Two Poems

Moira Magneson

Koan

My tag.  My turf.  My gangland
sign.  My zero.  My gunfire. My empty
mind.  My emperor’s clothes.
My atomic wind.  My blown alphabet.
My naked skin.  My pawn-shop junk.
My peacock muse with his chartreuse tail.
My popinjay.  My nothing pail.
My beg.  My please.  My dotted-line
swap with Mephistopheles.
My day-long coma.  My
procrastination.  My stammer.
My stutter.  My inarticulation.
My absent signifier.  My dead-
bird choir.  My bondage.
My sin.  My discipline.
My cuffs & whips.  My little
apocalypse on the page.
My dugong calling.  My gap-
toothed girl.  My beeswaxed ears. 
My oyster pearl.  My gauntlet glove.
My Out-Out.  My mad love-love.

***

Dandelion

Hot flare hustling in alleys,
junkyards, sidewalk cracks.
Parasite of boulevards, airport
tarmac. I’ve been poisoned,
mowed over, body hacked out
of the hardpack ground.  You think
I’m just a weed?  Look at me.
See this collar of gold spikes?
I like a fight.  I don’t back down.

Moira Magneson found Eeyore’s tail and now claims it as her own.  Sometimes, when the moon is full, you can hear her braying in the star thistle.
magneson@innercite.com

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