you can have it.
I’ve seen my share.
It’s mostly been my own
but red’s red;
once you’ve seen
one scarlet gush
you’ve seen them all.
I know some can’t seem
to get enough and others
can differentiate among
various types to decide
which are sacred and which
profane, but I’ve never been
one of those. Its iron salt flavor
killed my appetite for it
for life. For life — what an odd
locution. To say I could
swear off blood
for life — as if I could
and remain alive. As if
blood I refused was trying
to kill me, and only by not bathing
in it could I stay alive in reverse of
Countess Bathory and Dracula and
all those other blood loving beings.
We all seem to be in love
with those red fountains
even when we can’t stand to see them.
How confusing we are. As for
excess blood: who needs it?
It’s just a sticky mess. It’s going
to make me miss breakfast. It’s
not worth my time. I have enough
of my own, thank you —
do not ask me
to shed a drop more.
Monthly Archives: November 2016
When It Comes Down To Blood
Fretting And Picking
There’s a common guitarist’s saying:
your fretting hand shows us what you can do,
your picking hand tells us who you are.
I spend half my time trying to decide
what that means for me, and half my time
working to make it true,
hoping that by doing that,
I’ll understand it at last. It’s all there is —
fretting and picking
all night and day in a dream
of one perfect run that explains
me to myself. Not that I’d then
set it aside, of course;
I cannot imagine such a pursuit
leaving me unchanged.
I’d have no choice
but to start again and find out
what I could do, who I was now
as a result of learning those things
an instant before. Fretting, picking,
listening. Who am I? What can I do?
Advice For Those Weeping
If you see a gun
tossed carelessly aside
by an arrogant man who believes
its presence is enough to save him,
steal it.
If there’s a knife
left out in plain view —
even one stained brown
or scratched from some unholy entry —
steal it.
You are going to need them all.
Disdain for such tools is no way
to enter this era — true, you cannot build
a new house with them but
they aren’t made for that work.
So if there’s an obvious vault
to be breached and plundered,
breach it. Plunder it. It’s not going
to open itself magically because
of tears.
As for your fear of such things,
your resistance to using them to repeat
human behavior? Look at your hands.
Are you human? How do you plan
to change that? Tell me, but tell me after
you seize your tools.
You will not get a chance
to remake this world
as a better place
without them.
Mourn
Mourn your dead till daylight
slips in through your window, then
take a shovel out back,
bury them deep in a corner
with a stone in full view of all,
and move on.
There will be more dead.
(There already are
more dead.) This is not arguable;
if you mourn for all your remaining days
there will still be more dead. Your mourning
stops nothing except your own forward surge
toward an adjusted world. A modified
society — believe no one
who tells you it’s perfectible. People
aren’t, so it will never be,
and as long as Power knows
deaths can maintain or advance
this current version of acceptable,
there will be more dead.
So: if these dead are yours, mourn them.
Mourn if you want for those other dead
and all who fell as bystanders,
cross-fire heroes, accidental bodies,
friendly fired cadavers. Mourn them
and mourn in advance
for your own inevitable ending,
then plant it all and leave it to grow
a garden full of endings for you to come home to
after a day of struggle for a new start. Both
will be there for as long as you live. Mourning
and struggle will each outlast you.
This is not arguable.
This is how it works.
Wreck
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Flat tire morning in November.
Harder and harder to steer.
Someone ought to fix it.
There will be a wreck otherwise.
Pull. Pull. Pull.
Steering wheel starting to pull hard right.
That guardrail will be impotent against this momentum.
Embankment beyond it and dirty creek at the bottom.
Lots of trees between but nothing large enough to break a plunge.
Dirty. Dirty. Dirty.
A promise of more than scratch and dent.
Forget about salvage if that happens.
Have to climb up and out if it lands in toxic muck.
Leave it behind smashed beyond repair to leak more poisons.
Shake. Shake. Shake.
Standing cold and smeared with blood and more.
Standing dark on a highway shoulder.
Shaking alive but trembling toward less so.
No one to tell or beg for help.
Lights far away seem to be aimed here.
Whatever is next comes rough and unsteady.
Thump.
American Appetite Parable
How do you eat an elephant?
One bite at a time.
It helps to have
gigantic teeth.
Of course, if possible
you kill it first.
But if you’re big enough,
perhaps you needn’t.
Does that sound awful?
It is awful. There’s no way around that.
But honestly, you might have to eat it
while it’s still alive.
While you’re thinking about that,
consider how you’ll stop it from moving
long enough to get those bites in.
No matter how large your teeth,
you can’t eat it while it runs.
You’re going to have to stop it
from running. Bring it
to at least a crawl so you can
get a leg up on it
and open your mouth.
Also, can you make that first bite
count toward the slowdown and stopping?
Think on these things, but not
for too long. It’s charging
and it’s huge. Tremendous,
really. But remember,
it’s made of meat. Aren’t you hungry?
Hungry enough to at least try?
American Oatmeal Parable
Forced to eat oatmeal each day
by my addled blood.
Gotten so used to it
that a day without it feels like treason.
Once upon a time I liked it well enough. Still
sounds good right up to the first bite —
a blues bowl of blueberries and cinnamon,
tan pulp gone purple with berry dye. Then
it becomes all bent notes until “good-for-me,
good-for-me, good-for-me” stops echoing inside
as I put empty spoon and bowl into the sink
with that sense of weary duty to a life I truly don’t love,
followed by seeking out morning news. Upon seeing it
my addled blood so often becomes curdled blood;
all that weary duty feels heavier, and heavier,
a weight in my stomach as dense as the cursed daily bowl —
but every day I force it down. I do what must be done,
take in boredom and pain and anger because
as much as it hurts, I must stay alive a bit longer;
because “good-to-me” means more than just feeling good;
it’s about doing what must be done
to save my blood, my country, my life.
Whatever I choke down I choke down to do just that.
Gotten so used to it that a day without it
feels like treason.
Not All Things
Not all things
said by poets
are poems.
We order
pizzas, wings,
beer. We pray
stale prayers that
barely pulse with
longing, rage
impotently, curse
in traffic. Those words
aren’t poems,
though we may be bent
toward seasoning them
as if they were. All
the more reason
for the few poems
we do get to write
to be full of us
at our best.
It simply will not do
for us to fail. Those
fluent curses and
florid grocery lists
should prepare us
for those times when
the breath we spend
might be a last breath.
American Stew Parable
Just like that,
there were so many bones
in the stew that
it became a chore to eat.
We choked and sucked around them
but were only made more hungry
by the effort needed
to feed.
Slowly, we gained confidence;
bit down, chewed through,
and learned from that
that inside each bone
was a center as full of flavor
as any of the softer meat;
while the work became
no easier, in the end
we were stronger and less inclined
to treat ease
as a birthright worth its taste.
American Vegetable Parable
many of you
have just learned
that we live in an onion
which once peeled splits
fairly easily and reeks
and makes you weep
but have yet
to learn another thing
long known to many
that if you wash your hands with
stainless steel right away
and dry yourself up
you stop weeping and
then can get back to work
making something
PS
you will of course
still have to do
some chopping
but there are many people
who can explain that to you
if you are willing to learn
Le Refus Absurde
While reading and fantasizing
about the French Resistance
before dawn,
I come across the term
“le Refus Absurde,” used to describe
those actions early
in the Nazi occupation when,
even though it seemed certain that
the Reich would triumph and
last a thousand years, individuals
would begin to resist even though
they felt the effort was futile. They’d
slash a tire, cut a cable, write
a subversive poem, start
an underground newspaper. Armed
resistance only came later…Many
spoke of moments when le Refus Absurde
crystallized within them, climaxes
of incipient struggle; for some it was seeing friends
beaten or marched away, for others
the look of contempt on the faces
of German soldiers as they marched
into towns like a swarm
of sneering Twitter comments.
The Unlimited Light Of Song
Waiting in fear
in this sudden,
moonless dark.
Lying alone all across
the country, some scattered
face down upon stone;
some of us clawing alone
at barn-board floors,
gasping for air;
others huddled
in city doorways,
watching our homes burn,
watching
everything beloved
burn.
Tonight the fight
is at the door
and not of our making.
Tonight we fight back their way,
by the glowing rage
of uncounted flames.
But tomorrow?
Tomorrow, we fight our way,
illuminated
by the unlimited
light of
song.
Rhetoric
1.
Get out and vote
you anti American
Get out and vote
you racist bastard
Get out and vote
you gun stealing liberal
Get out and vote
you rich little shitcake
Get out and vote
you uninformed minion
Get out and vote
you infowarrior
Get out and vote
you Christ-chanting dupe
Get out and vote
you Allah-loving Monster
Get out and vote
you atheist dog
Get out and vote
you pole-dancing street mom
Get out and vote
you staid little dingbat
Get out and vote
you celebrity annoyance
Get out and vote
you decent confusion
Get out and vote
you best intention
Get out and vote
you came here to do this
Get out and vote
you were born here to do this
Get out and vote
you have blood on the ground
Get out and vote
you want oil in the ground
Get out and vote
you are shamed into caring
Get out and vote
you are a shame to the flag
Get out and vote
you are a shame to your mothers
Get out and vote
you are a scandal to your fathers
Get out and vote
you are an infinite number
an infinite number
a number
number
numb
2.
On a treeless plain in North Dakota
rubber bullets are voting
for stasis
On a street yet to be named in any given city
police bullets are voting
for stasis
In any prison in any given state
forced labor is voting
for stasis
On the New York Stock Exchange
the currency is voting
for stasis
3.
Get out
and vote
It gives you
something to do
Gives you
a place to stand
Gives them
stasis
Wisdom Path
Originally posted 11/3/2012.
When apocalypse comes,
it will come slowly.
God will not have sent it.
It won’t have been sent at all.
It will just come of its own accord
on its own wisdom path.
If asked, it will say, “I came to be here
because this path that opened before me
brought me here.”
The mountains at the edge of town
will nod,
almost too slowly to notice.
The long hair of meadows
will wave in assent. The rest of earth
will agree with it at once.
Then, as it serenely kills us,
we will be forced to accept
the expertise that pushed for this —
Wisdom itself seems bent
on using catastrophe to instruct
as we seem unable to learn
that we are not
and have never been
at the end of that path.
Leaf By Leaf
Election eve,
and leaf by leaf
it’s all coming down
outside. Next door
they’re raking leaves
into piles before
putting them
into the street for
collection, with a scratch
upon scratch of
metal teeth on
worn asphalt and hard
brush of the same
sweeping over
thin lawn: sounds
of ending and
of resignation to
the hard work of
coming winter.
As for me, laboring
over a difficult task
indoors, stopping
to finish this poem
surreptitiously, as if
someone was
hovering over my shoulder?
I heard somewhere
that raking is bad
for the lawn and
right or wrong, that suits me
fine. Permission to keep my head
in the sand of this work
a little longer. Living
according to
acceptable facts. Winter’s
looming, getting here
maybe as early
as tomorrow night. I
will stay right here
for as long as I can
and do nothing urgently
needed, except
perhaps this poem
is what is needed,
I tell myself
this is the most vital work
of the moment
even as we are buried,
leaf by leaf,
in the Fall.
Dark Matter 