Poem: IED

IED

Carry me down the bloodlines

vermilion curtains, salamander cauldron

swayback bug doesn’t know what he’s

talking but still he talks

The comma is our darkest

enemy the semicolon God

forbid the period find a

shovel fill that thing up.

(Pause here for effect.)

Silence, thou dangerest of

beastlies, glut of probable,

excess of maybe, too much

likely, seeds of you never know

Deathly afraid of given the

chance what he might

do to himself

We pull the pins we

toss the grenades the

desert swims aflame

but then we call it

off they all return and

try their best through

Jesus football and

mortgage not to explode

You are nice to look

at surlytop but mind very

much if we wrap you in a flag

Cardboard marker meridians

three weeks of sunburn dirt you

reach for change but the

light ticks green the

truck driver honks you

spray the curb silver and

enter the ramp a muckyhand

wave he shouts Godbless!

It might not be right he

might drink it up but a

Godbless feels good and you’ve got

pins of your own

Photo by MJV
From the collection Fields of Satchmo