We

Some say this is
worse
than it’s ever been. The threats
of violence, eco-
-nomic desolation, the
suffering of the earth
nuclear bombs populous as
butterflies
in the grass but
something tells me
every
generation thinks that; every
generation
thinks they’re the last. That
they endure
or have endured
the worst
the world
god
humanity
can throw at them—the
tearing of stitches of planet
country
and self
is
happening
in their moment in this mute
murmur of time. Every
generation believes they were
referenced
in some ancient tomb
a hieroglyph scratched in a shadow
describing
atrocity not unlike
our current ill

now
now
now

there is a lion at your door
gazing at you
or
there isn’t anything at your door;

and maybe the knights
of the 13th century
with their sword kills and
chainmail
had it good, had it easy, really
had
nothing to fear
that it’s we
with something to fear now—the

master who devours time
who
shakes our hand
we know his visage, odor, method…

to think this way, to admit
the whisper of god as
killer of
people. Every generation closes its eyes
in the sum
of these fantasies like warm
sunlight.

Of course, just yesterday
an asteroid
the size of a ten story building
whizzed by
at a mere 45,000 miles (that’s
close in astronomical speak)

and no one even
saw it
coming.

False Truths - Poems by C. Kursel

As a close follow-up to a posting last month, I have digitally published a second collection of work utilizing Flickr.

It was written around the same time as my previous collection, but because of its theme and style differences, called for its own grouping.

Thank you and enjoy.

Goodbye Jukebox

Given up to Lake Michigan’s stomach.
The green bottom.
Green of cat’s eyes.
The air that hovers
above a hornet’s nest.
An ancient philosophy
brought you and I here together; the
timely togetherness of death’s ring.

It was born out of it and now I doodle
its figure in the margins of a napkin.

Exasperella

The cat breathes audibly
while she
on the other hand
snores
and the
angel in the room goes blind with cataracts.
Horses whinny
when they hear the name of God.
Here I am in the birdhouse, the
shed, the
mineshaft. Here I am
in the straightjacket
poolhall
hospital bed. Los Angeles
stretches
its legs and
saddens me. Children
crawl
from the tar pits of La Brea.
I recall pasts
that aren’t mine. Dunces
walk
the streets as geniuses and mock me.
The white room
oscillates, the
jail of light, the moon rings
like an alarm clock. Prey in
my
cat’s mouth
is my father as a hand puppet...

She left it at my feet.
I do not
recognize him.

TV

the dummies wear
bathrobes
while the president eats
bone marrow
salad.
the ranch is dead. bull
mastiffs
sniff the corpse
of
jughead’s sister.
mary ann never got
off the island. no one
voted
that way.

Who Knows

It was he
who
ate his man
in bed
with
the lights all off
Murcury
giving
red light to the room and
everything around
it swollen.
like a porkified summer.
like the knees of
sinners. as the morning sun
picks a fight. daring
the night
to
eat as much without
so much
as a belch.