Urban Mysteries

The streets at night are never dead;

They may be empty, but the beat

Of echoing footsteps, and the heat

From long-left tires means instead

They twitch and burn in infrared.

The day is always incomplete;

Only the lamps can make the street

Become itself, when it can shed

The humdrum ordinariness

Of the commuters. What is left

Behind, and what emerges then

Is a beatific, beauteous mess.

I hate the daybreak for its theft

Until the dusk brings it again.

Spies

I have I will admit some doubts

About the whole affair. I know

I don't know all the ins and outs

Of how this sort of thing should go

And so I might be eating crow

After all is said and done

But when I think about it: no,

I think ends as it's begun.

I cannot be the only one

For whom this story stinks to hell

And when the race is finally run

I think that you'll all know as well:

The truth is but a little seed

That may be ground when there is need.

Ruby

I do not have the words for how I feel

Sick is insufficient. So is bad.

The more complex terms no longer seem real;

So much for all the learning that I've had.

Feeling you tremble as you try to stand

Destroys my appetite and drains my spirit;

The way you flinch when I stretch out my hand

Not because you do not want, or fear, it

But since you cannot even see it coming

Breaks me. I do not know what to do.

I try to feed you; you're not even gumming

The teaspoonful that I laid out for you.

With every step your blood drips on the floor

What will I do when you have lost this war?

Wash

I am beyond imperfect. This I know

With all the certainty of wind and rain

That lash in warning on the windowpane

And promise spreading: I am weak. I show

My weakness with each slip. I try to grow

And force myself to stretch against the grain

Hoping intensely that the frequent strain

Will make me better. If is, it's slow.

And so I watch myself be what I am

Wishing I were not. I see each failing

Magnified in memory. I try to rise

Above my flaws. I overflow the dam

And watch those failures wash over the railing

With sad, exhausted, and determined eyes.

Cohabitation

I find my pleasure in the smallest things:

The way you cuddle into blankets often;

How every time your silenced cellphone rings

You panic; how your eyes begin to soften

The moment that our daughter reaches out;

The way you smile, both when you are posed

(A false facade infused with your self-doubt)

And when you mean it (wide and unenclosed);

The different ways you walk, depending on

Whether you feel happy or are stressed;

How you will pout when all the coffee's gone

Then brighten when I hand you all the rest.

These moments are my treasure, and I hoard 'em

Even when you think I might die of boredom.

Second Wave

It shouldn't be that fucking hard

To wear your goddamn masks. We all

Should be upon our fucking guard

For any way that we can stall

The spread of Covid. If you are

Incapable of doing that

Your sympathy must be subpar:

You wear your shoes, your pants, your hat

Outside; when it is raining you

Do not just sit there and get wet

So if there's something you can do

To stop the virus, why forget?

Or if it's not forgetfulness

But purpose--then you're just worthless.

Assurance

I worry there will be a coup

I worry one's already here;

I do not know what we will do

When they deny what is so clear.

The course that we will have to steer

Is one we never wished to sail

It shoals with prejudice and fear

Which we must pass untouched, or fail.

I worry it will not avail;

That what we do will not succeed

I want to rant, and weep, and rail

To pass from poem into screed.

But calm alone will help us now

And so I must be calm somehow.

Voter Fraud

Did anybody really think Bill Barr

Would have enough integrity to stop

His boss's madness? And yet here we are.

He doesn't have the honesty to drop

The trumped up charges of election fraud

Or even to ignore them; no, he joins

As if his Caesar were a very god

Whose face was rendered onto Roman coins.

Of course, if there were true misplay at work

We should investigate it; but be sure

The implications of that, he will shirk,

As if one vote could be declared impure

While all the others on the ballot stand:

A legalistic coup is now at hand.

Swatter

Consider, if you will, the humble fly

Whose every effort is in seeming vain

Born to a world of never-ceasing pain

Born but to live a little time and die.

Consider asking, as it buzzes by,

What reason, or what hope of earthly gain,

It has for putting forth the slightest strain

And if still does so, consider why.

Life must exist to act; it cannot stay.

It cannot stand unmoved, though everything

Should shout out nothing that is done will matter.

The fly that lives a single day in May

Will still fly on, its hopes upon the wing,

Despite the knowledge it will merely spatter.

Nobility of Labor

The union always made us strong

So strong that we forgot it did;

We started thinking (thinking wrong)

It held us down. But, like a lid

Placed on a pot of water, heated,

Which makes the water boil faster

So will a union, once it's seated,

Save its members from disaster.

As individuals we suffer

Underneath the corporations;

A union is a vital buffer

Against their greater depredations

So vote the union for protection:

Watch who advocates rejection.