Applause
for a calm minister
who steps down
from her pulpit
and walks out
of the church
into the street
with only a banner
for a shield.

Kudos
for a wan doctor
who refuses
to treat a symptom any longer
and pickes up a gun,
thinking all the while
“first do no harm.”

Reverence
for a frightened cop
and a scared firefighter
lighting the wicks
on bottles of gasoline
which are then tossed
into the centers of
station
and firehouse.

Shouts for
a resigned brigade
who refuse to leave
their barracks
to respond
to all of these
when ordered.

You say
you want
a revolution? Remember
that it often comes
only when at last
the tools of power
turn upon power.

The dark drive home
alone, not quite sleepy
but filled with gratitude
that the ride is not longer;

drifting around the apartment
setting things to right,
restoring order that was upended
before leaving;

the exhale upon the couch,
releasing last tensions
before sleep — this day
was lived

toward this moment.
Toward eyes closing
glad of nothing urgent to do
upon waking. Toward peace.

You fantasize
that you will be a dead man
fully conscious
after your departure
feeling
only a bit different
clearly disembodied
but able to hear everything 
they’re saying about you
It’s all so nice
All pleasant
You were a capital fellow
a real peach

No 
Sorry

They’re going to be angry
angry as picadors
wanting to stick your bull
till it bleeds

It won’t matter
whether you do it yourself
with a tool or weapon
or whether you do it yourself
with food or a drug or a mistake
Everyone will know
you did it yourself
and they’re never going to say
anything nice about you
I promise

No
Bull-boy
You may think you are beefy
and everyone will dine well
after you go but

the bull
is always forgotten
in favor of 
the matador
who stands and fights
wins and is loved or
dies fighting
and is loved

suppose you close your eyes
and think about who you see
when you are asked to see

a rude one
a hipshaker one
one on the burning decks

a band member
with a lone snare
with a box full of twiddly knobs

suppose you describe

a good singer
with a holiday voice
with an everyday scream

a gamer
a headphoner
someone banging a stickered painted guitar

suppose you picture

a black bloc ninja
with a hot hand
with a brick

a mystery photographer
a fresh young disturber
a breaker mid-spin

suppose you came upon

a salt-well digger
a good cop
a rough shaman

a dog teacher
a horse doctor
a fat welder

suppose you open your eyes
suppose you say now who you saw
in each case

was it a boy
in each case
a girl in each case

did you see
any men
any women

did it get
all mixed up
in your head

did you ever not choose
a boy or a girl
did you ever resist

did you ever see
yourself
or a loved one

did it ever change
mid-picture
is it changing now

Sing (to yourself,
not out loud, not where
you could be heard)
your favorite songs
that carry some offense
in their lyrics.

Watch (quietly, in the dark,
so as not to disturb others)
every television show or movie
you laugh at or live for
that has a stereotype or two
for a beloved main character.

Stare (once you’re alone,
only after the first two exercises
are complete) at your bookshelf
full of well-thumbed pages
of nonsense and somewhat
troubling oppressive thought.

It’s all been part of a problem.
You might want to get cozy with it;
maybe you get fetal, pull up a corner
and fail. Or you might want
to reconsider the sources of your joy,
then dig in and extract and reset

whatever nuggets you can
from the matrix where they’re embedded —
one chord progression, two ensemble moments,
three turns of perfect phrase. From now on
it is not going to be easy if you are inclined
to do anything more than just survive.

Froggy as nerves are
no true surprise in how jumpy
he got with drink in his head
after it happened

and him being not in such
a good place with it,

became a monk of a man
in a hood and a vow
with abbot fringe on it,

no reason
to believe he’d calm himself
after a fire like that one, him
calling out to his children burned,
no longer here except as ghosts,

him not a problem to most though
we none of us liked his wailing over his loss
no matter that we saw how profound it was,
how dark
that hollow, how firmly he moved in
and lived there ever after until
he died

and we saw him
lying on moss behind his hut
not anymore riled and righteous,
now asleep and no longer disturbing us
who long ago felt sad
but trod lightly now outside in case
we stirred those finally sleeping
small brittle kid-spirits
who really should long ago
have been at rest.

I’ve surrendered so much:
watched the coins
vanish from my pocket
due to my need to write poems,
lost breath and energy
to that craving for ink,
dulled myself
with too many poems,
become deaf
to the music of poems,
blind to the sinews
and gymnastics
of poems

so I shall pick a marker
and say after this,
no more.  
No poems after
this day, or after writing
this many more, or 
once this happens…

If I don’t stop
I know only
that I will continue
and that feels not bearable
at all.  
It feels like a 
sentence,
not a 
joy.  
Not a life.

If I start again
I’ll at least know 
it’s too much a part of me
to be excised…

Who’s going to be there
in my mirror
the day after I stop?

I look forward to him,
to my face not on
a poet’s head,
no matter how little time 
we may have together.

Marrow candy,
marrow coffee,
marrow greens,
marrow marrow
in the corners
of your mouth.
When you
bite in error
something soft
of your own, your
tongue or lip, even that
has meaty
iron in it.
You’ve been chewing
old remains for so long,
those spongy bonehearts
are all that you know.
The soundtrack
of whatever it is you do
is always the song of
splintering that croaks
broken, broken;
song
of vulture,
of carcass bird.

I pay no attention,
instead give it freely.

I offer no fresh comfort,
instead will help find 
comfort which has been
misplaced.

If a mystery’s
preferable, I stop
solving.  
If it later needs
a solution, I fade
toward a clue before 
vanishing.

Unnecessary, extra,
useless man.  
That’s the whole point.
I have never yearned
to be
of service.
Toss me today
or tomorrow
as a luxury or a
hanger-on,
please.  But

some of what’s
been made here,
some of the smalls
you finger incessantly 
in your pockets,
you could do without,
yet
you don’t. 

You savor them
and think twice
about facing
struggle without them
though they offer no 
advantage in war.
You never leave
the house without them.
A house is not a home
without them.

I sit holding beads made
from some animal’s bones,
praying for guidance.

Something fails in me, leading me
to understand that there is no dogma
in a hawk’s view of God.

There’s no sect reserved
for wolf, no war-breeding schism
between salmon and trout,

no factions to be found
among the elk.
Worms are worms

without yearning
to become
Other Than Worms.

We’ve been opening animals
to stare at their entrails
for millenia,

seeking truths there;
we’ve made them into symbols
and messages, even into gods

themselves.
Not a one has ever
given up a story of infinity

except for one
that warns us against
feigning any identity

but our own, because God
won’t recognize us
if we’re too often in disguise.

Faith has failed in me. Alleluia.
I’m going outside to bury these beads, alleluia.
I will brush the dirt from my hands, alleluia,

will stand up straight
and call myself
myself.

First, notice
Words. See their Eyes — 
see that Words have Eyes — 
keep them Open — 

See through them, see
what Words alone see.
Link them — make of them
a Puzzle Box?  Inside

Clarity, Brevity —
Enough. Then,
cut down even more till you
Startle with — What’s Left.

From the corner of the bar
the woman in your sights
sneers at your feeble targeting.
Says you should know better
than to play at being a boy
in grown up places
and circumstances.
Says you ought to go home
and tuck yourself in.

Give it a minute.
You’ll down the last of that craft beer
and get up
and get out.

You’ll go home
and sit up the rest of the night
listening to the most profound music
you own, which ten years from now
won’t impress you or
anyone else,
and you’ll think about
how wrong she was

till just before dawn
when as you fall asleep
you’ll allow yourself
a boy’s luxury
of a single
acquiescent tear
of agreement:
yeah, you guess
you should have
known better.

When you wake up
at dusk,
you will have forgotten.