I want to scrimshaw love poems  
onto your bones. 
Scratch the itch of Rumi 
in endless scrawl 
knotting our ribs. 

No, I meant –  
carve totem poles 
of beastings, godheads, 
thunderbirds 
flying from one place in our story 
to another. 

No. I want to begin. 
Charcoal  
and burnt offerings, 
cinders and spark,
painting cave walls 
red and black with our ashes. 

Desperate Poets OLN

First published at Euphemism, Spring 2019

Yessir milk is my North Star 
after all it is the Milky Way right 

poured into the galaxy’s whirling 
blender blades of light 

and dark chocolate frappé 
we sing “Say Say Say” 

until gravity is udderly teated 
open your mouth in awe 

to catch a squirt of falling star 
warm and liquid on a spring night 

let us say say say this is in 
Nebraska the State of Art 

because its picture frame shape its 
texture thick with pallet knife waves 

of corn green like Van Gogh‘s 
starry night with a million trillion 

points of mooing black and white

For Desperate Poets

Of course like all simulacra 
no mater how hard I rowed 
the rowing machine its 
wind noise its pull chain 
fighting my grip 
we did not cross the river 
but sank steel and grease 
under the waves 

no matter how many lights 
I turned on then off then on again 
we did not find the sun 
but sank in darkness no 
matter I cannot find your hand 
only the sinking feeling 
of falling from the sky 
pulling the ripcord 

of words but the shrouds 
snap only shreds 
of I’s and O’s and U’s 
what I owe you my love not 
poems torn into fortune 
cookie scrip counterfeit 
screed with “Be here now” 
written on one side 

and “You are here” 
on the other 
a big red arrow pointing 
like a laser gunsight 
right between my eyes 
dropping 
down to my heart and 
click of the ersatz trigger 

a pacemaker hunting 
big game Hemingway 
exhorts us ‘Write the truest 
sentence that you know’ 
so you look out 
the window and say 
“It‘s as cold as frozen peas” 
for this I will love you forever.  

For Desperate Poets