A sonnet for my love, the bomb

Atom Autumn


Japan's great empire fell with Little Boy
What seemed like years of power struggle might
Be nothing more than playing with our toys

When Truman laid the plans out for our fight,
Their radiated limbs weren't on his mind
And so he slept quite softly through the night

The toll had reached five hundred thousand killed
The bombs, he claimed, had saved more lives than lost
I'm just relieved they didn't help in kind

I wonder what it was we wanted most
To usher in a new atomic age
Or to create a new half million ghosts

I cannot seem to bring up any rage-
He was as confident as I am on this page.



A Terza Rima written in Iambic Pentameter. I know it's a bit rough and loose, but it's not easy writing in the same form that Dante wrote his Divine Comedies in while also using an old English meter style with the subject matter and perspective of a modern individual.

"Fool," said my Muse to me, "look in thy heart and write."

Snow Angel


Young ones wrapped in 90s green, pink, and blue
Parachutes can tell you how easy it is
To become one

Fall backwards, arms out, and watch
The descending world
Of cocaine rain, Douglas or fox furs
And a sky to match that shirt you keep
In the back of the closet. Hypothermic blue
With a few holes to let the sun seep in-
Jumping jacks in snow

I could peel my skin back, revealing the mushroom stem
Pieces of my bone. A sharpness of the mind helps
To carve away excess sinew and ligaments
Which are nothing like a chicken’s
Muscle strings. Gutting out the marrow
With a screwdriver, my Phillips-head
Feels lighter already

My brother’s white construction paper
Used in the fabrication of water crystals
Unique as his DNA
Will be pasted onto two hockey sticks
Responsible for three and a half neighborhood championship titles
And numerous dents in cars

Screws and nails, collected and arranged by length and level of rust
Bind toe to back, splinters to shoulders
And rebellion to soul
I will fly to Venus or fall to Earth
Whichever God sees fit