No.
Great timesaver,
good regulator,
mediocre philosophical stance,
bad bottom nature
except for those born
to it,
those for whom
yes
is just the counterbalance
to their weight, the froth
on their darkness.
Two halves of an ecosystem.
Neither complete
unless matched
to the other; lovers
cloaked
as warriors.
A slice
of pink Milford granite
serving as a coaster
on a small dark desk
several decades old at the least
which serves as an end table
next to a ratty couch
that serves sometimes
as a bed
A man
who serves sometimes
as a pain in the ass
a scapegoat and
a glory hound
sits on the couch
He is half-listening to
a huge television which serves
as teat and manacle
A question remains
as to whether or not
he will ever emerge full grown
from this apartment
he claims is serving
as his cocoon
to serve
as the thing
he was meant to be
some kind of man
uniquely his own being
resistant
to being repurposed
by anyone except
himself
An unwrapped man
serving as
object lesson
by being of total service
to others
without bending his knee
A place to start
is with a simple request:
show me
your racist bone.
If you can reach for it
at once,
it gives us at least
another place to start.
If you’re proud of it,
I don’t know where to start.
If you’re ashamed,
it’s a place to start.
If you’re angry
that I asked,
it will be difficult
but we can find a place to start.
if you don’t have a clue
as to where to look,
we can find
a place to start.
Everything
is a place to start.
You may have discerned that
and have begun to wonder:
where is
the place to finish?
I must tell you:
I don’t know.
What I do know
is that starting is all we have
to work with
at the moment
and if we don’t do that,
we will never finish.
A wave inside says
punch
maybe even stab
so often that
each fresh anger’s become
just another cobweb
to brush aside
They’re piling up into
quite a gray heap
in a corner
You recall hearing
that if applied swiftly
they can clot a wound
You start looking
for a wound to stanch
Finding none
you make one
and toss your rage onto it
like a dirty blanket
Your last thought is
that you must be
doing it wrong
When she protests,
they kick their sand at her
till her mouth is full.
When he protests,
they bury him in their old rags
till he’s smothered.
When people gather to protest,
flood gates open
and they are swept out to sea.
No protest goes
unchoked. No word
gets out ungagged.
A cry rises from
all these closed throats:
“listen, just listen.”
No one’s going to though.
Too busy crying their own cause,
drowning those inconvenient messengers.
It’s early and I’m at the stove
eating oatmeal cooked from scratch;
steeping good tea in a great big cup
while thinking about what I know:
that I am probably going to die
from self-inflicted wounds someday,
and it’s likely the bombs that will do it
are these that I know I’ve already set.
One of these days I’ll start exercising.
Maybe I’ll be good at it. Maybe the diet and
activity will pay off. Maybe I’ll soon be smaller,
lighter on the earth.
None of it will change a thing.
I’ll die anyway. I’ll die because
dying’s what we do. I might do it tomorrow,
I might make it another twenty years
before I go, but I will go.
If I go today while standing at the stove,
spoonful of mush falling from my hand
and the tea spilling as I flail and drop?
I hope I look silly down there on the floor.
Not tragic; not resigned
to ending up a punchline in a poor man’s bed.
Let them say too little too late,
chuckle a little when they picture the scene.
Let them say whatever they want
as long as they include the phrase
he went down swinging, swinging to the end.
is the title of a soca song
I love to sing
a soca song I love to sing
from an album
released in 1994
released in 1994 on vinyl CD
and cassette
in 1994 when those words
made sense
to a cassette owner
a cassette tape owner
someone who owned and listened to
cassettes
someone who fell in love with a song
and rewound it and replayed it
until it broke
and had to be discarded
had to be ejected and tossed away
less than a generation from now
no one will understand this song
the way a cassette owner understood it
watching the tape gather on the left hand reel
thinking is that far enough?
trying to interpret high speed backwards noise
hitting play to see if it was far enough
hitting rewind and fast forward
and play
and then one last rewind
to position the tape
right at the beginning
of the wanted song
hitting eject when the time came
to change
reluctantly
to another song
it wasn’t just about
hitting repeat
or choosing a track number
love
and obsession used to be
analog processes
that took time and precision
took attention and
esoteric understanding
of what little you could see and hear
how to read subtleties
how to fall back satisfied and then
how to move on
love was a soca song
played endlessly
over and over
beginning to end to beginning again
until it was over
until it was over
until it was at last over and done
That unexpected but familiar sound
of glass bottles breaking
on the street that dead ends behind my house.
Someone owns a paintball gun
and shoots from inside some apartment
at empty forties set up on a junk car
which at one time was blue
but now is mottled pink and red
on one side.
I have watched and been unable to decide
which floor of which three decker
he or she is shooting from.
At this point, I’ve lost most interest.
The firing range is over there. I’m
over here. I don’t like being awakened.
That’s about it. Not my land,
not that fearful a firearm, not my car.
Not my business. Welcome
to the city of picking your battles,
closing your eyes, covering your ears,
getting by.
Cold enough outside
to be the frozen part of Hell —
people forget that there’s a
frozen part full of Satan and
traitors, at least that’s what
Dante Aligheri said and he
is one poet who
actually seemed
to know things.
It’s cold enough outslde
that my anatomy isn’t buying it,
commenting through
the fingers and nose tip
that I ought to get inside
before one wince more
slices through.
In other words:
better to be inside, even if
I’ve nothing better to do than this,
even if that sounds like a betrayal
of the Work.
Though I can think of things
I could be doing that would hurt less
than this, I’ll do this
and stay warm,
braving Hell’s cold rage
for taking its name
in vain.
When they find our fossils
(if someone is alive and seeking
those parts of us we will have left)
scattered among the bones
as telling as flint points
or Venus totems
will be checklists,
thousands of
fragmented checklists
asking:
have I eaten
the right breakfast,
taken the right pills,
done the proper number
of reps, laps, poses,
eaten the right portion sizes,
slept the right amount,
breathed through
correct nostril, played
with the right literary forms,
assumed the right positions,
smiled and kissed and
hugged enough,
shat the right shits,
pissed the right color,
hit my marks,
saved enough to die on,
lived the right amount of years,
died well and peacefully
with a minimum of trouble
to others?
They will speak of us
as a people
who lived long lives,
though it will be hard to say
whether or not
we lived well — as hard for them
to determine
as it is, apparently,
for us.
In the clear
with Robert Johnson,
his hellhound
far behind for once,
a crossroad up ahead
but it’s noon and with nothing
left to deal
there’s not much fear
of encountering anything more
than a bit of traffic.
It’s all so ordinary.
You would think
that having Ghost Bob
silent at my side,
his Kalamazoo slung caseless
across his back,
would be reason enough
for fear sweat — no.
He’s a comfort, with hand
on my shoulder, a nod
for every choice I make.
On the rare occasions
he sits and plays, almost never
a blue note’s heard.
Once I begged him
to stop and bend a string or two
for my sake. He turned away
and played twelve bars
of what he still had inside,
and I broke a little.
I’m still broken — hence, this journey.
I feel a need to apologize
for making him
give me that
when he so clearly
wanted it left behind him
with the big black dog,
with the hat tipper
at the last intersection
who had mocked him
for going somewhere,
anywhere,
as if he could outrun
his Creditor
by simply not playing
the blues.
We’re stuck together,
Robert and me,
by our compulsions
but not today,
today it’s by choice
and the sun’s out
and Bob plays
“Every Man A King,”
a song neither of us
believe in,
but it’s fun to pretend
now and then
that we can’t hear
the Dog behind us,
and that two roads crossing
is just a mark on a map.
I’m going to sleep now
having been called the Antichrist
by a man in the street
who pointed at me
in front of everyone
saying I had to be that
for the Antichrist
when he does wrong is feared
and when he does right
is assumed to be the Deceiver
and that’s you he said
that’s you boy oh Boy Obvious
I think of how often
I’ve done wrong or right
and how often I’ve been feared
and then blamed
Maybe it’s no more
than anyone else
but I think I feel it more
so I’m going to sleep off
the weight of my evil
Boy oh Boy Obvious
I’m the Antichrist to a crazy man
and to some guy in the street
Riding herd on the culture
gets old. You can’t keep up, that’s
rule one. It’s not yours to
manage — physics runs a stampede,
there’s always one just getting started
or in full progress
or just ended and there’s always
blood in the dust after it’s done.
All you can do is ride alongside.
Nudge it a bit, spot
where it’s starting to turn,
join others
in pushing it that way, and hope,
always hope.
Fighting the good fight
gets old. You can’t keep up,
that’s rule one. Biology
being the soft wet target it is,
your body will fail you at some point
and you’ll sink to the canvas
puzzled and convinced you can
still win. You can’t win. All you can do
is slow that demon across from you,
wreck him a bit, wait for time
to wear him out before you fall, and hope,
always hope.
Hope, always hope –
your own inner voice will tell you to ignore
every bit of advice and keep at it.
Mount up, square off, ride like crazy,
or keep swinging. That’s what you do
even when all the tells suggest
there’s no hope to be had.
Hope, always hope.
It’s what the idiot saint inside you
promises each time you stretch out a hand
to comfort or guard or admonish or point out
a different way. Hope, always,
is a dumb banner you’ll wave
no matter what you’re told,
won’t you — because you are
that, of course, you
blessed, necessary fool.
There’s no need
for me to be doing this
as others are already,
and there are a lot of them,
and they are proud of doing it,
and will tell you they do it,
and call themselves doers of it,
almost at the drop of a — beret?
baseball cap? See how strong
the instinct is, the one that makes us
find the right word
and then crow about finding
the right words? There are a lot of us.
In fact I don’t know a soul
who has never written a poem.
There’s no need for me to be doing it
other than the selfish one within
that says I’m supposed to be doing this
and insists upon doing it even when
no one’s listening, reading, caring.
Even when every kid with a pen
has stopped listening, reading and caring;
even when every geezer is stubborn
and hung up on the Roberts,
Frost and Penn Warren;
even when I myself think this game
has lost its hustle and lustre —
still, though poetry has no need of me,
just like all these others
I am superficially convinced
of the general need for it,
even as
inside,
I am deeply afraid
of my need for it.
Remember?
The pear tree.
The fallen fruit.
The July sun.
The sweet heavy smell.
The yellowjackets
drunk on the ferment.
Their sound as you bent
close to observe.
The need to touch.
The reaching down in trance —
then the sudden snap up and
the running, the crying.
You are six years old
and stung —
remember?
Remember how, long after that,
you could not be drunk again
like you were at six, drunk
on simply being with the world,
on seeing and hearing the world?
Dark Matter 