I don’t believe in this lyric Muse
everyone talks about

Swear we’ve never
had a conversation

I’ve listened for her voice
in the corn by the river

Always ended those nights
running home frightened and alone

If believed in the Muse
I might have heard her

chattering in my ear
at some point

second hand news
of a second hand band

Instead I had to 
run from the silence

and here I am again
on that river bank 

panting and hungry
Full of nothing

but my voice wondering out loud
why this endlessly feels 

like I am built to be
alone — a poor boy bereft

surrounded by tall dead corn
and thoughts of plunging in

to this river that could take me
to hear what I do not believe exists

here or anywhere
but I’m willing to be convinced

I’m ready to listen
to any mythology now

having had the practice of decades
straining in silence

to hear my country 
speak to me

as if I were worthy
of nodding along to its voice

that instead sounds like nothing
as much as a snapping flag on the wind

that rattles through this dry dead corn
whenever I stop running away

whatever you do
don’t stumble

they’re listening
for that

if they sense
weakness — oh

shhh
none of it makes sense

in any human way
unless you think

predator in place of 
human 

whatever you do
don’t be you out loud

messy you tripping 
exuberantly through

what should be safe
except they are there

listening and claiming
you — shhhhhhhh

don’t even breathe
they sit there gills out

in shallow water or
perched in crooked trees

with ears open
with claws for the likes of you

SHHHHH
you know better — don’t have to do

a damned thing to be prey
except exist out loud and 

maybe stumble or not but
it’s what they do

the men in the water or trees
that’s what they do

Don’t ask how it happened 
that they were raiders by birth 
or education — it’s not worth
the effort to understand it now,
this late in the game. Enough to say
they were raised and whipped
to be descendants of such people
and such ancient habits, once ingrained, 
are the hardest to kill. Somehow 
their homes are still castles
in their eyes, no matter how flimsy;
to them their big windows up front
are still the mouths of cave shelters, 
no matter how shallow they’ve made
the space behind them, the rooms 
where they live.

Most of us out here in the fields below
are targets, serfs, or lackeys; no exceptions.
It’s been folly to bet against them for so long
we fall in as rigidly as they do to our roles —
or we have for generations now. Sometimes
we stir and wonder about how this all happened
but once again, what matters more is how swiftly 
today can become tomorrow, how they seem now
to quiver for real at last as they look out upon us
from the caves they cannot help but call home:
the aging holes, the sagging walls, the coming
of a storm or a war they will not admit
is theirs to forestall.

That we do not understand 
how much of
each of us 
is already in custody

is the great triumph of an Enemy
we cannot see as an Enemy
because we have such
a broken definition of that word.

Each day that passes
is tacked on to our sentences,
even though we see
neither walls nor gates.

It’s all
in our heads, they tell us,
as if the bars and locks
are less effective because of that.

All night the screaming
elsewhere, but still in here.
Is it getting closer or is it all
in our heads, as they’ve said?

All night inside our heads, as they’ve said.
We wonder where it’s coming from.
It sounds so close. So familiar, close enough
to catch us by the throat and squeeze.

Pay attention: they’ve put a new hit
out on us. Anyone holding something other
than their Sun-bright view of this world
has a target on them now no spell alone can erase.

One eye out for the ambush, one eye
fixed on possible sniper’s nests; once again,
we must learn to live in the Sun’s kingdom
where Gray means nothing to the keepers of White.

Look out, my folk: there’s an ancient contract
with our names upon it. All their scopes trained
upon the time between twilight and dawn;
they only love the Sun, allow for nothing else.

Eyes wide open, all: as always, they wait in daylight
to seek those who step aside from their plain view
and their easy explanations. Under the light
of their Sun, we have dared to have shadows.