self-portraits

as Teddy Roosevelt

as Bertold Brecht

as Fyodor Dostoevsky

poem II

Forebears and imbeciles singing

to each other tragedies of long lost loves

and moody silences, of eternally entombed

stories chinese whispered from one to one. A

harrowing tale here, a rhapsodical deluge there.

Of filibuster intentions and romantic gallantries.

Of retribution riddled with failures.

Words, sentences, emotional redundancies

piling up to the ceiling and breaking

glass. Elegies by Rachmaninoff and Bach

cant mollify them now. The hatred,

the fury crimson irises spinning round.

And burst, a rupture is coming.

po-em

Grist for the grist mill,

cheese for the cow

and everyone gets just

a little bit older and wiser

but not me, not that kink

thrown to the gear not the

shoe caught up in itself not the

fragrant embolism. Give

me the fruit and the freedom, these

little wonders keeping me on

the up and up. And maybe a hair

to pluck or a lip to kiss or a

squadron to command. But

these are not necessities,

only tokens of bittersweet hubris.