What was it like
to die
on Good Friday?  
Well,
back then,
it wasn’t called that — I still
don’t call it that.

I was crucified
that same day
in a town in Gaul,
and the soldiers let
the crows pick my eyes
even before I was
all the way gone…

just another day
in the Empire.

I know
there are stories about
what else happened
that day, how another
managed to get around fate
with help, maybe a sorcerer’s help,
maybe a father’s help —

I don’t know.  I’m just
a ghost of a crucified man
and when you say Good Friday
I’m clueless as to why…

so many others died that day, or before,
or after, who do not understand —
after all,
we’ve never met The Man.

Having been in his shoes
I’m skeptical,

but willing to be convinced
if it’ll get me off this vaporous cross
and give me a chance to rest.

I was a kid what did I know
only what imagination offered

a blue disk in a blue sky
was a spider biscuit resonating
was a concert hall in sections rising
was a myth as good as a country in resolve
was a story about where I lived
was noble rot on a hoped for harvest

hand me the chance anyway
I screamed for it
reached for it

a blue disk in a white sky
was a heartless monkey of change
was a blank slate falling and shattering
was ridiculous, really — really ridiculously dumb
was the most savvy rocktosser outfit ever
was not me and that was the best thing ever

but not for long as I could sense
how amusing the change was becoming
so I called it out again

a blue disk in a red sky
was a meteor of shift
was a big clown nose on a garbage can
was a tease and a poke and a hand on my bum
was the wrong drug on the wrong night
was hopelessly in love with throwing up 
was glad I was no one
was no one
was a drug
was a blue disk in a blue sky after all

invisible
what did I know I was a kid when it happened
I grew up
I miss it

I was a blue disk wrecked in a desert
was picked over
was a myth after all to most
but was the one who had to live on
knowing I wasn’t supposed to be from here
knowing I was a belonging
discarded
fallen
from
high

in the street
amid conventional people
and everyday happenings

the blue whale passes
through the air behind me
all but unnoticed

I turn
once the whale has gone
and see only

conventional people and
everyday happenings
but I know something

I have been missing for decades
has just brushed me
and I want to weep

but only with someone else
who felt it as well
I cannot weep alone

because one man
weeping alone
is no way to offer praise

to whatever has made it so
that such things exist
unseen but deeply known

Get out, Michael,
butcher of God;

get rolling, Azrael,
librarian,
census monkey;

get gone,
jazz doctor Gabriel;

get missing, Raphael,
sculptor of bodies
and pimp to the stars.

Do not think
we have forgotten you,
Lucifer, big boy Apoplectic;

you either, the One
Jehovah in all your forms
and figures;

get moving,
host of Heaven,
lords of Earth, 
all the named, 
all the unnamed — 

somewhere in your midst
a nuclear bomb
is suckling a fatality teat,
Man is standing on 
Woman’s neck, and 
the grass and sea
are withering all around… 

yes.  We blame you.
We blame the stewardship
you claimed, the honor and glory
you brayed, the exaltation
you craved over all things
natural and unnatural,

and now after too long
we say

get going, get gone,
get missing, get lost, 
get thee out of the way of those
ready to bend a knee
only to the vast work needed
to rebuild from your ruin.

Maybe you can come back some day — 
humbler, less certain of every thing.
Maybe we will trust you then

but until then, if indeed
you have wings, 

you damn well
better straighten up
and fly.

I am afraid to consume any food
for fear of offending someone.
I am afraid to join any organization
for fear of offending someone.
I am afraid of agreeing with anything
in case I must someday disagree with its corollary.
I am afraid of my face for not being
the face of utter kindness all the time.
I am afraid to support any cause
for fear that it doesn’t go far enough,
unless it goes too far.

I am afraid to admit to being in love
in case it is an outmoded love.
In fact to love at all seems pointless, as I can never
love broadly enough.  All or nothing, they say,
all or nothing — adore afar as you adore nearby
or it’s the same as letting those afar die,
you killer, you monster, you drone.

While I was out
they slew all the bees.
While I was out
I should have stopped the slaughter.

He’s one bad President, or maybe two.
He’s my fault, I should have voted for…
but I didn’t vote for…I voted for…
not that it mattered, not that voting matters,
what a damn fool for voting, say some,
what a damn fool for disarming, say others,
what a damn fool for being in that skin

and while
we are at it,
what a criminal fatness is mine, right?
Right back to the food.  It all comes back to the food
I should eat or not eat
and the votes I make by eating or not eating…

no wonder then why
I raise my hands to my ears
and, still chewing,
turn my partnered, comfortable back
on the world.

Inside the old seer,
landscapes. Still life upon
still life.  Portraits,
abstractions, sketches,
doodles that once
meant something.

Impoverished, malnourished, ravaged;
he lies on a twin bed
in the attic of his sister’s house,
the last place he is allowed,
the last place he has permission to be.

Everything inside him
thrums like a factory.
What’s being made here? Will it be
like the rest of his life, something
only others can use?  For him

“future” has always been just a banner
hung to let them know
where to find him, and
it’s also the last place
anyone will ever look for him.

A heart like a trout
Cold and simple
Efficient

Only ever move forward
Might turn around
and re-cover old ground
but only by moving
a sort of forward
Backtracking but
Never backing up

Never getting caught

The moment 
that freezes the room
is the moment of choice.

The moment
when the weapon appears
is the whole point of having
the weapon at all.  

The moment
of using the weapon
is beside the point.

It’s the slowness, the enveloping
freezing of the moment
when the weapon is produced, as it
is seen, reacted to, feared —

as if the moment
was all there was,
no one moving before or since. 

You say that’s a fantasy,
the frozen moment, the no-blood
coolness ot the scene.
You say it’s not like that.

You say in fact that
that it sounds like too 
many movies, that it only
happens that way in a movie. 

Exactly —
at that moment,
the weapon makes a movie

and the hand
on the weapon
is the hand of a star.  

Radio man
is saying he grew up
in Brooklyn, son of
Holocaust survivors;

brought up to fear
a second Holocaust,
he and his sister played a game called
“who will hide you?”

Talking about it, laughing
a little, laughing just a little
but insisting to the interviewer
it was deadly serious.

Sitting at the railroad crossing
listening to him,  
I look up
at the train and see

real swastikas 
sprayed on
real brown cars
in white, in silver. 

Hadn’t ever thought about this —
I would hide you.  I do not know
how long I’d be able to keep you secret,
but — yes.  I would.

This sky I think
is slowly getting
brighter

Most people think that means
it’s slowly getting better

How they long to break the night
Disrespect it from its fall
to its retirement at dawn

Crack it open
with lamps
Turn it away
and into day

Well

not for me
the day
but also not for me
the full blanket of dark

Fall with me into the in between
and you shall know so much
of both night and day

you shall never choose one over the other again