They’re killing poets in Bahrain,
cutting out their tongues in Yemen.
Things like that are always happening.

It’s not the first time it’s happened,
won’t be the last.  It seems a habit
in some places,

while here in the good old USA,
we are ignored, on occasion vilified —
or just as often, commodified.

Those dead remain poets after their deaths.
When we suffer what we suffer here,
can we say the same?

Box full of red paper
in a pile in the spare room.
It held a good gift once
and now it’s a paper box holding

red paper and nothing else.
Maybe it’s waiting for a new gift.
Maybe it remembers when it held
a promise of joy.

I put the box full of red paper out on the floor
and let the ferret attack it, climbing in and out,
shredding the paper,
delighting in the mild destruction.  

After I return her to her cage
to sleep and twitch in her dreams, 
I do not think I am imagining
that I can see the box still quivering.

an older man bought a mustang, a horse,
hoping it might bring him
a recalled wildness.  he owned fine
tack, rode well, but one day fell off, gladly
breaking himself.  did not ride again
but kept the horse and the tack.
did not regret his wheelchair
much. sat and spoke softly to the horse
through the fence of the paddock.
stroked the saddle and ran the bridle
through his hands when no one was looking,
was always smiling.

another older man
bought a mustang, a car.
he sought the spirit of
the high school backseat
he never had.  looked
like a fool driving it carefully
between the lines. died
with no one to leave it to.
it was sold to a child
who drove it dumbly thinking
he was all grown up now.

the mustang: the horse,
the car, the symbol. sexy
as fast can be.  potent
as only that which can be
controlled with some effort
can appear. its name
is an artifact.  its chromed
profile on a medallion
is an artifact as is the car
upon which the medallion
appears, as are

its riders, its drivers
who bear its power
like a badge
until they become the badge
themselves.