Arms Race

February 2007

Right, so there are pentasyllabic slant rhymes in here, and that makes me unjustifiably happy. Other than that, I think it’s pretty good.

I still think it was Cupid
With a cannon that left nowhere to run.
It flew across the hotel lobby
On black wings and a bitter tornado.
It was red hot, and instantly fatal.
It was love at first sight, it was
A lot like staring at the sun.

Most of the survivors believe
It was swamp gas lit by a solar flare.
That exploded in the hotel lobby—
A freak event with no explanation,
A detour and a slow detonation.
It was love at first sight, but I
Don’t think they’re in the mood to care.

I’m pretty sure he winged you
When the heat-seeking shuriken flew
In a cloud across the hotel lobby
While you danced there with reckless abandon
In the hail of an electric commandment.
It was love at first sight, but his
Aim never claimed to be true.

When the wreckage was cleared
They found nothing but shattered glass,
Broken timber, the ruins
Of a continental breakfast,
And the scattered remains
Of a bouquet of roses,
Which exploded.

Aubade, Partly Cloudy

November 2006

That was actually my horoscope the day I wrote this. And I’m really proud of it. The parts in italics started out as a song.

Aurora, do you remember the cave in the mountains
Where we played with sapphire marbles in the dust?

53rd Street sunrise, 6:47 AM, and there’s not much use for it here. The world has
Laid on its winter blanket, muttering to itself of mislaid precipitation,
Tightens up and harasses her flocks of crows into action, turns the thermostat
And reads the paper, “set sights on adventure” the horoscope,

When we awoke alone, the first, in narrowing darkness
And all the rays of the sun were braided in your hair.

Brandishes a sharp blade to the horizon, elects the wild geese
Her ambassadors, nods sagely at the iridescent oil in the slanted light of
Forgetfulness, and opens the howling door. The wind is westerly, 14 knots, and
Tinged with dry leaves, weariness, sulfur dioxide. Helicopter beating against the grain

You laughed and a tangle of sparks, tenderly interwoven,
Ignited a fire in the serpentine valley below.

Toward the woods, humming rips through the frostbitten cloud cover, shale,
Scrapes her feet across the wool, cacophony of trucks, and it jumps as she reaches

You sprang from the gates of the moon with the dawn in your arms.