Psalm 2023

I imagine there is

no laughing left

in Turkiye, maybe

a little smile on

the outskirsts of

Byzantium, remember

the Bosphorus got the blues

as it split Asia from Europe

yet I imagine there is

no laughing left

in Turkiye, maybe

in Beirut tonight

the assassin holds

his cell and calls

his handler once more

and dupes a grin

yet I imagine there is

no laughing left

in Turkiye, maybe

the elephants in Ceylon

believe the end is near

and stare blankly

towards Java and Haiti,

Chile, Hawaii, Alaska

The. Great. Rift. Valley.

yet I imagine there is

no laughing left

in Turkiye, maybe

the souls of New Madrid

are restless and recall

months on end when

the earth smiled

ear to ear

again and again and again.

Yet I imagine there is

no laughing left

in Turkiye, thy rod

and thy staff and thou

shall not want.

All reactions:

5Bisbee Bodega, Raghida Khouri and 3 others

The Mourning

Up there they talk about you

late into the night, ghost

talk but it is good

to be known

by one's brothers' names

even if death has wrapped

its arms around again

the all-of-it and small-of-it

the petrified rock-of-it

the once was a tree-of-it

the hemorrhage of birth

now in a box, the weight

of a small child held.

I'm so sorry, so sorry

to the ash-bones

as if they can hear

a finely working heart

when it says remember

all that stuff

that we thought mattered?

It doesn't.

Periscope

The day cannot see

what the night reveals:

if only, if only, if only

said the dreamer

to the dream.

I used to live

there in the woods

with them,

there on the lake,

on the beach,

I used to own

at least a part of it.

Now I know

which part

it was,

the part

that was not.