True Faith

        1

Property is death: they had a body crammed in a mailbox and it was just a brown suit with bones sticking out—and fathers lost in blowing snow—and mothers drift in blowing leaves, and all the lies in any town—work was my salvation he said work was always

my

        salvation

 


        2
branches



You



Joy can

        Scream

        3

Ice and the river—"the desire to be normal is healthy": no, it isn't—can you imagine the death of the wind—can you remember the ghost of that voice—


        4
Your

        Kisses

Your

        Sky

Your

        Darkness

Your

        Sky

        5

Lavender sky, sky like whiskey—the way, the way we live in bodies—lavender sky, sky like whiskey—and to your scattered bodies go—your dream inside your face, your night inside your morning—I'll try to glint like birds behind the rain—

Free Again [excerpt]

            Why don't people 
tell the truth—you scare people—genocide and 
how the rich got rich—even a bus shines 
differently in the light, the glowing 
splinters—why don't people talk more about 
the government and power—how do I know 
the rich can't sleep—promise me the rich can't 
sleep—

America [Try saying wren]

                  Try saying wren.

It's midnight

in my body, 4 a.m. in my body, breading and olives and
cherries. Wait, it's all rotten. How am I ever. Oh notebook.
A clown explains the war. What start or color or kind of
grace. I have to teach. I have to run, eat less junk. Oh CNN.
What start or color. There's a fist of meat in my solar plexus
and green light in my mouth and little chips of dream flake
off my skin. Try saying wren. Try saying
mercy.

                          Try anything.

Related Poems

A True Poem

I'm working on a poem that's so true, I can't show it to anyone.

I could never show it to anyone.

Because it says exactly what I think, and what I think scares me.

Sometimes it pleases me.

Usually it brings misery.

And this poem says exactly what I think.

What I think of myself, what I think of my friends, what I think about my lover.

Exactly.

Parts of it might please them, some of it might scare them.

Some of it might bring misery.

And I don't want to hurt them, I don't want to hurt them.

I don't want to hurt anybody.

I want everyone to love me.

Still, I keep working on it.

Why?

Why do I keep working on it? 

Nobody will ever see it. 

Nobody will ever see it.

I keep working on it even though I can never show it to anybody.

I keep working on it even though someone might get hurt.