i, of desperate tribe :

do not let them do the bad thing
when wolves smell hell they're bound
to trample what survives only
in sample, this
is simple predicate
worship

a boxing of the best
and worst devotions
to pause for, this, horizontal
moment, when
the sky turns feminine
when it rains milk
even in your
shotglass and
the gun

in your wallet
no longer feels worth
the price of a bullet
and,

you sell off the inconsolable
off the bridge you saw
last storm when, this,
came to witness;
the eye.

river man
for dan smith



in hemingway's panama hat
with garcia lorca's guitar slung on his back
he walks the arteries of the city,
collecting jigsaw fragmets of its essence:
strontium 90 bled from the bones
of old mimeographic ghosts,
a handful of fire
from the burning cuyahoga river,
trainwreck radio soundbites
thrown against a pollock canvas,
lost pension post-industrial
scrap metal tears mixed in with
coppery hues mined
from lake erie sunsets.

he assembles all of it
into a pyschotropic collage,
the past and present
of a forsaken rust-belt cleveland,
the mirror of a city's evanescent being.