Two Poems

Casting Out Rhymes

Yes, dictionaries opening again
Yes, scorched across her forehead like a stain
Yes, less to say than cognate words contain
Yes, caffeine and butalbital for pain
Yes, ruptured synapses hobble the brain.

No, watched gray water circle down the drain
No, looking out the window of the train
No, not the melody, just the refrain
No, not temerity, no, not disdain
No, stroked across the scar against the grain.

Yes, written in another alphabet
Yes, odor of the night's first cigarette
Yes, hands and face and trousers grimed with soot
Yes, from the freeway, saw the minaret
Yes to the proposed amendment, but...
...