Politics

Every 20 years or so boys dress up
And kill each other for fun.
It’s the way of the wrack of the world
The wind of our imagination and our love.
To blame our costumes for our beauty
Is like to blame our bruises for our blood.
The chime is what drives us, what ticks
Our tock forward to the next spree.
The foreshortened humiliation,
The immaculate imprecation,
Is neither what we fear or what we covet.
Man is. Rats are. Take what you can
While the day is rough
Move lengthwise into the past
And blame god for never enough.

RABBITS IN AUTUMN

Who will find our bones in a thousand years,
bleached and brittle under the unyielding sun,
scattered in dried grasses by feral dogs or vultures?

Who will hold such curiosities, not knowing
that we stopped here to kiss and murmur
that our love would outlast the moon and stars?

Who will hold our bones, never to imagine
that under the same sun, we once made love
on the lushest grass, under a sapphire sky?

In autumn, the fox lies in wait, hearing rustling
in the tall grass. Having eaten, the fox moves on.
There are no questions of why, or how, or when.

Smoke rises acrid in the air; the sun sets earlier
each day; the grapes shrivel on the vine. Time
is the fox; we are the rabbits. Please, hold me.

…three hundred miles,
PUT CHahead the road more visible
PUT CHas the land dissolves in the pink light
     PUT CHARAPUT CHARAPUT CHof almost dawn   

you sit beside me,
PUT CHeyes fixed and restful on my face,
PUT CHoffering hot coffee from a thermos
PUT CHPUT CHARAPUT CHARACwhile the farm news
PUT CHARAPUT CHARAPUT CHAbreaks morning music
PUT CHARAPUT CHAPUT CHARAon a local station 

i could be here forever,
            moving toward an unfamiliar place,
            held by speed and the vibrating engine,                               
PUT CHARAPUT CHARAtouched by the warmth of your breath 

i could be here forever,
            even as day turns into twilight;
PUT CHARAPUT you borne lightly on sheets stiffly cleaned,
PUT CHARAPUT wrapping your strength within, around mine;
PUT CHPUT CHAprepared for tomorrow’s miles 

we and machines;
PUT CHPUT CHAonly we moving,  moving;   
PUT CHARAPUT CHARAPUT CHAi could be here forever…