Dwight Jenkins

...

The darkest poems are written in dead of night,
Come when pillow turns to Jacob's stone,
The only movement lonely branches twisting to 
Be free, yearning wildly to see their love,
...

Hillsides mottled green and brown
Pulled and fringed into redness
At the edges;
...

I had five hot dogs for dinner
Jen and the five kids were gone
They were off to the mall for a winner:
Five dresses for big days to come
...

Another perfect sunset aching for its perfect mate:
A dome of stars to greet the afterglow
And in the darkness silent where the earth sails onward safe
Another day turns unto night for men below
...

Ale is the happiest word in the world 
When the world isn't happy at all
And the happiest ale I can think to describe
Comes from Belgium: the tripel 'Westmalle.'
...

When in the softness of spring I awake
To LIFE in the fullness of time
Beauty erupts with the vengeance it takes
On LIFE in its arrogant climb
...

I'm drinking beer from a brewery Belgian-made
I'm thinking weird from a brewery Belgium gave
To a world without... Wait...
How I'd like to say 'hate'
...

The river is not even moving today
It's as dead as a flag with no breeze
The sentiments once so inflamed in 'the day'
Are as mad as a cow with disease
...

I am just a small part of this larger thing we call 'life, '
A collection of old stones from a foundation
Long overthrown, and now overgrown
With life of another tone.
...

I almost cried today, thinking of a friend I know
     Who will never know what I was thinking unless
I tell him. But it was so very long ago...
     And why? He wasn't at that address
...

When I finally live 
Bury me in shrouds of flowers and sun
So that she who has found me runs not
From my clouds or my rain
...

We come yet again to Memorial Day
In the sweetest time of the year
A day set aside to remember the lost
And the cost of what all hold dear
...

There are battles that I never want to fight again,
With some that I was never in;
And better ways todays begin
In memories washed of pain.
...

And so it rained.
The wind blew.
The air turned cold.
The sky turned gray.
...

I'm turning my blood into coffee
But there's not enough beans to be found
I go to the men's room to blow my old nose
And it bleeds Fair Trade Organic brown
...

I saw a ghost in the glass of a museum case
Where the earth had been stabbed one last time
By the point of a knife, on the point of a gun
Now washed of its blood and it's grime
...

There's a thunderstorm coming
You can see it over there
You can feel the violence humming
From the hidden places where
...

The city is alive with shades of blue and gray
In the distance of miles, many miles, that I am away
And how it will fade out I cannot say
But the morning will paint it anew.
...

At 3: 54 in the morning my eyes open.
It's time to wake. I've no place to go until 8: 00,  
But something inside me says 2 hours is needful
To sit in deep silence after the tubercular 
...