Thor, the Norse God of Thunder, had a hammer named Mjölnir. Mjölnir was considered a fierce weapon that could level mountains and summon lightning with every blow. In this poetry blog, every Thursday, (Thor’s Day), Mjölnir will forge only song - sing of the mysteries and beauties of the world.

Thursday, June 28, 2012

A ROOM OF INCOMPLETIONS

I know a place where nothing is finished:
where antique fountain pens by the hundreds
wait for their little nibs to be fastened on with precision
so they can ink-up empty pages with
ornate aphorisms and swirling witticisms;
where keyboards and computers hold in their ebony and ivory,
their hard drives and motherboards,
half-composed ballads and rock operas
that would put an avalanche
and the sound of rain to shame;
where lamps, in their final design, would lean
into indecision and doubt and turn on
like a parrot squawking the word spark;
where sculptures, myriad figures, bearing
the press of fingerprints in the brown of the clay,
are poised to receive the bold gestures they would make
if only their arms could find them.

I know this place like an orphanage,
like a room I rent,
like a part of myself I can’t know.

One day I will tunnel my way through
these incompletions like a convict
bursting through a cornfield
and there before me will be a river
waiting, weeping, smiling like a bride.




Thursday, June 21, 2012

THE LYRE

Balalaika crackling
on the boom box.

Lamb on the grill,
skewered in its sibilance.

A day wrapped in grape
leaves. Muslin.

Bare shoulders. Nipples
of men

playing peek-a-boo
before a stilling sun.

A backyard
bacchanalia. Garland

rounding temples. Aphrodite,
Artemis, Dionysus,

Zephyr. White sheets
all. It’s a comfort

to be a God among Gods
and Greek, gorging

my gullet with dolma,
choking down pine pitch

with a lyre, Xerox
on cardboard,

under my arm. This
is my quiver, my green

apple. What a relief
it will be. To not be

myself today and to see
the photograph

of the myth I was
stitched between horses.

Thursday, June 14, 2012


INTO THE BLACK

Black man
Dressed in black
Drunk and dazed on BART
Asks the fair-skinned woman
Across from him
For an envelope
She quizzically obliges
He buries the white sheath
Underneath his sweater
And smiles.

He takes out a nubby black comb
Begins raking it across
His scrubby black hair
Back and forth, back and forth
Comb, comb, comb
And his eyes glaze over.

He lifts a black bag from floor to lap
Disappears comb into pocket
Shelters his scalp into a black wool cap
Drapes a black hood over his covered head
Leans into the maw of the open bag
And fumbles out
A lottery ticket.

Hunching over 
With Lincoln’s help
He begins
To scratch, scratch, scratch
At the card
As if he were reaching
For some new fortune or freedom
Or just digging himself a cave
So he may go deeper into the dark.



Thursday, June 7, 2012


BURY THE WIND

raven in the room
giving shape to the east
is the eye that sees
a breath circling through liminal bodies
as bone stirs Self into stew
so something new can emerge
be imagined
made utterly whole
and danced back to life
again

the secret is:
to bury wind so deep
into sunrise
into the canvas of the sky
that only blue-black feathers
know it’s there