Borderland

There's a dog that's not there,
there's a man with no hair,
there's a rhyme
that shouldn't be spoke.
There's a dump that's on fire,
and blood they perspire  
in a wasteland
where we try not to choke.
The plants have all died,
there's something rotting inside
in a warehouse
where chemicals leak.
And I stumble the fray,
broken hands held to pray,
but I'm awake 
and alas
I feel bleak.
   

Meteorite

This evening, driving home,
the road scrolling beneath my wheels,
evening grasping the sky.
It screams downward,
angled sharp,
a burning hot ember,
a trail of fire and smoke,
its head so white
it's almost clear,
an ever-changing corona - 
now mauve,
now sterling,
now platinum -
a metamorphosing gash
in the cerulean sky,
a crack between worlds.

It nears the mesa,
ever smaller,
and I forget
the road,
I forget
my obligations,
I forget
the groceries 
in the back seat -
its magnetism calls me.
Wordless it reminds:
a moment alone,
without time. 

Chant

3 by 3 by 3
it is done,
bury your dead,
bring me a gun,
hand me your teeth,
full of decay,
spread out a sheet
for us to play. 

Pandora's Box

Secrets come in small packages,
hidden in dark places,
where untrained fingers fall short.
Do you wonder about these packages,
what hides within them,
like Russian dolls within dolls within dolls,
like an onion ever-smaller yet ever larger;
yet is the code worth the energy
it will take to break it?