My corruption; After Tennyson’s Claribel; Association of Women in Kosovo Police; IF; Heat; From Me…

My corruption

Where were you when I was fighting my corruption?
Were you shopping downtown for new shoes?
I was busy showering the judges with money, 
but they constantly refuse to indict me.
My corruption is deep and long-lasting.
You’ve known about it for years.
You should tell the prosecutors, the police.
They should arrest me before it goes any further, 
before I'm rotten, creaking, 
an aged monument full of ex-officio funds.
If you love me, you'll do something.
You don't need a mandate.
Summon your ambassadors to stop it.
Only you can stop me from such ruin.
Please rescue me.
Don't waste time on
a working group to address the issue.
Act now, my love.
Act now.
After Tennyson's Claribel

When my love lies down
The sun pauses and sleeps
Ambulances slink by quietly
Solemn sighing sidewalks
Whisper her name
Erasing the heat of the New York day
With the somber melody of night
When my love lies down.

Evening sky muted
Across a brush of trees
At dusk a buzz of taxis
Around Myrtle Avenue
Streetlights midnight shining
Down at shuttered stores
But her name fills up the sky,
Dotting darkness, giving hope
To pigeons waiting for dawn
As babbling tunneled trains
Murmur to themselves,
When my love lies down.
Association of Women in Kosovo Police

He’s surrounded by women,
Serious women.
Women with badges, guns, uniforms.
Especially trained
To deflect and deliver force.
He feels protected among them.
A blue wall of womanhood
Embracing his weakness.
Unstructured, unlatched.
Idle thought wanderer.
To himself and others, a danger.
Useless in any emergency.
But the women
With their police blouses and earnest ties
identify the obstacles and danger zones.
Quickly they lead him away
To safety,
To love.
IF 

If I fled,
I’d be found.
If I bled,
I’d be bound.

If I escaped,
I’d be lost.
If I cried,
I’d be tossed.

If I fought,
I’d be crossed.
If I submitted,
I’d be bossed.

If I struggled,
I’d be swarmed,
If I didn’t,
I’d be disarmed. 

If I cried,
I’d be drowned.
If I lied,
I’d be crowned.

But if I loved,
I’d be profound.
And if I kissed,
I’d be renowned.
Heat

Hearing the hum of the A/C
blowing, glowing, desiccant heat
pass chilled doors and woe, wooden me.
The inversion of summer streets.

It makes such meager sense
on St. George’s Day in May
Unforgivable waste, immoral expense,
Yet cold toes my colder reason does sway.

Power from pornographic coal?
Immune I am to conscious’ call.
Sierra Club, I have no soul,
Give me, Master Green, the blackest ball.

Drill, baby, drill, my wanton, lustful cry.
Driven mad with mild discomfort,
Scoffing, berserk, I’ll not diversify
nor my sole energy source desert.

Mineral of fossilized carbon, stinking,
dingy devil with fiendish effect.
Lifting temperatures without blinking.
Seaside cities, abandoned, shipwrecked.

But my woolen feet are wicked warm
and everyone else I selfishly defy.
clean energy unicorns,
mystical eternal power, a lie!

Burn, burn, burn, bright beautiful bituminous.
Until the suicidal, sunless end of all of us.
From: Me
Sent: ‎2/‎11/‎2016 8:18 AM
To: You
Subject: help me reach my goal
Dear love,

We only need $6 million to reach our goal!
Please donate now!
Or I will not be able to write you morning poems again.
The Hotel Bor in Varna will be forgotten forever,
Along with Mr. Hikmet,
Listening to Istanbul through the crashing waves of the Black Sea.
I wonder if he ever climbed the stairs from the beach in Galata,
Or made liutenitsa in the backyard in a giant pan over an open fire.
I’m sure he felt the longing of many places.
Places enmeshed with summer days and sunburns,
Fresh fish, snow-white cheese.

But before I go much further,
You must know that I am monitoring you from the electronic device on my desk.
You must respond now,
Or I will never march nightily, mightily again.

*****

Leon Lowder is a Foreign Service Officer at the U.S. Department of State. His work has been published in Red River Review, Passager, Exposition Review and Coffin Bell.