BLEACH
crossing a
cultural desert
gun ports
not entirely closed
I come well-prepared:
my sextant and
my astrolabe likewise,
runes for divination,
charms
woven into cloth
and many
a magnetic stone
tattoos, furthermore,
inked from head to toe
all over
my body
a magnum opus, a script
that the algorithm predicts
all of you, to a man (and
a woman)
will be sorely tempted
to read allegorically
yet what we have here
should elicit no parallels
the text
plainly needs no
code decyphered, simply
proffers illustration
of famous
historical scenes
actual ones, as well as
by virtue
of being counterfactual,
never actually happening
there solely
to confound, or
to tease
in this
the last of my kind I
am without question
such text
as a matter of policy and
dear human salvation
removed from
all my bretheren (sisterhood
likewise)
purged from
public space erased
by fire, with bleach
****
HOW MANY
how many
more were
than
waves in the ocean
pebbles on the beach
who scribbled endlessly
fighting that
worst of wars
against silence
and futility?
writing
for themselves, for their
beloved, for
anyone
prepared to read
at all
see
how hard it is
to craft
something
for the cosmos
words
lost in the
depths of deep space
yet
impossible
not to write at all
and this,
my friend, I
am far
too sensitive, afraid
to tell you
this is the way
with every act of
creation
this the failure
defines us all
****
BEGINNING
Hamlet died
last night
and
I died
with him
he at Elsinore
me in the front row
just below the stage
him
in the light, me
in darkness
neither of us
of the firm belief
we spent enough
time together
to truly know
each other
barely talked, even
thought of establishing
a relationship
and yet
at that meta moment
we both died
and were revived
with curtain call
and, much pleasantries
things
taking back
to the beginning
yet unable
to erase all that
shared death pain
poems 2 die for 