Some Verses

Postindustrial Dysfunction & the Shrine of Perpetual Adoration

I am washed up on the beach in Biloxi
Undertow that tore away all of the
Deep dysfunction clogged internally
The storm a powerful purgative
Rendering in bold relief postindustrial
Scape and scalpel to sliver off your skin
And run you under all over cold
Eternal oaks in the sand scourged off
Casino barged upon the sewaged strand
Money lost and life wrought naked

You come up stripped away coldly clean
And you find in startling certainty that
Death is a strange plunge to take.
It turns all your insides out in red relief

Now I sit here on this clean concrete slab
Where once Perpetual Adoration once was held
Our Lady of the Gulf’s veneration was kept
I am here and stripped away almost clean
What will be contracted within the coming tomorrow?

Postcolonial Dismemberment

The hallowed vestiges of fragmented motherhood
Blown into the armored cars and army saloon
And flesh and blood and strips of clothing
The bitter afterbirth of violent dissolution
Love and loathing and the sterility of state structure
Death-bound fecundity that wasn’t
Shrapnel and force and toggled un-umbilical cord
Is this the new constant of experience?