What I was like when I came in

What I was like when I came in

I liked the feeling of being knifed to piecesand sent bleeding down a hilllike earth torn in torrential rainsracing through an innocent village                                  I might…

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Ragamala

Ragamala

I never wanted a homenor a Lotus Sutra    I am not a lotus eater    a homeis a place to hanghistory floatingin etymologicalsoundfacts    a privilegethat is created…

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Take Us Ornately Hanging Girls

Take Us Ornately Hanging Girls

Take us ornately hanging girls  composed of candles and scintillating light, as sacred as bael fruit. It is our wild-born nature to cling to the…

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Blue

Blue

Blue light on dark rivers, blue notes floating in veils of wind          down chasms of blue canyonswhose denouement issuesinto fields of tiny bluets limning the dawn. I…

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Penelope Diaz Ramirez, 31, Bayamon, Puerto Rico, April 13

Penelope Diaz Ramirez

The third in eight days. Penelope, how can a life be reduced to facts,and those so few? And used to compare youwith those who died…

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Trapped

Trapped

I saw a woman peeling an orange at a traffic light and thought of you. She had the orange on top of the steering wheel,a small,…

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English Castles, Irish Churches

English Castles, Irish Churches

Note: This poem is best viewed on a Desktop Computer with widescreen. December:the table’s sinkingin drinkable amnesia and your eyes are nobodiesfrenzied with potential. It is 2009….

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Ode to Tojo

Ode to Tojo

I knew a man.He played guitar for change.I’d buy him this and that.So he wouldn’t betoo cold and hungry. I knew a man.Who informed me…

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Algorithm helps New York decide who goes free before trial

Algorithm helps New York decide who goes free before trial

The Wall Street Journal // Sept. 20, 2020 The courthouse that calls to me              is only five blocks from homebut I drive anyway and you are…

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You Disappear in June

You Disappear in June

You disappear in June, leaving a dentin my breath. Your rosewood fragrance lingers while I stare at empty frames. To inhalenothing is its own religion,…

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Wild Boar

Wild Boar

We are stardust—that meanswe carry death in our bones. Our breathblows out a galaxy long gone. Hugging a friend and her seaweed hair,kissing a stranger…

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A father’s shrāddha instructions: A consolation

A father’s shrāddha instructions: A consolation

NOW, you should prepare by obtaining the following:  I.  For giving to a priest: 1 pound rice, ½ pound toor dal, ½ cup red chilies, ¼ cup coriander seeds …

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Home like Red, White, Brown

Home like Red, White, Brown

scab country, this;                             coagulatedfrom the fall, the bleed; picked                                                 apart, flickedso new underneath it won’t match                                                     can’t; scarlike bleach on jeans, like knuckle clean                                                            through glassbruise can yellow over, recolor;…

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Gopi

Gopi

I recited Tagore to you at bedtime.               Tales of flower buds and fishermen,               Boat crossings on an ocean of milk.  [You settle in your sleep.] Your earrings…

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Grandfather

Grandfather

I am now older than you when your body was lostbetween solid and liquid as death courted brother and foe what thoughts rose as mountains…

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Nightstand

Nightstand

These daysI only read worksfrom poetsI’m intimate withnot the cigaretteafterwards kindbut morein a crowdedroom kindwhen you readthat pieceabout smokinga cigaretteafterwardslips pursedaround a narrowfilter inhalingnicotineyour bodyabsorbing…

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The Window Faces East

The Window Faces East

And that’s whyI never see Don Ramon,loaded with carrots and lettuces, walking the roadon the west sideof my little home. Have you ever thoughtof whomyou’d…

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Echo Cardiogram

Echo Cardiogram

I lay on my left side, the technician’s wrist on my breast, wand pushing into my skin.He’s looking at my heart on the screen, into…

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The Catholic

The Catholic

Before the flood,New Orleans gave usCrawfish plucked from spicy broth that blistered Our lips pressed silent during the awkward family dinner;Sinking gravestones that made my mother…

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The Grief Collection

The Grief Collection

Do not grieve. Anything you lose comes around in another form. -Rumi 1. Why I still see you in the time since then, I can’t…

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