Function at the Archive [June 26th | 154/365]

I could see the awkward young man prepare bon mots he was too shy to utter, but he resembles a parliamentarian.

The books on the wall are precious in inverse proportion to the stiff, flat portraits of people no one here can identify.

There will never be a fire here, never a thief, never a vandal, never a conqueror who will be blamed by future scholars for scattering the papers.

I was awkward at first, unsure of the etiquette among these foreign scholars, but then I started talking without thought.

Once I searched the shelves for texts in a language I wouldn't be able to identify.

I try to speak to the young man but his murmurs are barely intelligible.

There are always politics to speech.

It'll surprise you to find out who gets blamed for the inevitable, who the future tyrant is, who'll be infamous to the coming bookish young.

Haiku [June 26th | 153/365]

Shadows dappled like
paint on the damp undergrowth.
An empty cop car.

Radicals Never Leave [June 22nd | 152/365]

The old men of the Revolution
Sit silent in the waiting room
Like love too intense and insecure
To confess itself to the People

Declarations pile up on low tables
When the call comes they will rise

Waking Nightmare [June 22nd | 151/365]

The serene Horace is dead
Like a popped soap bubble
Nothing remains but a stain
Let us wreathe him in Persian flowers
The sphere of reality collapsed
And felt myself chosen to retain its structure in my mind
When I tried to write it back into being
The words in my brain became nonsense on the page
Horace cannot weave a universe together
Happy are those who do not know
All words must die

Haiku [June 21st | 150/365]

The drop of water,
held together by tension.
The stone in darkness.

Exhuming Martyrs with Dynamite [June 20th | 149/365]

the machine's profane machinations
are obvious to all
the only question is
whether it's intentionally thus

screams from human throats
pierce the ear like
shouted appeals to god
to end earthly tyranny

am I a fool
to sit and write
thousands of miles away
about others' violent deaths

how can I respond
to images of apocalypse
with nothing but words
but everyone's mind responds

Haiku [June 18th | 148/365]

Having risked too much
the ship, overfull with fish,
was sunk by ripples.

Documentary Theater Poem [June 17th | 147/365]

Alternating flashes of blue and red
People walking around swapping information strings
Yellow and black plastic ribbon strung between lampposts
The motorcycle twisted
The driverside door concave
Hair, much, much too long to be reality
A comet
Spermatium

Tanka [June 15th | 146/365]

The quiet city
doesn't suggest ghosts to me,
metaphorical
or ectoplasmic. No, it's
the din of summer I miss.

The Swamp is Elsewhere [June 13th | 145/365]

monsters and odd bugs
live in the swamp
we should escape there
or at least try

you and I can
believe impossible things together
the reality of elves
and people on TV

the orderers of truth
have nothing on us
but the mere universe
pas de deux quarks

in my current state
I refuse to believe
that you are here
I imagine you elsewhere