The only dice I use
come in pairs, have six sides,
are cubes, and a bad roll
could get me killed.
The only dungeon I know
has no secret doors or prisoners
other than me and the only way out
is feet first.
The only dragon I know
is the dragonfly that will come to you
one day with news I send
from the country of the dead.
I have no time now
for any game in which
my life is not on
the line.
It is short
but intense.
A deep
prod lingering
just long enough
to increase your wonder
at how little
you really know
about what
you are capable
of feeling.
When it happens
the air you’ve
been breathing
all along suddenly
tastes like
animal spirit,
cinnamon
ghost. You sit up
straight looking for
some explanation
or at least for some
elder to interpret
but they all vanished
long ago and you
will have to fashion
the meaning of this
into a framework
for the remainder
of your time
all on your own.
Whatever the rules
are from this point on
you won’t know
until you break them,
the taste in your mouth
growing stronger
with every breach
until a longing like
cinnamon swirling
inside is all, is
everything.
Riding around
old ground
saying
“that’s where
we used to”
and
“I remember
pulling over right there
so we could”
and
“all the times
when we’d stop there
before going home and we’d”
and
“how about that one night
when we”
and
starting to say
something like that again
but then all
is forever changed because
they’ve put a development
and
the road through the houses
comes out where
there used to be
a little pull-off
where we used to
It’s gone now
Every time
I ride through
this town
full of ghost parking places
I end up mumbling
“there’s no way
anyone still does that
is there?
do the kids here
still find places like that
for that?
where does it
happen now?”
then cussing myself
out for
staying too long under
this nagging cloud of
unfinished business
I have yet to
release
At this end of your life
you should take the cups
you’ve been offered
and pour a little out of each
for all your much regretted
lost relationships, all of
your ruptured lifelong
conversations, whether
they died untended or
were killed on purpose
as mercy killing or for spite,
whether they ended
with no explanation
or were left to die quite
consciously; however they failed,
take the cups you have left
and spill a little for what
those who vanished offered you
in your shared time.
Tomorrow it will be your cup
lifted to someone else’s lips,
and you would want
to be honored for whatever
you brought to the tables,
bars, and counters
you once shared with them.
As you slip from memory
you’ll hope
they too will savor
one last taste
of how it was when
you were together.
The people
cackling madly
while they point and jeer
at what the vulgar old pig
and its brood stole
miss the sharp suited
emboldened criminals
busy stealing so much more.
The people
so insistent on
institutional justice for what’s been done
miss the need to mete out
individualized justice now
to those doing much worse now.
The people
screaming for indictments
other people need to serve
on the past
miss what they ought to do themselves
for the future. This is why
the people
cheering so loudly
for a well done speech
miss the sound
of switchblades snapping open
behind them in the crowd,
of weapons being switched
from one-hit wonder
to rock and roll.
Dark Matter 