not like a head freshly shaven / nor a pitcher passed ‘round a full table / not a dieting triumph / a man relieved, or well rested / the dawn as it breaks
but the post food-poisoning pangs / tunnel vision in the heat / my womb when the moon is new / my arms when the body is gone and buried / my boughs when my leaves have fallen / the way that I feel weightless, legs barely kicking / just before I drown.
“lighter,” I say, “just lighter.”

Tired eyes
Fleetingly scanning the room.
To find another pair
With a light behind them.
Even with exhaustion,
Shining bright
Bright as your own mind,
Connecting the light with the dark.
Making it easier to breathe,
Letting shadows disappear.
Calm eyes.
Reassured.

Lawrence Hall
[email protected]  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                     Fashionable Death Cults Then and Now

After the June 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union and Einsatzgruppe mass shootings of civilians, the Nazis experimented with gas vans for mass killing…

-Gassing Operations | Holocaust Encyclopedia (ushmm.org)

Dozens of migrants were found dead in an abandoned big rig in San Antonio on Monday in what appears to be the deadliest human smuggling case in modern U.S. history.


-At least 50 migrants found dead inside a truck in San Antonio, officials say (cnbc.com)

We have our death vans too, not well-organized
But rolling down the American road
Unseen by our leaders in their personal jets
Flying to Frisco or maybe Cancun

Bombings and shootings on the street and in church
Job lots in hospitals, by the dozens in schools
For we too specialize in genocide
And may Moloch and Herod bless our AR-15s

If any children survive, we’ll call them Generation Something
And tell them each day how inadequate they are