Poetry

Onion-

pyretic, potent, plum

Onion’s first sliver

a razor to its riches

A tear of grief

falls

Onion’s layers

cleave

so galling to see

yet seen by none

Deeper colors 

of Onion

burn more when 

darkly 

bitten

Onion’s core

clammy 

and white yet 

only once innocent

The most important piece 

the value of Onion

she stabs

and rains down

What have I done?

Knife

butchering

rabid fumes

of Onion’s 

fluid

splattering 

Onion slumps

on porcelain plates

weak

every where 

slit

Onion

dribbles

drips

onto 

the 

floor

Onto

other 

hands

Onion

Bled.

It will be a long long time before we see 
these cumulations again, these birds again, Carolina
conure wafting westward with the smell of 
cockleburs, noise plummeting

It will be a long long time before we see
these peatlands again, compress burn decay store
again: Bog, Fen,
brackish plummeting

Watch now these stiff men, pale
dim faces like the ground we pasture 
skillful with sickle and the tearing and the grazing

Watch now these sick men, shale
as the ground cutting farmlands to sudden boundary,
selfish, it seems, to the battle of

worms in the ground,
for their gnawing, smothered soon
with the interests in their ichor,

their silver, their plenty,
will birth old problems, old illness, old 
borrowers, will dam like this soil clogged

in the sediments by which this bog coalesces
to new niches, new soils, new
gardens, the salt of the water minced

with the fire and the vegetation
the mosquitos and marrow, the green and the 
nausea of motion in this eroded and rooted place.

White Rabbit’s pocket watch murmurs tick tock.
Entering the playful realm of beauty, truth and premonition.

Frolicking in friendly fields, trailing White Rabbit.
No, twas not heel to warm, rich soil –
Ground bare, crisp, quenched.

Tumbling down, mystical rabbit hole.
No, twas not magical mess of a stumble –
Nosedive, plummet, dusty disorder.

Wandering the whispers of wooden doorways.
No, twas not liberating, optional –
Tapped, locked, narrow.

Beyond doorway: lay luscious garden greens, buzzing beauty.
No, twas bare, lifeless, soundless –
Dead, shivering, untouched antique.

Longing to undo doorway, tempating gadgets gaze down.
No, twas not sweet alteration –
“DrinkMe”, “Eat Me”: instantly irreversible, nausea, sour swallows.

Hasty, honest alarm clock chimes: tick tock.

Instantly escaping the playful realm of beauty, truth and premonition.
Back to the wild wonderland of beauty, lies, and repetition.