Hold
the ecstasy of outer ranges.

Hear
the coexistence
of striving
pieces.

Stay
true to the madness ensuing.

Love
the sounds for the sounds
the days
for the moments.

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

To make a pie from scratch
is a labor of love
faith in what will come
of many minor elements
including self
to outdo the glory of berries alone.

I make you pie
because we have the ingredients,
(A pantry I’ve never known,
oh to taste this is such bliss,
I might melt
in a happy
spoonful
your mouth
warm
sweet
tangy
irreplaceable
each grain of flour
snowflaking
uniqueness

memsmerizing flavors
molding, delicious moments
ours to hold).

Green Couch*

It likes to embrace and to soothe,
actions it seems to feel as a kind of give-and-take.
It knows nothing of what the world believes
of its indolence.

If deflating and casting are its nature
it doesn’t care about its nature.

It likes the sleepy weight of your head
against its gently textured skin.
It likes the silent warmth
of the loyal home body.

Its understanding is the understanding
of sugar with coffee, of letting what happens come.

A couch craves no sectional attractions
no next door love seat.
It waits for bodily impact
with fluffed pillows,
content.

It is its own stanza, complete.

Time does not tempt it
old dreams and new ones rest here alike
helping you
to much deserved
rest.




* Emulation of Jane Hirshfield’s “Button”

Television

Oftentimes it mews
on and on
begging to not off
(making the background
unaware
of its status)
fighting some miniscule twig
(the thing you wish you did
yesterday)
messing with
the foreground focus
of what you want
to do right now.

“Turn me on,
to turn it off,”
it chants
in digital pixels
prancing the space between your face
and the screen
making real time seem
irrelevant
(the once shaking waves on which it transmitted
sine, cosine, cosine, sine,
erased to pieces
without patterns
precise representation
invading with swiftness).

Quick, let it take you,
take you away,
escape the bombardment,
of a very long day.

Eight Triangles

If people were made of pixels, they would not be triangular.
If people were triangles, they would not be equilateral
(for if they were, they could sit in a circle of eight
and make an octagon).
Most people can’t even see where a person’s three sides lie
(that would do for me—being boxed into three,
just not steam rolled).

Periodically triangles insert themselves
into one another.
If the triangles are too well matched
you may get the full face reaction
assimilation of two sides
to the point of destruction
rhomboidal creation
codependent cubing
selfless
limiting your sides to two
that might not be yours anyway.

Alternately,
triangles make a symphony
of tinkering by collisions.
There is no give, just the plink plink
of eating each other’s varnish.

If we could instead
be made of silicone
(ah the breasts it would enhance,
lips tighten, fake permission to take in
other triangles for a moment alone.)

Tales of A SAPIS Worker (at another school)

The substance abuse prevention and intervention counselor
will be six weeks late.
He is in the rubber room
(unrelated to kids).

He was playing tennis,
got mad,
smashed his partner over the head
with a racket—
it was proclaimed
a brain hemorrhaging rage.

Do not be alarmed,
he’ll be back soon

to discuss choices

with your first period class.

Hunter Green

To camouflage:
1. a strong desire;
2. a survival instinct, part of evolution
straighten your hair, wear
polka dots (when popular)
go retro
on occasion.

If you find you blend too much in
do not give up,
instead panic. Forever more,
change your clothes
at least five times
before leaving the house—leaving a mess
Is the first step
In self-destructive behavior.

While out, have enough drinks
to stop thinking
about your camouflage, or lack thereof.

Do not speak passionately about your ideals
(you may make others feel bad, or you may seem insincere—
you must have a motive behind your effusiveness—
worse yet you set yourself up for failure,
people may retaliate by competing,
ratcheting up the anti,
leading you to lie about your own greatness,
or cry in a single stall bathroom).

Quick get home before you trip
on the fault in the sidewalk.
Remove your clothes,
the sheet’s camouflage will protect you.

Sea Foam*

The legitimacy of the state
Is created by the will (or consent
in the case of ten percent turnout
local elections for politicians who may or may not
be puppets) of its people,
like the color of the sea floor
is created by light and water and eyes and reflections
and refraction and particles and algae and sharks.

How strange
that anything
be uniform.


* The Levellers (the party in favor of sovereignty, equality, suffrage and tolerance) wore sea green ribbons.

Maple Leaf

Cosmetic circles
make the middle of a tree.
A slice of my core
would reveal very strange shapes.

The amorphous heart
Right next to the rib cage
Is not its progeny
(mini-mes do not exist
inside of me).

Teal*

That the Prospect Park ducks return
is a wonder.
Once, in a botched attempt
at a romantic pavilion sitting
a spring bringing kissing session
derailed by the smell of rotting
drops of alcohol is molding bottles—
parties to which I would never be privy
(sheltered by roves—
the blessing of work hours)
a duck ambled by
missing its beak.

How terribly disturbing
its bared tongue
its homeless home
its vulnerability
against our protection.

* The eye color of the teal duck.

Iranian Green Resistance

Paradise is to the desert
as an oasis is to a therapy patient/
a bored child to uselessness.

The existence of an analogy
the happenstance of a desire
does not fulfill need.

A complimentary color
does not make two things match.

The history of the individual
the psyche we built of a past
does not come in pairs.

Solutions are challenging.

If the existence of paradise fixes nothing,
it does not make it any less appealing.

If a nuclear bomb offers no solution,
is it not like the societal craving to be “in shape?”

Komodo Dragon

Animalia
Chordata
Reptilia
Squamata
Scleroglessia
Varanidae
Varanus
V. konodonesis
lives with the privilege
of no predators
on its island.

With saliva made of pathogens
the world is a feast.