NOTE: I would just like to apologize for my absence for the last few days.  I’ve been a little under the weather and simultaneously very busy.  Not a good combination for a writer.  

It is a not-small thing, maybe just
a man-thing. I don’t even know
what that means, not anymore,
it may be wrong to say it, maybe
I’ve always been wrong and it’s
more of a white-thing or a consumer-
thing, a privilege-thing made
for Americans by Americans —
an agreement-thing, consensus
enforced by having grown up and 
made to live by immersion in its
warm and fusty air — 

that sense of competition
with whatever that is scurrying
behind you that is never there
or visible when you look back
to see what’s catching up,
the perpetual echo of shoes
dropping, doors shutting
back there you should have 
walked through instead of
plodding along this way,
forced through the warm
and fusty air — 

the sound of your weight
pushing past regrets into
this brainless way of being 
whatever you have become
today, now, being yourself
having come to mean 
unconscious respiration,
gasping in the warm and 
fusty air — 

where it’s always
the national anthem
on the stadium speakers and always
the same accurate deploring
of the lyrics by some
and always fighting immersion
in the vastness of the masses
who don’t care much
about the song
as long as what follows is
a good game or race, where always
the provocation to a fight
is present and part of the 
attraction, where it’s a 
man-thing or not, just
a human thing to be this
deep in the struggle to breathe
as one treads water, the fetid
water we have no choice 
but to struggle in as we struggle
to draw in what we need
from the warm and fusty air. 

We have not discussed this 
but you should know that 
there are specific ways 
in which I can be easily 
moved to impulse;

for example,
let’s say you tell me
something about myself
that I know is true
but refuse to admit:

something pleasing
or desirable will do it
most strongly
as I tell on my mistakes
and flaws readily,
almost glorying
in the one-sided frankness
of agreeing with others
about my faults and failures. 

With this admission
and your compliment
I am now moved to create
a disaster of myself
that will end my appeal: see,
I told you I was a problem
and you didn’t listen. That’s 
not on you but on me.

What a world 
you live in
that you encountered
me and thought I was 
worthy.  

Letter found
under the newspaper
lining the bottom
of an old box: illegible 
mostly, faded from age
and attic heat;

ink gone brown
and paper gone crisp and 
the only clear writing
above the body of the letter 
seems to say it was written 
on a blurred date long ago
by someone whose name is unclear
from a place called “Moroccotown,”
state not specified. 

I go hunting for information
and learn there’s one town
in Indiana that’s called
“Morocco” but no listing for one
called “Moroccotown” so perhaps
the ink is lying and it says
something else, or else this town
once existed and has vanished
as have the writer
and the equally unknown reader
as well as any explanation 

for why a letter was mailed
from mystery Moroccotown
or why the recipient hid it deep
in the yellow flakes of the lining
of a box in an attic as hot
as a desert. It must have been
important once. It must have
meant something strong enough
to make it worth holding.
I put the letter in an envelope
where it will sit in a drawer,
vibrating, until it either 
crumbles, explodes,
or turns to sand. 

breaking
my accustomed morning cup
into pieces
so I may never drink from it again

not by accident 
but with serious intentions
and careful attention
to avoid jettisoning

sharp ceramic flakes
so small they may be 
unseen until they enter
a finger or toe and draw blood

therefore wrapping it all in a cloth
in which I will safely discard it
after I’ve taken the hammer
to the beloved cup

what shall I drink from now
that I have done this
in an effort to make
my life over

or should this be
just the first step
should I release myself 
from all need for a morning cup

and when will I grow tired
of taking so much care in starting over
and instead let the shards
land where they will

should I just
get used to the blood
and the pain
of stepping on

the small knives and regrets
left behind in the wake
of my abandon and
my new morning chant

let me be
as I am
let me be
as I am 

let me be
this far gone
let me go
where I must

let me leave
only blood behind
to let you know
I was here

those who proclaim 
that all bodies are beautiful
all the time
have seemingly never assessed
the truth of their own grossness
upon waking
or the gross processes which follow
rising grossly from a gross bed
and entering into gross mornings
upon gross mornings through rituals
designed to make themselves 
slightly less gross for a time

I am tired
of proclamations
and affirmations

much of the time I walk grossly 
through the world aspiring
to a level of balance between
my reality based grossness
and my ideals for where I would
like to be and woe unto those
who will tell me I am never grosser
than when I do not know reality
for what it is

the number of days
and in fact moments
when I feel less than gross 
is a small one but
the number of days
and in fact moments 
when I accept the nature 
of the body in which
I carry myself is immense

if that’s what you mean
by saying we are all beautiful
at all times then I beg you

say it plain that we are often
gross and disgusting and to say
otherwise is to paint over
rot with bright colors
from a discount store bargain bin

they won’t stick for long and
when they peel it will be grosser 
than if it had never happened

you do not need to be 
anything other
than what you are
and you are a spectrum
a continuum 
a span which is not always lovely
but is always real
and thus often gross

the real is the enemy 
of the lie
language counts as a weapon
in that war 

to say that all is beautiful is 
an electromagnetic pulse
knocking out the power
of embracing the gross
and moving ever forward
toward tomorrow morning

suppose the junkie on the median
with the cardboard sign and the leg tattoos
screams out that they love you
as you drive away from the brief encounter
where you passed a dollar into their hand
and made a left hand turn toward the highway — 

is there any need to shout it back at them
if you do not indeed love them as well? did your
act of small charity represent love well enough?
does their addiction disqualify them
from hearing it spoken explicitly? how long
should their cracked voice echo inside you
after you are far away?  

If I had died
younger — say, in 1977
as I once thought I would;

on the 19th of December
as I once was sure I would;
at 7:19 in the evening

as a hard, solid dream at 13
convinced me I would,
then all this that has happened since

would not have been, at least not for me,
and maybe not for anyone else
either. Maybe if that premonition 

which haunted my teenage years
had been correct and unassailable in its truth
(even if no one had ever known of it

but me) then perhaps this deadly current world
and all its mad brinksmanship would have been
avoided — not because I was or am

central to the universe’s design
but because I hope this is even now
another figment of a fevered imagination,

and when I pass no one else but me
will ever have in fact been hurt
by the horror I see around me now.

I do not recall waking up on the morning
of December 20, 1977. I would have been
freshly home from college and likely in shock

that I’d woken up at all. I’ve barely slept
since then: that much I do know. Every day
has been a sad mix of betrayal and resignation

to daylight. I distrust it, I should not 
be seeing it; perhaps I am not seeing it
but am only looking back on it

from the next life, the next world, 
or maybe I’m still having
the same damn death dream

and in the true world of the living
this is fine. Somewhere there
on a perfect winter day

they’ve mourned me enough
to have moved on by now,
to barely recall me and thus,

everything is fine.