If only it could end
as a bad dream ends,
with no resolution except that waking
reveals that none of it was true.

If only it could end
as a fairy tale ends, with all of them
swallowed up by something improbable
that sweeps them out to sea for good.

If only it could end 
as a good movie ends, with heroism
and vanquished villains
and a sunset bright as dawn.

It won’t end that way, 
of course. It’s going
awry and sideways and
no one is going to win.

It won’t end that way
because someone is making
a different movie, telling
a different fable, scaring us from sleep.

It won’t end that way
because we can’t imagine those stories
are ours, because we like to think
we’re awake; because they own the night

it won’t end the way we want.
Not in light. Not in sunset
or dawn. Not unless
we steal the night from them, and soon.

Say no
to the poisonous dead
who run this world
from their mausoleums. 

Say no
to killing rules determined
by the tyrannical dead
in other times.

Say no 
to how our language
was etched by the venom
of those savage dead.

Say no 
to boundaries that cast out
those living beyond those limits set
by the narrow stinging dead.

Say no 
to the rotten dead
who built this world
they do not have to live in.

You are alive.
Why do you allow yourself
to be changed and molded
by the venomous dead?

You are alive.
They stole your birthright.
Why do you bow and scrape
before the impotent dead?

Say no
to the dictates of the dead,
their corpse dominion, their 
insistence upon tradition.

Say no
to the insistent dead. That’s all
it will take to upend society.
Stop living as if they still ruled.

Say no
to the vainglorious dead.
Leave their bodies below ground.
Leave their ashes on the ocean.

Say no
to taboo and stricture.
Say no to the frantic dead
who still long to hold you down.

Say no 
to the decomposed dead 
who should
nourish, not govern.

Say no
to the stubborn dead
who have been stuck in memory
long after they should have melted away.