all fires are meditative, even forest fires
watching the burners I remember the year
the mountain burned, an Easten Kentucky town
flooded and the world did not end then, either
it’s all water now and fire:
the elements have finally taken me
governed by thermodynamics and pressure
I watch the wind and river traffic
in my dreams I feel the rocking of waves
the whole of this land ship not yet asunder
Category Archives: psychogeography
Dear Goldie Johnson said 20 years ago, with a bit of Creole stuck in her teeth
then, just like this one now
a short burst of summer rain, afternoon sun reflecting the birth and death
of a billion new galaxies: “The Devil’s Wife
done kicked him out da bed.”
Day 165, 2023
The impatient fisherman and his wife abandoned their spot and gone home.
There’s too much symphony in the sounds of train whistles, passing shadows,
and interstate traffic to get lost in old radio show podcasts.
This 50-year-old skin doesn’t make me human.
I feel less by the day.
After shift, check for a tail growing in the shower and for the protuberance of sharp teeth
No one speaks of how alligators were born:
whether it is something in the air, in the wharf music, and the passing shades of junkies and mad men
making the old DNA reactivate on lone nights next to the river.