Poetry Doesn’t Stop the Tank, But The Tank Eventually Runs Out of Fuel

the moon’s a subtle lover.

it’s why he’s closer,

pulls slated moans

against smokestone shores,

brews thunderheads to howl

ash-colored rain ashore,

flooding dammed hearts deep inland,

where once-water people

vaguely remember cycles of blood,

night-scented orchids,

the ringlet promises of bees and hummingbirds.

out deep, silk arctic ice

sheers off, winks at merchant ships,

collapses into currents traveled by krill

hunted by blue singers,

whose cavernous lungs burn

to outrun the diesel brows

of white-hot-blind ahabs

toiling under the unforgiven sun.