In a spotlight every facial expression looks deep. Bring it!
I can count three minutes off in my sleep. Bring it!

Give me a place to stand, and I’ll stand there.
As I sow, so shall ye out there reap. Bring it!

What I have to say needs to be said.
It’s mine to offer, yours to keep. Bring it!

If I move you, you’ll tell me so.
This is the moment: I breathe before I leap. Bring it!

I lay the words out faster than I thought I could.
Every moment of my life is at your feet. Bring it!

Numbers mean nothing beyond the moment.
I am the only poet I need to beat. Bring it!

This is the truth I was born to tell.
I am the vessel for the change I seek. Bring it!

I am the only thing I know perfectly.
I wrote this poem because I can no longer weep. Bring it!

When the moment’s over, I breathe again.
Somewhere, but not here, evil still sleeps. Bring it!

Poetry’s the point, but not the only point.
Any poem may slay the strong, save the weak. Bring it!

Next poet come up and does it all again.
This is the staff of our lives; come and eat. Bring it!

——————————————-

and now, back to the stuff I write for money…

Water cuts rock all the way downhill
with no strain on itself.

Wind turns leaves all at once,
or do the leaves turn themselves?

When the moon moves the ocean
the earth changes without troubling itself.

Wool grows long. We feel the need to shear it.
Before we saw them, sheep governed themselves.

Walls and bridges rise and obscure the fact
that there was no need for them till we troubled ourselves.

What does the tree feel as it grows?
Nothing, it tells us. Is there a truth it keeps for itself?

When I imagine peace in the center of this
I am happy enough until I notice myself.

When I dream, I break a sweat. Water
runs down my face. Wind cools me. I reproach myself.

Willing as I am to be still at the core, I cannot be
the wind and wave without rejecting myself.

Why not, then? Why not turn my face from working
toward the path of no effort? Why not be myself?

When I sit with that, I feel unloved.
I will not enjoy myself.

When I work, I feel removed.
All day, I remove myself.

Tobacco in a god’s broad hand. What does it matter?
He dies a little from each drag’s demands, but what does it matter?

He looks out his door, imagining his last words. What does it matter?
He’s not caring to understand, and what does it matter?

Abraham nearly shed his own blood. What does it matter?
That knife in his outstretched hand — what does it matter?

Stars prick the sky as dusk deepens. What does it matter?
Each light’s more than he can stand, and what does it matter?

War’s got more meaning for him than peace. What does it matter
that he lives each day all unmanned — what does it matter?

He draws the rich smoke in, blows it back out. What does it matter
that he seeks death, something grand — what does it matter?

American-eyed, haunted, unwelcome, and what does it matter
that he rules the stolen land — what does it matter?

He draws again on the fire he’s chosen. What does it matter
if he dies? The future’s best when unplanned — what does it matter?

A king smokes his way toward his own death. What does it matter
how many others he kills by command? What does it matter?

~~~

…ok, a loose ghazal at best, I know…just experimenting with the form…

When I first learned
that I was to be the Footman,
forever holding the coat open
for the next one to wear, I was afraid.
I only snickered to cover the air
hissing through my rattling teeth.

It’s been a long time
since then. Since then
I’ve held so many coats, sometimes
several thousand coats at once, sometimes
one at a time, standing in bedrooms
before desperate men clutching
their sharp little heads, waiting on curbs
for tender children to step into traffic,
hovering in hospital corridors, avoiding
the fists of angry husbands as they beat
their wives into my arms.

I have almost
stopped talking altogether, even when I am
ready to say something good and true, because really,
what would it matter? I am
unremarkable in the scheme of things, commonplace,
not worthy of being heard
beyond “your coat sir…your coat, madam…
your coat, young gentleman, young lady.” No one
gives a damn what the Footman says
until it’s too late.

You wonder why
I snicker. It’s not at anyone
waiting for their coat —

it’s that in all that time I’ve been doing this,
I’ve never understood why I was the one chosen to do it.
Maybe it was these arms, lean enough to seem burdened
by the weight. Maybe it was this face, my brown bagged eyes,
round chin, simple jowls that shake when I move. Maybe
I just look good in the uniform —

but I think, just maybe, it was the snicker
that got me here; the twitch born of fear
that made me seem the Perfect Bastard.
If I’d kept quiet that first time,
I might not have worked out so well.
I might have been fired.
I might not have had to do this.

Pity.

I have to go. There’s a coat needs holding
in a room across town, where some young writer
who imagines himself old and tired
thinks he’s ready to put it on.
I do not think he will this time,
but I will be there just in case.

Writers, by the way,
are the worst: they keep you guessing.
Will this be their time at last, or is it
just a ploy to wring more material out of
the misery they so seem to enjoy? Sometimes,
just for laughs,
I want to wrestle them into the coat
before they’re really ready.

Sometimes I do just that.

what I love about you
is your hands.
no need for concern
on my part about being held.

they move and
sound off. I understand that.
it’s a way of using hands
that I have grown to love.

there is the striking,
but it’s not a striking
to worry about. sometimes
you make a noise without

using your hands. I can enjoy that
from here, all the lights keep me
from seeing your mouths.
seeing you bend the ear

of the person next to you
might tweak me a little, but
the hands fluttering and snapping
take my mind off that.

afterward I wait and you will
come to me and try to talk to me.
that is the best part because I find out
how well I hid the fear.

after that is the night
and the way home. there’s the desk
and the guitar and the bills and the way
back to the crowd.

you can follow me home
if you promise
to bring those wonderful hands with you
and never let me see your mouth.

it is the last day of the world
and everyone moves
to the extremes.

crowds die on the slopes
of the hindu kush. bengal
drops into the ocean.
bodies float like floes for miles.

a teacher from Blaine, Minnesota
goes mad in a parking lot
and scribbles lines from Blake
onto her children’s eyes
before taking her life
with a sharpened book.

it all goes. white, black, brown,
all go. male energy, female energy,
go. pissing conservatives go
as swiftly as disparaging liberals.
the money changer leaves his table
and the communist hands over
his party card before
running to the outskirts and drowning
in a vat of francs.

but in my back yard
I’ve buried a steamer
full of rice. I dig it up
and eat it with a spoonful
of champagne.

give me a clean planet
and I will soon be
as smug as I ever was.