Poems

He built the empire out of handshakes and the willingness to outlast everyone in the roomLearned early that the loudest man is rarely the most dangerousSo he got quietAnd got dangerousEvery bridge he crossed he assessed for structural weakness before he decided whether to burn itNot from cruelty — from arithmeticThe kind of arithmetic that […]

The Full AccountingThe complicated want requires the fullAccounting of the whole complicated pullOf all its factors, the full honest lookAt every entry in the ledger bookOf the wanting and its conditions allThe full accounting before I fallThe full accounting of the wanting hereThe full accounting makes the complicated clearThe full accounting of everything I feelThe

The steeple rises like a jagged blade against the sunI hear the rattling of the silver in the cleric’s runHe screams of mercy while he strips the leather from the poorA predator in vestments pounding on the humble doorThe bell is swinging but the iron tongue is made of greedIt doesn’t sing for spirit or

He doesn’t use the front door and he doesn’t need the light,He keeps his ledger in the hours just before the night breaks right,His arithmetic is absolute — you signed it in your skin —Every compound interest rolled to what you owe him in the end. He counts in increments of suffering, his currency is

The Eating of the LuckyI eat what I eat because I landed hereNot because I earned the spread, not clearThat the deserving is the system’s ruleMore like the lottery of the birthpoolDetermining the neighborhood and foodAnd income level and the likelihoodOf eating what I eat or not eating wellThe eating of the lucky, what I

I’ve been rebranded seventeen times in the last decade and a half,I’ve got a sustainability report and a corporate photograph,I pay a PR firm to make the pillaging look like care—The corporate greed has always known how to dress for the affair. I am the signature at the bottom of the thing that costs you

The Crooked CityCity where shadows twist and streets wind with a malevolent grace hiding secrets in the darkCorners conceal dark secrets and alleys hold a sinister embrace where shadows leave their markCrooked City where dreams and nightmares intermingle as shadows guide hearts on a twisted arcDarkness consumes light as dreams shatter Crooked City becomes a

The BountyThe garden overloads itself in late summerThe zucchini that became the numberOne thing people dodge at the county fairEverybody’s got them, nobody’s awareOf what to do with thirty in a weekThe tomatoes splitting on the vine, the peakOf everything at once, the bounty landsAll together, more than I have handsThe bounty, overloaded on the

The Combat OutpostTwelve men and a patch of ground and a wall of HESCO bags,and the mission is to hold the ground against the dragsand pushes of the insurgency that wants the valley road,and the combat outpost is the fixture and the load.We named it after someone who was lost before we got there,and the

The Bar BetShe made a bet with me at the bar on the Saturday night we met,The specifics of the bet are between the two of us and the cigarette,Machine in the corner that was not operational but present,She wrote the terms on a cocktail napkin and said let’s make this pleasant.I said you’ve done