Insatiable

I have known the insatiable hunger of subways,
Tucked in tight tunnels, surge of cars and tiled walls,
All the gasping of rumpled trash and clothes,
Appetite in tainted common corridors,
Cavernous ticket booth, passageway, timetable,
The writhing tactics of tourist and worker,
Craving of toe-tapping, loafer and Rolex,
Endless custom of man and taut paper.
And I have seen mud cake the floor of car cabins,
Thicker than blood, throbbing, less filling than gases,
Clot, fully obscuring, over these constant commutes of routine,
Pouring a thick crust on cans and cracked gray tracks,
Coating the quiet hours, the starving masses.

[This poem was inspired by the form and rhythm of Theodore Roethke's "Dolor," which can be read here.]

I Have Known.

I have known the hunger of attempts.
It groans and it aches
and there’s never enough.
And there’s plenty to go around
(plenty of rejection)
and I’m not afraid
because this is not,
assuredly, not
my life.
But I remember the hunger
(the insatiable irrational hunger)
that begins in your nerves with your arms shaking
joints throbbing along
with the rock in the hole in your middle.
A shaking becomes a convulsing
(convoluted motion of the body
pacing and dancing and waving and waiting)
to be noticed.
And there’s plenty to go around
(plenty of rejection)
And I’m not afraid.

Sweet Salty Return

Full heart
Happy tears
Salty liquid washes away the months apart.
The weeks of warmth
apart from your salty coolness
Your damp greenness
Your heart breaking breath stealing beauty.
Your wild days
productive nights
Sleepless weeks
and happy moments
inescapable
incomparable.
This is home.