02 April 2013

Sanderlings forage

sanderlings forage
the uppermost band of wet
sand, - probe for tiny
mollusks and crustacea,
inscribe dense islands
on the wind-smoothed beach.

nearby birds in ones and twos
join the group and the group grows.

torn fog's blown across the strand.
this world! so mysterious!

    sanderlings weave world into sky,
knit all to each -
four ravens pass by.

01 April 2013

louisiana 2005

i could sing you a song of louisiana
of marsh filled platforms and houses stranded
by the side of the road - a great sea of
money sloshing between cars and locked suitcases -
how the football team cried!
five snakes drowned!
a proliferation of cranes pulls the old tin carcass
helicopters and dead cows, -
hamfaced shrimpboats -
plough the levees
for trees that read
the same forward
or back -
my song will be filled with caskets
and plastic mallard decoys.
this is a world of television sets
and refrigerators and decayed
relations risen like all boats.

there are wider lakes still to come.
some keep some terrible scores
and the computers compute here as well
as kandahar.
airboats gunning engines in the great egret dawn -
crayfish ring each empty cup - 
the moss' lament: this is not the end.
it is no small trick to see without steel structure -
and some may have to be shot on site.