On Piscine Poets out of Water

--for Huuklyeand Cinquor, il miglior fabbro 


Don’t piddle precious time 
Sounding your position out— 
Your next line is always 
Easier to swallow 
If you don’t know 
You’re hooked. 

Melanoma

All you bigoted zealots rejoice! Whatever 
Blemish defies washing away keeps 

Sinking further into the skin 
Till it turns purple, drowning 

In its own unfathomable joy juice. 

Natura Apocalyptica

Astounding— 

Under the umbrella pines the crowd 
Of revelers moved ecstatically 

By the buzzing of its own 
Voice does not hear the mass 

Of cicadas busily burying it. 

Manunkind Unrattled

It’s time to dispense with the usual 
Time-consuming formalities 
And tell you right off that 

Just as you live unfazed and breathe 
In your man-made stench, so 
Shall you expire before you know it. 

Think about it. In the meantime, 
Kindly grab all the quality 
Time you need, mensch. 

The Weight

Up in the village 
Watching my wife doting 
On her mother sliding quickly 
Downhill into oblivious senility, 
I cannot but recall how 
Many times she’d made 
The long haul from the village 
To that little summer garden 
Two twisting miles straight 
Down to the gorgeous 
Gorge and back, a straw 
Basket in each hand laden 
With freshly-harvested vegetables 
And hauling more often than not, 
The latest of her six 
Children in a sling 
Across her now 
Bent-over back, 
And looking on all 
That had to be 
Done each day as inevitable 
As the sun rising and setting 
And never once asking why 
It had to be that way.