Turning that
random radio dial:

every third song,
a man killing 
his sweetheart;
every third song, 
a woman talked about
as if she were candy
or Satan;
every third song, 
no woman complete
without a completion
named man;
every third song,
no man complete
without callousness
or armament or
loner stride, 
no woman
to be seen;

every third
bluegrass
top 40 rock
folk rap jazz
standard
writes a man-woman 
prescription to be taken 
as directed and now

every third song
in my head
writes itself
the same.

After binging all our lives
upon celebrity,
we came to a day
when it began to retreat
beyond our reach.

Idols and
villains, icons and underbelly alike
fell from pedestals
into the murk of death
and sank away from view;

in response
we slandered the natural order
and claimed that all deaths
of those we claimed as our beacons
happened too soon, 

and like beachcombers
we swept the sand
where they’d just been walking
for tokens, shells they’d left behind
before falling.  

Now and then we’d find one
with a sharp edge, cut ourselves, 
bleed a bit.  We’d say, we never knew
this — how dare they fail us, or how dare we
be failed by them. Some of us promptly
tossed the shells far into the surf,
out to where the celebrities
had disappeared, and promptly forgot
the wounds
and how they came by them.

Some of us began
to wonder and rage
about pedestals;

some of us breathed easier, 
knowing we weren’t long for this
blood-taking world, offering thanks
for that relief from having 
to smash them,
to see them smashed.

We made them, we said;
that was our work. That 
was our deal with Death:

we’d make a place for immortals
in our lives, and Death would let us forget
about our own mortality
for a while, for a blazing,
unexamined while —

and now our work is done,
even if we are not quite ready for
the killing tide
that’s coming to make that true.

observe: a peach moon
above the iron-dark earth
that’s showing through from under
season’s first snow

shrouding those who sleep under
the overpass tonight in 
the camp we all know is there
but try to ignore

who are tending the small
surreptitious fire
which keeps them
probably alive

despite the highway
and the railway
roaring at intervals
into the dark of morning

somehow the quiet
of city hunkering down
to try and stay warm
in this wind and snow

clamors more loudly
than either one
smothers them under
the peachstone moon

Watching the aliens
ignore us from

their places on high
leaves us shaking a collective fist:

it’s not right!
We’re the compendium

of every bad impulse and shaky plan
every human ever had;

how do they not care enough
to even notice us?  Even their

hate or disdain
would at least be something.

Let’s work harder. Let’s
go up in a conflagration

they’ll see from Sirius
or beyond.  Let’s get something

going, let’s hate our way
to the stars. We’ll be damned

if we do or don’t get seen
either way, so let’s go big

and burn home.

In the dead letter office
are 14 billion tears, 35 million
expressions of love, 35 million 
expressions of hatred, enough

incorrect assumptions to choke
a moon-sized shark, eleventy-one
thousand dog barks translated from
the Sanskrit, a piece of Captain Hook’s
alligator, inconsequential amounts
of radium in the form of old watch dials, 

an anonymous promise of fidelity,
his promise never to drink again,
her promise of a willingness to try,
their promises to pay, form letter
threats of legal action, form letter regrets
to inform you of the death in action…

pomegranate seeds on a Christmas card,
the eye of the Hydra, the teeth of
the Cyclops, the face of Tecumseh
on a napkin, the hammer and nails
of Jesus Christ himself, and everything
you thought you had coming to you

for better, for worse, for your punk 
credibility, for your regard for  Broadway,
for your faith in the ruthless efficiency
of the Universe in delivering what’s deserved
to those who deserve it.  It’s a big room

you can’t fathom without sending yourself
to the only place you can’t possibly go 
and expect to come out of 

in one piece — once you’re in there
they open you up, look for where
you should be, send you there 
if it’s obvious and if not
they destroy all correspondences
and auction off the valuables,

which makes the dead letter office
exactly like anywhere else.

If all the fattened cats curled upon
all the worn coverlets
in all the overheated apartments
of all the slight and slighted folks
in this rundown town
were to be asked what they thought
of how bountifully 
they were living,

most would speak of it with approval;

those who did not
would admit only to a mild unease
about it ending suddenly someday
with the passing of 
the old folks who stroke them pensively
while staring out the window
at the cold.

What will happen then,
they would ask,
suspending their purring
for a few seconds of soft blinking
into the questioner’s eyes

before falling back into sleep.

It’s been said
there are no boring moments
Only boring people

That’s a good way to shut up those
who find their moments
impoverished by dull palaver
droning on
and on

It’s said that
if you enjoy what you do
you’ll never work a day in your life

That’s a good way to shut up those
who only shovel shit for others
in order to pay for 
what they need
to live

It’s said that work
should be a game
A time to play

That’s a good way to shut up those
who won’t play the game
as they know
how well
it’s been rigged

It’s said that groups
brainstorm better 
than individuals

That’s a good way to shut up those
whose genius
at standing apart and listening 
makes them suspect
to those who chatter

It’s been said and said
and said again
that work’s about bliss

That’s a good way
to make you feel guilty
about hating the job
that makes you feel
smaller and smaller

with every buzzword
laid upon you like a hammer
until you shut up and die
nodding your assent 
to your own slow execution

A trail of broken sparrows
across a clearing

What small expression
of horror is this

string of soft bodies strewn
like tender remarks

that mean nothing and
in retrospect are fearsome

Heap of fresh broken sparrows
at trail’s end — so fresh

flies haven’t found them
yet

Must be some
rationale for it

Not your fault
for finding it but

as it is no longer
unknown it is possible

you will now carry that contagion
(if contagion was cause) or 

that madness (if madness
instead created that path of

tiny corpses) out of these woods
When you speak of it to others

(and you will for it is too much
to contain with silence)

it will spread and soon
your fellows will be 

a similar heap
of broken sparrows

if they aren’t already
halfway there without your help

Soon you’ll be alone
surrounded by those piles

You’ll wander among them
Pluck small brown plumes from them

Make a cloak of them
Try to fly

Succeed and with regret
Declare yourself Sparrow God

Weep for lost masses even as you
exalt in sunlight soaring

above trees and clearings
Above it all having cobbled together

a divinity from tragic mystery
still unsolved and you say

So shall it be in this 
Paradise Legacy Of 

Heaps Of Broken Sparrows
Who Died So There Might Be Flight

Who Must Have Died 
Strictly For That