Tagged: the Humans

The Ancient Reptilians

every dinosaur book starts out
a long long time ago, or
before
there were buildings, cars

before the trees were gone (once
when they had never been)
before
the leaves were different

and as gluttonous drinkers of sun
they stood, broad faced and brachial
before
their necks. maybe we say instead

instead there were dinosaurs
very unlike cartoon dinosaurs, who
before
becoming huge and terrible

could fit in the palm of your hand
their woodpecker hearts bled in
before
receding, flooding again the plains

of their limbs to move. they’d tense in
vegetation, wary of their own feathers
before
in agitation, taking flight

this is before and during the
beginning of time
before
enough collective damage

had been done to call it the past
before there were roads
before
the whispering of animals into rooms 

of our dwelling. be it houses, clothes
as fire eats the air
before
air has had enough and shoos it

when at once it has always been
like the ground to a foot in a shoe
before
the biggest thing on Earth was God

App ideas

A man
who saw
where my dog
went

adopt
A star
or endangered cat
or grandchild
maker

Nap
injector

suppressed
memory
vibrator

the complete
“Who started it?”
Fossil record

Apology ID
by state, sound,
breast color

Land
Delineator

A game
where Player 1 has
a question
and Player 2 must respond
using only words

Monday to
Sunday
translator

Push-notifications
for grim historical
Precedents

brain storage app
called
Compartments

a tone to let
ideas down
gently. one for hope
that doubles
as alarm

the social bubble
floor
planner

lens
through which
a house appears
gold

The Need to See, and Be Seen, Both

A group of hikers stare in the distance
as something stalks, then pounces, then
comes away empty handed, or clawed, or
pawed. Someone asks, “Is that a lynx?”
But the group says, “No. No no, no.”
The question curls in a path around them,
often over more trying terrain, as if there is
a distance their recognition can reach, an
actual discernible radius. The hikers wear
bright vests and glittery bear-bells. They
strain their eyes. Finally one of them says,
with real authority, “Oh, III see what it is.”
The others say, “Ya. Ya ya, ya.”

People Near a Fire

A woman sings without breathing mask
in all this smoke
She covers Wagon Wheel
and smoke covers the mountains

A crowd of people gather. They dance
as though someone
has just completed
a successful surgery, or a birth

and small green shrubs have popped up
from the fires before. 2003, 2010. They seem
to run back and forth like children
between challenges

What challenges me? A guy lights his cigarette
and his girlfriend gets on him
He says I need it to be myself
while we’re here!

I’m standing alone for the same reason
You’re off in the market, carrying
my bucket of water. It seems impossible
that I should be able to cry now

smoke like a grey wool pillow, pink
bandana around my face, but I am. Something
about the altitude, my solitude, a mixture
of short air and of people, how

I love you, how I look like a bandit
how I love to see your ideas
nesting in burnt trees like eagles
I see how people continue to dance

long after the woman has lost her voice
how when you look closely, you can see
where new life
has been pulled out of old life

Fish Gardens

those fish were caught by men
with their feet in water
those fish were caught by men
with their feet on land

in the middle, a couple of babies
pose for their wedding pictures
her dress is lumpy, leguminous
like it is actually cauliflower
his has a pocket for his phone

everything outside their body
is light. literal, actual light
light is decided upon in the brain
the brain is a folded leaf

this is can turn into anything
imagine we are fish swimming
in a man made water system
never have the edges to things
been more clear

Petrify

still caught up
in how we felt
about it earlier

the rarest stone
a person’s mind
being changed

I just planted seeds
in the garden. it is
snap pea, an easy seed

in a way I am checking
the earth’s pulse
I sit with it

having hope, but
waiting for it
I worry that thoughts

rarely occur
that aren’t hardening
the old ones

As a Species

Happy the end all?
Happy is just one end
of a flailing ribbon
we all jump toward
hoping to grab anywhere
I see that many people
try to keep their happiness
These are the people
you see floating around
at the high point
of their jumps, perfectly level
feet not touching
the ground. They are
lifted by our
assumptions. And strung
along like lights
against the ribbon
It’s like we can’t
shut it off, this little bit
of not enough, all
the time. So why try?
We are seductively long
genetics. And
never staying happy
is the reason
we have survived

SNITCH

a bus exhausts at the exchange
of people. on the stop itself
someone has posted a kid’s face
with the word SNITCH above it
the flyer has pull-tab bottoms
like you see on NEED ROOMMATE
listings, ad spots
for math tutors. several tabs
are already taken
I take the rest, holding them
in my palm like money. no good
reason. maybe I will lay them
somewhere. on the chest of a hill
or the bottom of a well
are we sure this isn’t Hell?
all we do is tell each other
what other people have done

Fish Could Mean a Thing to Say

it makes more sense
to pave
just two strips of driveway

or to drive on the lawn
repeatedly. one of my neighbors
threw a bunch of beer cans
down

and drove over those
now it’s flat, glinting
like scales
off a gut fish. they still add to it

a few Coors a night
during winter. sitting around
the campfire, cooking perch
the smell of a tree’s
tense changing

and i find it hopeful
that even
in this day
and age

there are still
hazardous settlers
we must burn
off our meat

and fish
to trick out of water
with string