Two Poems

my own flesh burning

First the needle through the flesh
Of a coarse and blighted face,
Piercing the veil of courage
That hangs on feebly
Like a shadow in dying light.
And then the dull creep
Of anesthesia stitching
its numbing shroud.

(all of this,
and the carving
by and by,
because years ago
i dared to drowse
beneath the sear
and brutal sun,
scorching pale skin
a painful crimson hue,
inciting blisters
that sagged like
pricked water balloons.

and that faint dirge
is the rattle
of cells mutating,
yielding to cancer's
incandescent rythm.)

Now the scalpel's sterile flash,
The rasp of razor's edge through
Sparsely whiskered skin.
Excise, cauterize,
Slash and burn;
The mockery of heat--
Catalyst and cure--
Lingers in the room,
Seething in union
With the hiss and sputter of
My own flesh burning.

myth and murder

when once a king was butchered,
what fury sprang from his blood,
maddening ragged angels,
whose vengeance flowed like magma
through the hot blind streets.

and when othello slaughtered
his heedless desdemona,
he wept, saying, I was not
wise but yes I loved her well.
and the twelve agreed, saying,
yes not guilty by reason
of melanin; yes, now walk
home through placid streets.

oh father of the titans
and hundred-handed giants,
what hideous crime awaits?
when time's crimson scythe cleaves from
heaven the moon and sun, what
ghastly apparition will
seep from that wet wound?