In the immediate aftermath
of asking the only question
left to ask 

your eyes stray
to the vase of two-week old
brown-eyed susans
on the kitchen table

to the last quarter-inch
of fouled green gray water
in the bottom 

to the petals and pollen
ringing the vase

to the withering stems
bending with the weight
of their brown flaking burdens

to your card 
flat and face down
next to it

in the aftermath of 
asking a question
that you now realize
did not need to be asked

My neighbor’s standing naked in a window singing a children’s song
Licorice stick, licorice stick, gonna eat one pretty darn quick
Somebody get that man a robe and a couple of Xanax
Another dense day is off to a dense start in Whipsmart City

Last night flung me around my bed between sleep and wake
Oh my aching back and sides, oh my aching heart and mind
I wish I had a river of sleep to drown my aching heart and mind
But it’s too late for sleep to do me any good at all — I gotta go

to my day job describing massacre victims with a sweet vocabulary
with a hey nonny nonny and a robot chip
I almost said “massacred innocents” but then I had to laugh
because if I thought these stiffs were innocent I’d go insane

Two pills for breakfast two more for lunch and a fifth mid-afternoon
I get no kick from God or Country, get no kick from going along
After work a beer or a blood and Jager cocktail so I can drive home enraged
to beat the angel hanging in the corner cobweb till he screams

And then to bed which I’m fond of up to a point
Gabba gabba hey dead man gabba gabba flay
Thank God or Some Monster I stopped dreaming long ago
My neighbor took my dreams away which explains his children’s songs

and him standing naked in the window with them in his mouth
Sweet land of liberty of thee I loudly sing
I can’t get too excited about him being obscene or crazy in my place
when there are so many corpses to talk about here in Whipsmart City

Congratulations on your purchase
of what you just purchased
It will be exactly what you desire
It will meet every one of your myriad needs

It’s the perfect fit for your busy lifestyle
It’s the perfect mix of value and long term return on investment
It’s the perfect size for the modern household
It’s the perfect marriage of green and gold

It has all the potential you’ve sought in such a thing
It has the most power of any in its class
It has a convenient carry case made of leather
It has a tradition of years of handicraft and struggle

It is the Swiss Army Knife of nostalgia for a Golden Age
It is the Volkswagen of nonchalant journey
It is the Stovetop Stuffing of Be Here Now
It is the Light Bulb of What’s In The Closet Mommy

It will be for you a brazen butterfly of last chance dance
It will wipe your mouth of sorrow
It will slay the heart-dragon of childhood regret
It will tell you a nice bedtime story after tucking you in 

It won’t clog your dream pipe
It won’t creep past the window from the corner of your eye
It won’t damage pets or the elves of the hearth
It won’t breathe a word of what it saw in the mud room that day

Congratulations on driving down the New Avenue Of Hope
You’ve made a wise decision that you’ll enjoy for years
You won’t be disappointed even if it betrays you a little later
for it’ll subsume you cough you out and make you new in its way

So much war to be eaten.
So much poverty.  So much
damnable activity to be sucked upon.

Here, she said,
offering the Northern Lights,
Kilimanjaro, the Devil’s Causeway.

Feeling full, turn back
to the slaughter and shuddering.
Not more tolerable —  not that.

Say, instead, less intolerable,
but still that.  Say hope; then,
show someone else there is still that.

in college
we called our empty
bottles of beer
“dead soldiers”

this was in the years
right after
vietnam 
and the active draft —
it meant something then
though the meaning
was already fading
a little

youth of today

do you still call your bottles
“dead soldiers”
or are you starting to?

are you 
part of a privileged set
for whom “dead soldiers”
means only discarded containers
and nothing else
or part of the world
for whom it means

brother
father
sister
mother
comrade
lover
neighbor
empty 

I could use a nap,
or a new incarnation.
Better feet, harder shell,
more patience, less distance —
maybe a tortoise
more suited to long crawls
over hard ground
than I have been.

This old world has asked instead
that I be more adept at flying
and transcendence because that’s
what is asked of every man these days;

so let me not be a man next time,

or better still give me freedom
from being altogether human
when later tonight
I dream.

September’s
full moon light

makes for pooled shadows
sticky underfoot

their deep ink becoming 
my burden to bring home

I forget to leave it 
by the door — track it in and now

the murk’s
all over the house 

it’s sadder in here
than it has been all summer

best close the windows so more
doesn’t drift in 

It came to me as
I was sharpening my fastest knife
on diamond stone. Oh, she’s a
quick one, and was soon so honed
I was able to shave a vein
with her.  That’s what I wanted —
to shave a vein
without nicking it enough to bring forth
the dead-flow; just clean off the extra meat
and reveal the light source
that guided the tendons
as they pulled the fingers
into pen shape,
knife shape,
holding shape —
all I wanted was to see
into my wrists
to learn if there was light inside,
wanted to see how the hands
knew where to go —
and then, I slipped.
I saw.  I gave in.

The modern mourner
regrets genocide and repression
immediately upon opening his eyes
while listening to radio news in bed.

He rises every day
with a few fat tears.
They fall into his coffee cup.
He sips, then sours
on the taste — is this fair trade?
Next time, he decides,
he’ll buy fair trade

so it will taste better.  So he
will be better. To halt
genocide and repression
in their tracks. Economic, social
justice from this warrior king
every time he finishes a coffee
he has yet to buy or brew —
wipe away those tears,
you beautiful man!  Someone
will be bound to love you for this.

Good Night Song
rattles around the cave
with all the shadows
for audience.

The shadows say,
“Tell me a story.” 

Good Night Song says no,
story is what’s wrong
with the world.  Story

draws a line through
layers.  Things are 
twice, three times connected
while other things
fall off the bright line,
it’s a sin and a shame.

Out in the valley
below the hills 
that hold the cave
we are shadows too,
also looking for a story,
and we don’t care what 
Good Night Song Says,
we will have one.

We sing
Good Night, good night;
make it up as we go along
here in the valley 
as dark as the cave.
We catch hold of the bright line
Good Night Song won’t anchor
and pretend like mad
that we understand
while whatever we discarded 
to make the story clean
becomes a shadow
and squats in the night,
prepared for a long wait.

There will be no room for Jesus
or Mohammed or any old messiah at all
in my afterlife.

I will have a God
in charge of tomatoes,
wind, and rain. That’s all.

We ghosts will govern ourselves
by the rules of ghostkind:
number one, pass through.

Number two, it is over
and now insignficant.
Number three, pass through.

Come sit, have these good tomatoes
with me, I’ll say to every ghost
passing through.  There will be many 

and God will provide. We will suck the fruits
dry, pick more, laugh at how the wind and rain
shape and reshape us.  Do it all again and again.