NOW MUSEUM

Now museum
now you don’t
the despairing act
of waylaid wonder
exhibiting the doors to your days
windows on your weeks
they’ll pay to take their peeks
at shallow victories and defeats
your birdbaths and dunk tanks

make no admission
sell not a seat
vermillion dollars
cornflower collars
wrap the stiff necks gone rubber

cracked limo glass
bruised symphony brass
rows of bent-wet knees
for rainy day deities
a continental wrist-roll
and a frothy fistful
strains the seams on your pockets
strikes a matchhead
and dangles rouged rags before the bull
the last stop in your china gift shop
the trustees are too rusty to care.


Echo Park
9.17.2011

BALLAST

a court,
a swell
a baked balloon rises
on a whim and promise

left on cumulous cooling rack
to brew in a vaulted view
steady sneezes on the breezes
in the we-lasticity of aerial hours

charged to keep the celestial canopy afloat
weathering missteps of mister and missus
the gulf stream ‘tween independent arcs
each heartargets intrinsic marks

fearless whispers lead to blisters
and with unquenched thirst they burst,
the ground once far away
rushes to meet the feet
of wing-clipped wonder.



Echo Park
2.17.2011

TAROT HAIKU: Three of Cups

Summer sisterhood
a red round is bought between
drink of endless day

TAROT HAIKU: Nine of Swords

Night terrorism
a pained and punished prism
empty hourglass