2 new, 2 pomes

working again is nice, if not not enough. Still find time for etching things ...



at the dedication of the Haymarket sculpture


“… as innocent and as guilty
as meaningful and as meaningless as any
other flower in the western field.”
-- Gwendolyn Brooks

predestined to the abstract, you take the middle
ground the politicians love to clutch. At last
landmark, immediately small

colossus to the noon-rush restaurant-
goers put-off to walk around
you to meals written off as

expenditure for the storied corporate moneydroppers
whose buildings line streets just E. of here where
a century and some years

ago fire-eaters raked
muck to pester meat
barons into

concessions never gained. You are smoothed
over hands & arms
building

or destroying, monument only to
revisionism, the city’s ambivalence
to declare

a uniform text,
accounting of events, the truth
buried bleeding beneath cement.





sleepless block 2309


in the wee hours, my
words don’t come. Traffic

distant on The Drive still
hums & just

outside, cicadas buzz; cool breeze & below
me streetlights the only lights. half-past

one, words don’t come. “write through,” they said
in school -- I do -- but words

don’t come. my lover shifts soundly
sleeping now & words don’t come. no muse

could help me – they really don’t exist, just
humbug & in hours I’m off to work, but words don’t

come. I’ll pay for this
then, but that’s still

future. for now, stare at my
notebook, no ink, hear a leak drop

from the sink & words don’t come & all old tricks
of “writing through”

are mere excuse, just things to do until
words come. to wit, this line

should be a start – huh-uh – the words, they up
& didn’t come. Perhaps to sip fruited herbal

tea – it seemed to help
McGrath that once – but I’m not into

that new-age crap, just
stuck here empty, insomniac

& jonesing, Jack. C’mon. Give
my words back.