It doesn’t matter
now. The earth
is sick, afflicted even,
but it will shake it off —
even a nuclear war
will be over in a blip
of time. No one
is going to remember
your name and meanwhile
there will still be war
and millions of flowers
and children who won’t
even recall you existed,
not more than a day or so.
You might as well
scream at the troopers
though it seems weak,
might as well stand stolidly
against the ranks until
they choose you to slay.
It doesn’t matter much.
The long arms of the gods
will serenely brush you aside
with a profound, grateful glance.
The world will eventually
catch up to their embrace.
You won’t die in vain.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T
Monthly Archives: February 2025
Still Millions Of Flowers
Past The Running Car
The long night
continues, long after
it should be over.
Don’t feel like rising;
don’t feel anything, really.
A dog trots by, indifferent
to the lonely car running
by the curb. It’s dark outside
and getting darker; you slept
through the daylight
and ended up back in the dark.
Surprise: you damn fool,
you missed the glorious day
wishing for permanent night.
You could have gotten up
for it. You could have risen
and beaten the dog to his pathway
past the car and toward —
toward what, exactly? The car
keeps running. The dark
returns. The darkness,
as always, returns
and the car runs and the dog
will turn toward you
and then back to trotting
its path. You can’t stand it,
can you? You weren’t meant to —
you were meant to stay behind,
sit on the cold sidewalk, trying
to weep but failing,
watching the dog trundling away.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T
In Flames
pity the sense of impotence
over profound effect —
like a heart
full to bursting
but never quite there,
a mind full of queasiness
and secondhand rejection of a scene
but not yet ready to act —
that is me, that’s me
and I am ashamed of my pity
as it’s all I can offer;
short of anger, short of sorrow,
reserved one step
from where I know I should be,
blazing underneath though
I should be on righteous fire,
instead ashamed and rightly so
of my lack of decision, my impotence
in the face of need; it’s all I can do
not to dig in my heels, not to grind
my hands into my eyes, and not stand
in the face of monstrous evils
and live for one second, maybe more,
maybe less; it’s all I can do
not to sing and scream.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T
It’s Wrong But
Maybe this is wrong —
to learn the perfect proportion
of milk to coffee in the cup;
to learn the perfect timing
of seconds in the microwave
when the cup is poured
in order to get the perfect
drink when all is done; when
all this is done, to stand in the center
of the kitchen disheveled, rumpled
yet perfectly content to be so;
maybe it’s wrong to stand there
and say it’s ok, it’s perfect —
but it is and once it is perfect
despite the nature of the world today
and its vast discontents, its sense
of imminent danger of crushing
and juggernaut damage —
despite that moment of despair
you will sip and say,
“it’s perfect. Don’t change a thing.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T
Invocation
sleep, shit, shower, shave, sleep
again. in between dream, eat,
talk, fuck, laugh, cry. then,
do it all, do it all over again. this is
the way of things.
maybe, if you are so inclined,
write a poem or
sing a song —
who knows or cares
what you do? eat, drink, watch TV
or listen to the radio. break the routine
whatever way you choose. the world
stopped caring for your actions
a long time ago. you are a pitiable
lump growing older more or less
alone and you are magnificent
in your splendor crowded together
with those more or less like you,
which is everyone. listen up:
there’s a president somewhere who doesn’t
think much about you. a minister
of prison work. a dictator of a lost
continent. in the aggregate you matter,
as an individual — oh well…
now then: a baby is going to be born,
imminently. you could be the example
the baby lives up to, or you could continue
with the shit, shower, shave ordinary life.
up to you, child. old one. conflicted
person. who knows or cares? splendid
as you are, hidden gem — who knows
or cares if you shine?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T
Starlight
Starlight offers nothing
to the deep seer; moonlight,
sunlight offer more but neither
does the job as does an artificial light
held close, a flashlight perhaps,
better still a candle, a lamp
lit by hand best of all. Tossed between
flickering and steady light, our vision
adjusts and questions — is that
a bird, is that something marvelous
or demonic? Is it both, or neither?
We don’t know. We are not made
to know. We are made to sit still
and wonder until it settles into
ordinary. Until we sigh inside —
oh. Oh, that’s what it is —
and we feel the deep letdown of it
falling into place, quite ordinary,
utterly full of precedent.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T
Goodbye America
Goodbye America
with your baggy jeans
in a sweatbox of unease
I saw you knuckling under
to titans of industry
and media creeps
who don’t mean nothing
I don’t like your odds of survival
America goodbye
I blame myself but not really
I blame the ones who don’t look like me
Who dance different
either buck and wing or crip walk
Who dress different
either boot scooting hokey
or sneaker pimp dancing funny
Who talk funny
Who seem funny
I am not laughing
I am secretly scared
below my sneers
Goodbye America
Who became Mammon and Chuck Woolery
Who became Walt Disney and Goodman Brown
Became DJT and OTB
Begat the death of weird children
Begat the puzzlement of risen prices
Adios America
Do you even listen to Spanish anymore
Do you honor the Arab who came here to work
Do you listen to anything
other than the sterile bones of ersatz Natives
clattering on the football sidelines
Good Lord America
Are you gonna be alright
Do you identify with us or with them
Tell me who to root for
I can’t speak for them
I only speak for us
and I don’t know who belongs in the fold
so I watch to see who will be butchered
and stand aside
Not my circus or monkeys or friends
or family or brothers in arms
Sisters of the corn
Parents of no kin of mine
I can’t look into money-damp eyes
and be filled with solidarity’s milk
Stand aside
and farewell America
Godspeed the USA
I knelt by a television set
to say my farewells
It did not hear me
only broadcast the same damn shows
the same damn commercials
Everywhere they watched the show I watch
and the butchered world held its breath
waiting to say at last
goodbye
~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T
Blacksnake Blindness
In the remaining time
before breakfast
I blink and blink;
my eyes are girded
against the earth;
blacksnake blindness
holds one and not the other;
I can see half the world
and not the other;
close the clear eye
and see fuzz and quickly
open the clear one
to the ordinary world
and I am elated and disappointed;
it seems as I remembered it to be;
with both eyes open
I cannot describe or accurately imagine
the planet as it is, or perhaps I can —
soon enough it will all be
mostly typical and I may fall
into the reverie of broken vision
only when I cry from joy
or sadness or early in the morning
before rising from bed
when I don’t yet know
for a split minute what I may see
upon opening these ruined eyes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T
Letting Them Go
So. I let go
the bad eye, the good hope,
the indifferent falso banner
of triumph and defeat —
let them off and left them sitting
by the tracks, waiting
to be lifted by another —
and I went on, singing
uncertainly at first
but more and more surely
as time passed;
although I did not know
the words at first
they came to me
first slowly then in a rush
so hard I stopped knowing
ahead of time anything
about what they meant
until after they tumbled
from my suddenly unfamiliar
tongue, lips, and mouth.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T
The Ghost In The Other Room
In the near-silent night
you awaken
to unfamiliar sounds.
Who could be
in the living room
now that you aren’t there?
You are unknowing —
doesn’t that create a moment
of comfort? That something
finds peace there in the same place
you do? Someone
loves what you love, even for
a split second. You shrug
and fall back asleep
no warmer, no cooler —
doubt you will recall this
in the morning — doubt
it ever happened — no peace
came through and the next morning
it will be only a ghost
if it exists at all.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T
Scraping
I wish I could shave my father again
more than I wish I could shave myself.
To see him puff out his cheek with his tongue
and let me carefully drag the disposable over it.
To see him impassively sit
as I dragged the razor over the skin
hoping not to cut him.
Hoping I never cut him more than I had.
To clean up and put it away till the next time.
To hear the phone call on the Thursday morning
that he was gone at last. To relax and miss
nothing of it until today — three years later,
pangs of regret or something similar
ahead of my own surgery — they are going
to scrape my eyes clean — and I am thinking
of my father, thinking of him as I wait.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T
Dark Matter 