OCEANS & TECHNOLOGY

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.

TelePrompTer

HOLD US IN A HUMAN TELECAST

TOP STARS AND BLANK EXITS

WITH TELEVANGELISTS ON SATELLITES

AND UNREMEMBERED HEROES ON BLONDES

THE WATER COMES IN

WE UNDERSTAND

IT HAS COME THROUGH THE WIND AND THE CLOUDS

HOOKERS BY BLEACH

WHITE WIGS AND U.S. WARHEADS

BILLOWING ON BYLINES WORLDWIDE

BLANKET US UNMASKED

X TELEPATHS ON TOPLESS HOUSEBOATS

THIS IS OUR ULTIMATE BUYER

PARACHUTES BY ULTRA LIGHTS

HOLOGRAMS BY FOAM

A MASKED MAN

On top a white stallion the Lone Ranger descends

A masked man
Debilitated and unrehearsed

What is it that I want to say but ultimately cannot say?
I have become nothing
A ghost deprogrammed and on parole

I walk out into the shadows of televised snow
Televised desolation  blue trauma by a descending sky
Man of blankness  man of sighs

HIROSHIMA

In 2011, as I watched the heartbreaking news from Japan, I couldn't help but remember that we (the United States) once voluntarily unleashed radioactive weapons on the people of Japan. My poem entitled Hiroshima is based on the eyewitness account of Miyoka Matsubara. (At the time a 12 year old girl.) Later she visited the United States with a group of other Hiroshima survivors, all young women disfigured like herself, named "the Maidens of Hiroshima". She continues to this day to tell her story of horror in both Japan and the United States. My hope and prayer is that we do away with these weapons of war...


(for Miyoko Matsubara)

I heard the whirring engines of a B-29.
I glimpsed its wings and tail; a sign
of foreboding filled the earth and the sky
with the terrifying message that all must die.

I saw the shadow of the descending sword.
After the flash, the heavens roared.
I fell to the ground with my hands to my head.
I awoke in the darkness and the dust of the dead.

I ran toward my home, but I could never go back.
Everything had changed; the sky was black.
I went to the river to escape the flames.
I saw bodies sink into graves without names.

All around me were the broken pieces of mankind.
Had the whole world lost its mind?
Out of the chaos came a voice I knew.
Was this my friend? Could it be true?

Her face was swollen with slits for eyes.
From behind charred lips came her cries.
I was twelve years old when the A-Bomb hit.
Just a child when that fuse was lit.

I saw the shadow of the descending sword.
After the flash, the heavens roared.
I fell to the ground with my hands to my head.
I awoke in the darkness and the dust of the dead.