h lina k period com

There was a three-page long poem typed single-space in rhyming couplets here about love, how it made a young man soar in the clouds with butterflies, gamma rays, and chickadees.
But ctrl-a was typed and backspace pressed.
That is what had happened.

The joy is here, the skunk has died,
It is time to stop the masquerade!

There is sensual buzz saw filling the void
and starlings are walking blind into cars
and we can eat tacos, tasty tasty tacos.
I just hope my dad is alive to meet the kids.

So whether your name is Emmanuel or Imannuel
or if just you want to lie in the sun
or even if you cannot hit a baseball and insist on losing every game you play day in and day out
take a moment
make a phone call
and let everyone know that you really really despise old Dutch pirates.

i looked out my window
on a night that was moonlit
but still cloudy so sometimes
this bold reflective lamp
would be smothered, exterminated
it no longer brightening the land

i felt a presence
while Mahler was weaving
a windy web of fog
that whispers ‘Frere Jacques’
in the otherwise calm background
so i scanned the room

and i saw my german shepherd
now smaller than me
jump up to say hello
gnawing at my wrist
though his face was not gold
but white like porcelain

then my great uncle
came knocking at my door
with a red cyst on his eye
he screamed “you asshole”
and exploded before me
spraying blood on the hardwood floor

i stared at the freshly painted room
its glow like the image of the sun
after you gazed for too long
but I shook the exposure from my head
and with eyes still fixed began to walk
past mirrors and night lights

then i noticed a skeleton
at the wooden kitchen table
doing the morning crosswords
this must be my granddad
but he is still alive and fat
and drinking national bohemian from a can

with curiosity i looked over
his visible collarbone
and i examined the puzzle
all he needed to finish
was a 9-letter word for rites
and it began with an ‘o’

2000ish

grass almost everywhere
green pencil lines
desiring the setting sun

three wooden light-posts
and four wooden elm trees
are a natural man made bar graph

there is very little time here
but every fifteen minutes
a bustling train reminds me

in the pond, a large shriveled olive
the center is dark, almost black
and the shores are shiny and verdant

four birds in the sky
or are those planes flying high
no wonder superman was hard to describe

the sky caresses them
pink, white, blue, purple, orange
new bathroom tile, but soft like wool

an open eyed child walks behind
he said that as time goes on
his shadow will get longer

lord knows when this was written, the past