19/20: What do you remember about the earth? -Bhanu Kapil Rider

I remember the entry:
the red, wet pain of it,
the exploding in my lungs.
I did not remember it while I
was still there, but here
now, I can feel it.  The slap
of light, the deluge, the shit
and shit and tears.  An opening, a bang
of sweetness.  The years that followed,
as muscles bettered and nerves mored,
as thought thicked and beautied.
Til I could make and speak and run
and make and love.  Til I made
love and unmade love and love
unmade me.  I do not remember
the exit.  I was there, and then I wasn't:
just so.  What I miss most
is the fertile black of it under
my nails, the hot rain soaking through
everything, breezes strong enough
to buffet a body, the visceral, the honest,
the bliss: to stand on the side
of a mountain, silent, breathing every
atom in.

2: Asa Cut-Up

This is a bill that in ordinary times would not be controversial. But these are not ordinary times.  This bill is not really complicated.  It's a balancing test.  The bill itself does not pick winners and losers.  It balances two competing constitutional obligations that our founding fathers gave to us.  But the issue has become divisive because our nation remains split on how to balance the diversity of our culture with the traditions and firmly held religious convictions.  It has divided families, and there is clearly a generational gap on this issue.  
--Governor Asa Hutchison of Arkansas on 1st April, 2015, announcing why he would be vetoing HR1228.


Balancing has become
founding.
This bill
is not ordinary.
These are
complicated times.
There is clearly a gap
between diversity
and religious convictions.
Split the founding fathers.
This nation is split: winners
and losers.  It's
controversial.  Test this bill.
This issue
is not really complicated.
Ordinary times?  Families,
traditions, convictions clearly
compete.  Our nation split
itself.  This bill is con-
troversial.  Test the times.  Really.
Two fathers are winners
and losers. and families.
and our nations.  and ordinary
culture.

12/30: After Jan Beatty's "Shooter"

Poem Removed because Wicked Banshee Press is going to publish it!  Link up when it happens.

11/30: Another year, another ghost line from Morgan Coleman

Whole heart

-edly.  No half measures.  No

holding back, nothing barred.

Altogether.  Completely.  Not

without fear, but without letting

fear win.  As though I’ve been doing it

my whole life already.  Like a rock star.

Like a natural.  Like my life depended

on it.  Because my life may depend on it.

Because I don’t know how

to do shit halfway.  Because you

are worth everything I’ve got I will start

as I mean to go on.  Because I mean

to go on.  Because within

this spark I have found

my whole self.