Mount Pinatubo

 There's a thing, some sort of

eruption

on my skin

and it

vibrates

 

every time the autobus bounces

and the chickens flutter

as if, dreaming, they are back in their shells

desiring

rebirth

 

as eagles or raptors or some undreamt-of symbol

rising

through the roof of the autobus.

 

There is a blemish,

some sort of eruption

on my skin and boiling beneath Mount Pinatubo.

 

The day is hot,

and I am dizzy,

as we go around the curve

on this mountainside which has no

guard rails

and never did.

In Honor Of

They name things after people.

It's done all the time,

like

the George Washington Bridge

or

Kennedy Space Center.

Nobody doesn't like Sara Lee

but then,

Sara Lee never did anything to me.

There are others.

O'Hare airport,

Richard A. Handlon Correctional Facility

or

Willard Asylum for the Chronic Insane.

I'm adding one

and calling it

The Pat R. Harvey Desert.

Its grand scale reflects your self-importance,

its shifting sands your endless bogus tap dance,

and its

vast, uninhabitable wastes

your vacant heart.

I placed a plaque

smack dab in the middle

where the sun is harshest.

It tells the tale

of which curb I kicked your bullshit to.

If you want it,

it's out there where nothing can survive

with your golf clubs

and your

side piece.

_______

for What's Going On? "desert"

.

In August

 In August, the clouds are one-winged birds

collected in a shadow box by boastful head-injured dwarf gods.

They skitter, describing ceaseless circles

as the dwarf gods goad them to fly as they long to.

Storms are the tempers of the shadow box birds.

In August, old men dream of young women 

and young women find themselves shriveled and standing on hard clay.

Everyone is given a shovel and a stethoscope

to listen for thalidomide demons in love with the shadow box birds.

Cicadas amplify the grinding of maddened demons.

In August, weather pattern doctors urge 

tarot card mothers to sleep with bellies full of shadow box birds.

demon doulas with asters in their teeth

sicken gravity with odd fevers and the whole world sways.

Crickets are half birds in the ears of gods, still able to sing, ice pick righteous.

________

for Dverse Poetics "August" hosted by Sanaa Rizvi.