"A POEM FOR TRAPPED THINGS

This morning with a blue flame burning
this thing wings its way in.
Wind shakes the edges of its yellow being.
Gasping for breath.
Living for the instant
Climbing up the black border of the window.
Why do you want out.
I sit in pain
A red robe amid debris,
You bend and climb, extending antennae.

I know the butterfly is my soul
and weak from battle.

A giant fan on the back of
   a beetle.
A caterpillar, chrysalis that seeks
a new home apart from this room.

And will disappear from sight
at the pulling of invisible strings.
Yet so tenuous, so fnie
this thing is, I am
sitting on the hard bed, we could
   vanish from sight like the puff
      off an invisible cigarette.
Furred chest, ragged silk under
      wings beating against the glass

         no one will open.

The blue diamonds on your back
are too beautiful to do
      away with.
I watch you
      all morning
         long
With my hand over my mouth."

--John Wieners


"...for those who survive, I suspect it will be rather exciting."


"No matter how wealthy or educated or comfortable, a refugee is a refugee."


"The mist is as a brideweed on the moon" --Balder