Midnight Hammer and Other Poems

Refreshing and updating fails to untangle
all the knots of truth and untruth that dominate
and make up the so-called roots of this news cycle

All would-be compasses and novel projections
keep collapsing, no attempt at measurements
lasts for long on the bloodied floor of our horizon

There are rumors of destruction, hints of a peace,
the warmongers pretend it is not a surrender,
what are we supposed to grasp onto for direction?

Cute headlines keep struggling beside the atrocities,
they leave potholes on the path to understanding,
cats fumble with toys as the missiles fall

Going down to the local quad,
I hear they're giving away some democracy today

This time they'll let me rank,
A way to mix and match to scratch off a winner

Arrows in an archipelago guide
To a gym with a ceiling pockmarked from dodgeballs

First come, most served,
I've got all my cards in order, it's time for checks

Find the right names, create
Some new ones in case I don't like what's offered

Maybe I can flip a coin or roll
Some dice when no one is walking behind my booth

Part of a chance to feel powerful
Like I'm the one moving things around the track

What about lawnmower repair? There might be a future in that,
the grass keeps growing, for now, and the blades
get dull at some point, not to mention the screws get loose
and the wires pull themselves out, as if by magic

Nothing too big to work on, like an automobile, or an autobus,
and if I get the parts wrong over overlook an issue,
nobody will die, maybe there will be a spark or a little flame,
but what will fall out of the sky because I'm hungover?

It'll help with selling my reputation in the arts, being known
as the "lawnmower repair poet," someone writing
in their spare time between sorting and cleaning their spare parts,
future interviewers will get to compare it to reaping

In the absence of a reverie worth remembering,
I take a book on symbolism off the shelf

The images might give my future sleeping self
inspiration through uptake and processing

It does not matter what scenarios will unfold,
only how distinct the picture show goes

A drama could emerge out of this medieval egg,
or these roots painted by Vincent Van Gogh

And this stone relief of an ancient Mauryan owl
will certainly send my subconscious shivering

As I flip along, I bat away silk ribbons, a rainbow
of bookmarks attached to this thick volume

Each one sticks out like a shimmering tongue,
fine for a simile, a terrible source for a dream

Old vineyards of hands and chatter are falling into decay,
recommendations come, no body follows inside,
sing, fellow kids, where's the party at anymore these days?

Booths are being pulled out, tables and chairs amputated,
tendrils fill the dancefloors, online groups
wind down into forums for special offers from local singles

Outlines flicker between burning bulbs and icy walls
as the modified release of scrolling
dissolves the free time otherwise too painful to pass inside

Maybe it is just me, names flock, faces bounce along
but never the twain do any of them meet
for today's prized threesomes that we once called contact

Still, I wait with society's nosebleeds, squeezing a program
and waiting for a human to enter, stage right,
who brings a security without me passing it on as rent