Oceans & Technology (Written After the First Gulf War)

Out here in this country of unending sleep,

I inherit horses in winter

and blowing hands;

above the clouds, and the televisions of L.A.

(where once a blue whore danced on a powdered mask),

a woman is broadcast on air,

a former debutante manipulated by plastic surgeons

and ultimately disposed of by parapsychologists

in the Pentagon.

Out here in the shadow of a paradox,                    

I huddle in wonder, decomposed but undiminished

while a hundred warplanes

fly over toxic foam (oceans and technology),

breast implants found hidden in the hospital gown
of a surrogate mother.

A Stranger On A Dark Horse

The mob outside my window makes do

with a hangman’s noose.

They devour lies, they rationalize.

They dream of retribution

and obliterating targets on the ground.

Blue volts of electricity pass through them

as they pronounce sentence and make war.

(Their tongues burn and their hearts stop.)

We hobble through a world of faces.

We reach out for what is intelligible, what is visible.

We hear only the voices that are near to us.

We are locked in a bubble of our own making.

We see a rider on the horizon on a dark horse.

He is unknown to us. He is a stranger.

He wears a mask. Where has he been?

Where is he going?