new poem: elephant morning

A little sign behind my desk reads:

o ganesha!

ride the mind

and bring it to stillness

that peace may descend...

then all choices become easy

and love finds

its true expression

elephant morning

paste blank pages into
this blank journal
a sticky collage
of space & silence

press the glue here
to smother the screams
except too many children
are screaming

a trillion trumpets
i have elephant ears
i can sing but
there are no requiems

loud enough
to recall
to remember
replace

a blaring
a tearing
life
life

earth is paperback body
ripped in half
all the marks we have
made upon her gibberish

& i live
in a cheap crime novel
& she dies in baghdad
best seller

earth is crumpled
is paper
is palestine
is a charred child’s guillotined hand

bedtime stories blast
big babar burns
the poor babies to utter
ivory sleep sleep

can’t amass enough
stubborn this mourning
to poet to speak
resurrection

in my spittle someone
else’s blood spatters
in my pen all the ink
turned ashes

found few words here
where there are hot wars
in his mouth all the teeth
turned stones

found the gravesite:
the body’s found poem
but the dead cannot read
these love letters

city library
of unshelved corpses
half read books
like dried mouths ajar

could my words breathe
life back into
i would offer a trunk
full of plenty