Sirens
Speed of light insomniac runs,

angry mantras burn the tongue,

falling masonry fire shock it’s over.

Lifetime ago anger grew unbearable

a leader’s words touched the spirit,

reading the texts elated: do this

for love and land, strike the heart,

avenge injustice. Old nightmare’s fury

proved accurate driving there (no turning back)

smuggle the steel cylinders to the basement.

Flashlights beam the rubble. Remote-pilot

assassin birds  visit villages, shower rockets.

Flashlights beam the rubble.

Cold winds blow from angry hearts.


Robot X
No lightning bolts from my fist

today, nor dramatic transformations

human to machine and back,

my zigzag ceased at midnight

I was a killer machine

confessing badness to the moon

when my brain seized

and the fighting stopped

I resumed a peaceful life

among animals and plants.

but (no buts) robotic impulses

occasionally drive my actions

till the nervous system

reboots.


Sleep
Diluted by moonlight, industrial

strength sleep is not too deep

beyond what you imagine—

Ah to be in the crazed time and place

the music took us into space

and we saw flying saucers for real.

Before that it was rickety

metal and home rotting red bricks

the missions to the moon, vitamins

and transistor radios designed by mad scientists—

sudden pharmacopeia, precision

machines, hallucinatory night-art-3D

an endless supply of paperbacks,

all were good reason

to shoot rockets into the heart.