Explore Poems: Life Choices

I’m here
             to tell you 
                             an old story. 
                             This
Appears to be
                 my work.
                                I live
                                in the world,
Walk
         the streets…

“this is your
captain” Frank says from the cockpit

“all passengers wishing to bail out
any time during our flight

it
is
too
late

I have shredded the parachutes to confetti
in celebration of our arrival”

Frank’s sister grew long blue feathers

she said it was worse than cutting teeth

she spent a month screaming in the cave
pushing them out

Frank would lie in bed at night
touching his own back

crying

praying it wouldn’t
come to him

but the day his sister flew...

Some say: to do the necessary task is greatness;
I say: do the least necessary thing first.

I don't want a frozen living room,
a room where nothing happens.

I don’t want my labors tied in string,
a prelate hovering over, declaiming.

I want a treasure...

& watch Kevin Bacon conjure fake tears in a Real Hallway
& I am Real Tears in a fake hallway
& “Procreation is gross though”

I’m nine & a half, watching “The Miracle
of Life” on my mother’s bed

Stirring my shells & cheese
I see...

He was jailed for cruelty to insects, and his agent wasn’t answering the phone, so he stayed awake in the cell all night, pictures jumping around his head of the cops and the blowdryer they took as evidence. He used...

I wish I had hiked the frozen hill tonight 
for reception, called to tell you I had a good time 

hearing the two Somali cab drivers laughing 
near an avalanche of on-sale oranges.  

I played a prince in absolute awe 
as the orchestra soared....

in the waiting room, I watched women snap
rubber bands around their wrists, running

their hands through…

How many days did I write
then look into a mirror and see no face?
That summer the fish were cooked in milk
of the coconuts we found and ground.
The frothing liquid boiled the fish whole.
I ate the bones clean. What if
I had...

We spend the evening listening to folk songs from the early 2000s. Make a stew. Cut carrots the color of Halloween or your brother’s nail polish. Rib eye and onions. Oyster mushrooms dug out of the earth by some guy...

1.
If a house is haunted like a radio
is haunted         If a body is a radio
of blood         If a body of ghosts
hums like blood over a valley of
bone         If blood is a...

If I could, I would put on a facemask and walk into the desert to meet with fairies and angels.

I put on a facemask to resist sandstorms, put on a facemask to resist smog, put on a facemask to make...

In springtime, chief of all seasons,
        in May when new joys rise and flourish,
                the sun is lord and messenger at once and sends down to us
        to rouse our bodies and be merry:
humankind to...

Verde que te quiero verde.
Verde viento. Verdes ramas.
El barco sobre la mar
y el caballo en la montaña.
Con la sombra en la cintura,
ella sueña en su baranda
verde carne, pelo verde,
con ojos de fría plata.
Verde que te quiero verde.
Bajo la luna gitana,
las...

[An Outline for a Film]

A woman leans against a man who leans
against a brick wall watching cars stop like dead men
on this one-way street. Some dude glares
like O-Dog from Menace, his face towards some street
we'll never remember where a man...

                                                            Hunger like her mama
                                                            Most strong in White gaze as in
                                                            a Cowbird’s flirtation
                                                            Sprouted in eyes to tongues
                                                            to bellies pregnant with stolen milk
                                                            to restless hands
                                                            These fingernails filled with Black body,

Some are transformed just once
And live their whole lives after in that shape.
Others have a facility
For changing themselves as they please.

the world is not as bad as our
                                       neighbors
made it to be that day—
we’ve seen worse days—
and how beautiful
they were, these days...

Green I want you green
green wind green branches
Boat on the sea and
horse on the mountain
Shadow on her waist
she dreams at her railing
green flesh green hair
eyes of cold silver
Green I want you green
Under the gypsy moon
things are seeing her
but she can’t...

Everywhere we went, I went
in pigtails
no one could see—

ribbon curled
by a scissor’s sharp edge,
the bumping our cars

undertook when hitting
those strips
along the interstate

meant to shake us
awake. Everywhere we went
horses bucking

their riders off,
holstered pistols
or two Frenchies

dancing in black and white
in a torn-apart
living...