Lazy Dogs by the Mill

inside universe
everything is intimate
matter is the meat


coyote yipes at barking dunes
whips silent as gusts and grit sweep the world clean
scrubbing until nothing is left but brick and bone
no single drop of water on no sun-baked stone
basta basta pacíficas otros otros magníficas
a través de tiempos de paz o tiempos de guerros
dos zumbidoses de alta y abajo constante corriendo
somos ningunos de altiplanos y montañas


Oh never mind it's just another silent tragedy
not so's anyone would notice — nice and discreet!
a well-behaved infant getting smothered in her sleep
a boatload of hopeful refugees drowning in the deep
men pray for easy lives — we strive until we die


never wanted no tendency to let it be
or mellowing out to sea
stress is the ocean we all swim in
so we just grew some fins
burying your emotions gets a bad rap
we've forgotten more than we've trapped
grief is a process, so we've been told
but we'll keep our pain under our cap


on a mountain slope behind some scrag there it was
below open-mouthed grin between jagged stone teeth
the cavity black and narrow
barely wide enough for her child to be dropped in
their cries faded as she imagined they plummeted forever
the wind's cold whistle her home


feel it coming like an ocean
a cosmonaut's splashdown pierces tension
ripples pulsing outward all around body
blossoming in exploding congealments of cuttlets
spattering and diluting as they begin