I voted for...

I voted for the rivers to run the land, in sweeping arcs of wine-bubblings
So that we may know the ease of fluidity among our days and the
Serenity of the river stone. I asked that only our thirst tyrannize
Our politics, with the calm eloquence of need sated by cool
And clean waters flowing through our lips like the mandate
Of some arcane spirit nourishing the jug of the soul.
We dip in and get out, no need for a life locked in drownings
Or the threat of desert answers to the questions of our mouths.

I voted for a calm cloud to lead us across a country few of us have lived,
And that its cargo may rain upon us with the emotion of storms when
We discover the scorched earth before us. I elected an errant hurricane
To demolish the old creations in brick winds and concrete floods,
So that we may know a terror not made by men of the ledger in our
Charted lives, so that storm surge may sweep the ink from off our
Records and give us the equality of the weather.

I voted for an earthquake as our general, for tectonic plates to
March in blitzkrieg against the stability of the era, that stale
Old stagnation based in petrifaction that has mummified our
Lives with the deposits of our enemy’s dreams, which mirror
The hopes of the dead. I elected geology as our army, since
Peace too is a matter of patience, layered like fossils among
The bedrock of our civilization.

I voted for you to be a leader, but only of yourself against
The other, that you may find yourself barefoot in a meadow
With daffodils rubbing pollen against your bare calves while
The cities shriek from murder and break cease-fires when
The battles have turned to embers. I elected you to march
Forth in surrender to the pleasing elms above the barrow
So that you may know shade in the summer and the work
Of farming until winter. I voted for you, not ending in
November, but starting today with the equality of the weather,
I voted for you in the eloquence of the river.

on psychiatry

Let them destroy the bitter dead
Who fill my head half with joys
And in part with sorrow, for after
Evening’s cloak turns red with dawn
And a new day’s marrow,
He comes at me with daggers drawn
Consisting not of knives but drugs
And pens that outline wounded birds
In their abstract chiaroscuro.

No, let for once my bitter head
Sour his sugar tie and sweetened
Belt buckle. Let for once the life
I’ve fed billow in plumes against
His sharpened harrow.

And in anxious night I draw the moon,
So full of stone that the ancients
Worshiped not the cycles but the
Weight of what does follow,
Let him destroy the bitter dead
But leave me light and even sorrow,
Let him outlast only the bitter wheat,
Scorched by drought and stuffed in a barrow,
Let me unfurl my anxious song
Before tomorrow bleeds in sorrow.