Time Frame

 

I don’t know 

if the word fortnight

ever had anything to do 

with forts or holing up 

or the walls climbed

in controlled solitary 

strapped to the metal table 

as the revulsive body

rejects the soul, 

spits it out with the laundry

in the long hours 

before the pale dawn

considers opening its eyes.

 

Nor does it matter,

I suppose, how the scars

no one sees, might as well

originate from the claws

of a grizzly bear—which,

really, is a code word

for the panic that eats

the body for breakfast

and spits out the gristle.

 

It’s not like this aluminum bed

remains clean of night dirt

or the spasmed bladder 

or the numerous nightmares

that sweat through

all the white canvas layers 

and belts.

 

It must have had a beginning,

but I doubt there is an ending,

even miles from the white bricks,

the second floor double security doors,

the companionable screams 

from similar rooms work their way 

through the cracks of forgetfulness.

For a Change

 

For a change all the indigent people

are spotless, shiny clean, squeaky clean,

dressed in designer labels, but they still

have no where to go.

 

Turns out panhandling fails more often than not

when wearing Armani.  And tired acquires

a new dimension when the sidewalk

refuses to be a bed.

 

A toll booth springs up at the door to the mission church:

The white lace currency of the Victorian Age adopts

a stand of bronze bells, a carillon, a solitary

Salvation Army Santa in need of the kiss

of a flask buried in his hip pocket.

 

Some old hymn plays itself on pedal pushers,

spiting the highway department, the interstate

commerce act, the toxifying effect of a deep breath

where the air is brown.

 

For a change the sunflowers exit Kansas, 

relocate to mountainous national parks,

while the columbine retire, in comfort, 

to the south of France.