Monthly Archives: March 2015

Shark

New poem.

to simply survive today
is to accept paradox,
is to accept without question
how chewed up
one must become
in order to be untroubled
by our world 
from birth
to death.

to begin to do more than that 
is to open a shark’s mouth
and peer inside  
at those teeth, that
stench, all
those mesmerizing details
that will try to seize
and hold you fast
long before 
those jaws
finally close upon you.

to awaken
and be fully alive
is to slash and thrash
against tooth and claw and 
seizure and capture
with all you have,
refusing to surrender
to such an appetite
until, bloody and wounded
but ready to heal,
you are free.


To Love My War

Originally posted 12/12/2011.

War
can make my blood
sing a little.

I know myself
and the animal somewhere
within.

If I pet it the right rough way
now and then,
it stays quiet  — mostly.

I’m at peace with my bloodsong.
I do not deem it necessary
to pretend I cannot hear it,

and I do not deny
that war is a part of me.
It has settled on my hands

as tightly as skin,
snuggled cozily
in my mouth,

and my blood
bursts scarlet from my wounds
as if it were the chorus of a grand opera,

glorying as much 
in being shed as I do
in my potential to shed it.

Revile me for that
as you will — I will be 
your paradox: at peace

with not becoming
the hypocrite who turns away
from the sludge he carries inside.