Escape Artists

Every so often life stops

and you face the naked truth

of your life

minus the din

of your hole-filling crutches

TERROR

Never stop escaping, little ape

The Incursive Righter

(dedicated to richard sanderell, 1946-2021)

Oosa has bloodied the world

since the battle of Tippecanoe

The Moro Crater Massacre showed

oosan can-do through and through

How many graves put on layaway

as Oosa played at Dien Bien Phu

Displacement, genocide

Do sterile words offend you too?

All those bloody dictators bolstered

just to make a buck or two...

Those trails of tears tendered

courtesy of you-know-who

Peoples of color for whom

three fifths (or less) would do

Generations of wimyn

whose brilliance the world never knew

The poverty that pervades oosan people

A reign of self-terror we must undo

But Oosa didn't get everything wrong

Sweet friend, Oosa also made you

at the open mic

I see a new poet
Is she looking at me?
We seem to connect
Her reading so raw
Damaged
Naked
But farewell flits fumbly...
She walks away alone
I watch myself
walking away
alone

Another poet sits next to me
Unshaven ankle below braless beauty
My heart tears at its cage
to pound on her lap
while my bereft body
blows away

A third poet
i impregnate!
(on the morrow)
(in my mind)

Of all the stunning poets
why do these three touch me most?
The answer not nearly
so obvious
as it
seems