Ending now
a pursuit of knowledge
I once demanded,
I light up with the smile
of an idea: maybe
I know enough
to carry me forward
from here. Perhaps
there’s no need to sample
further, perhaps there’s no 
reason to inspect and codify
each speck and moment.
There are so many birds
and songs in the world,
so many people to know
that perhaps I should stop
and assume I’ve had enough
of them all, that any new experience
can be understood through applying
what I already know.  
This is perfect: I’ve grown tired
of unrelenting.  

Exhausted,
I lay me down on a cool bed
in this well ordered place,
and cease dreaming, comfortable
at last.

Don’t you fear
that the battle we’re waging
is lost already?  
Already the sky’s red
with our cities burning,
with tearing rockets unstitching the night.  
Already the sea is lost
and the earth is awash
in spilled oil and blood;
already we’ve all lost good sense,
can’t explain why we’re still fighting,
other than to say we must
if only to keep
from slaying ourselves
in despair.  

And yet we stand
armed and ready,
armed to the teeth
on behalf of what will not return;

and yet we are here,
frontline desperate,
rear guard
desperate,
hands slippery,
feet horned and howling,
guts open to the fire.  

Here we are.  We still
fight, fall in love, fight,
bear children, fight, fight,
sling our fists balled up against
the incoming, sing, fight,
keep a bulletproof coat of colors
on the back door for going out,
wear it out to fight, say
we look good, look like warriors,
the cause is lost but now we’re found
in the war, the war, we’re here
for the war, we’re here,
here in certain harm’s way,
here, regardless of the urge
to give up, raising children 
not to give up even though
the war’s lost
and we have nowhere
now to be.  

this drink’s
cold enough
for the thirst I have now

but in an hour?
will it be cold enough
for the thirst I know will grow
the more I drink?

it’s like my hunger
that gets quiet on crackers
now 
but will holler like a stevedore
in the night
awakening me
demanding entire cows — 

the more easily I’m satisfied now
the less satisfiable
I’ll be
later

Explosions outside —
Fourth of July weekend
but that’s nothing new,
there’s always a big bang
at least once a night — the signal
of a new universe,
perhaps?  Makes sense —
who’s not looking for a new one
these days?   I know that after
each sharp report
I wait in vain for a fresh planet
to soar past my window, and
blowing something up
to get one seems
more and more attractive. 

The dangerous people
stare out of doorways
at the safe people

on the streets
the safe people
call their own.

In some streets
they switch places. That’s how
we keep everything running:

call it a safety valve. Call it
the social order.  The dangerous ones
get to be the source of safety

in their own neighborhoods.
The safe ones get
everything else.

Sometimes
a safe one will love
a dangerous one.  They

keep this to themselves;
it softens things.  It makes
the streets sodden

and uncomfortable.  That’s
how we re-allocate the streets
from time to time: when a street

gets too sodden, it changes hands.
Another is chosen
to replace it, everything goes back

to normal, with the dangerous ones
in their doorways staring out
at the safe ones

until
someone in love with the Other
cracks it and the flooding starts.