To a Construction Worker in the Hills of Portugal Near the Sea

You hack at your ancient red hills
like those creatures who eat parts of their own bodies
digging for the gold of overpopulation, pollution, and upward mobility
for 60 escudos a day
to deliver the Northerner’s rich dream
and at sunset sit in the old plaza deafened by swallows
and return to the crumbling tile-roofed box of earth beyond the hill
and at dawn once again set the long white caterpillar of villas
creeping toward you to devour you.

In Praise of Community

A coterie of chick-a-dees
communes
in my maple tree.
A tribe of constellations
self-distances
in the rising night.
Brown-robed monastics
bow
before broken bread.
Circles of poets
zoom
from inspiration rooms.
Fellowships
connect
black/brown/yellow/white/red.

Ingredients

They say salt
was once so precious
that soldiers were paid in it—a salary.

A common, bitter thing
I add salt’s tear-tang to the dough
and feel my wrist and bicep work

(the ingredients of my life
are not measurable things
though I feel them pulse just out of sight)

now I see the sight I always see
out the kitchen window
as I knead and knead and knead

Satisfied To Be Us

To be anywhere in the world
in any weather, to hold a book
like a child does and [moving] moves
from here to the flanks of the Vosges,
stares at a fresco by Piero
or hears an aria float out from a window
on the Coronation Route in Prague.

How fine it is to be us, to be
on the water, our thoughts as slippery,
as fluid, our moods like gusts [of dopamine]
little zephyrs of enticement,
our happiness rising and setting
with the sun, the bright seal of hope
the dimming lamp of rest.

Pandemic-Blues

wuhan-corona
china-covid
travel-bans
quarantines-closures
social-distance
flatten-curve
wear-masks
ventilators-pump
hospitals-capacity
economy-slows
essential-workers
people-struggle

Half Capacity

lacking logic
who is essential
who isn’t
claiming following science
churches closed
strip clubs open
gyms closed
liquor stores open
corporate box stores open
mom-and-pops closed
restaurants and critical thinking
both at half capacity

Unmasked

Repealing the
mask from my lips is
not an act of protest.
no liberation has
been performed;
rather and excusatory
removal from a
collective
responsibility
we shun
in the name
of individuality

38 Dollar Store Candles

Pessimism is natural, like Type-1 Diabetes, liver, heart disease. The Caddy, Miata, they’re not there because you’re now half-full or half alive, but -dead. Drive.

Redemption

Life, the iredeemer. No wonder there’s a God, not unlike there’s hate and always a dollar in St. Anthony’s change for a cigarette from the Pakistani or Indian bodega kept up by a family who kneels just the same to different names, and praises the canonized coin in their jars writ with wishes that God won’t stop depositing dimes or spare quarters for some beatific order: smoke, family, like love. What cans to be had.

Upgrade

Hand held eyes head unencumbered telepathic, no need for speech hovering instead of walking how many babies? How many pets? photosynthetic? Photovoltaic?

Visitant

Literary pilgrims welcome

Community