My left hand became a web of roots.
I seized a rock, pulled it open
all at once instead of over many years —
thus, the power of will over instinct,
of intent to destroy as a power itself.

You may not question the truth of this.
All you are allowed to do is accept
that my hand gnarled and twisted and rooted
in the stone and pulled it to pieces, that I wanted to
do that, and that what should take years took seconds.

You are not allowed to shiver.
Fear is forbidden as disbelief is forbidden,
as is any knowledge more detailed than I’ve already given
about how the deed was done.  It’s enough,
I think, for you to know what I am capable of,

or what I can convince you I am capable of.
What if I am lying?  Enough to know I thought this up —
this rock breaking, this tree-handedness, this secrecy.
It’s a religion if you believe me, a threat if you don’t.
Or perhaps I’ve reversed those two?  No matter;

just don’t show fear and everything will be fine.
Everything will be dandy;
you can watch the rocks shattering.
We can hold hands while it happens, my beauty;
we can party, and bullshit, and party, and bullshit, and…

I was moving ahead swiftly, nearly skipping,
flying over everything, heard noise
from behind, turned.

Saw a leash caught on a thorn tree
and a white dog upon it thrashing,
howling, speckled with his own spit.

I recognized him.
This dog was mine,
was named for all the dark acts

that were done for me via privilege and in my name;
whether or not I did them myself,
I owned the hound and couldn’t ignore him.

I untangled the leash
and took it on though he bit me hard.
To this day as we walk

(I can neither run, skip, nor trot anymore)
he snaps at me and at all who pass, and never stops howling.
I strain to hold him back simply because I must.

There’s nothing heroic in it.
I own a crazy white dog
and his name is

“The Stubborn Adherence Of Hidden Favor
On The Path To Success.”
Like most show dogs’ names,

it’s too unwieldy for daily use.
I just call him Whitey
and keep one eye on him always.

Parents lie awake
in late darkness
thinking of
the previous day,

afraid
for their children, afraid
of their children. 

The children
are all asleep.

Perhaps
they’re also all
lucid dreamers,
so in control
of their fantasies
that they may as well
be real.

If these children’s dreams
do become real?  Well,
if that happens…well,

if dawn is coming,
if dawn ever comes again,
if all are wrong and it comes again,

if after this night
something recognizable as dawn
can possibly still be coming,

no one in this town
is likely to recognize it.

Certainly,
no one
can feel it yet.

If I could still dance
I’d dance a pavanne to coax back
my recently lost cheer and gumption — 
I’m sure they’re still nearby,
just barely out of reach.

If I could sing as I once did
I’d holler a big band blues shout
five times the size of my latest defeat,
and I’d drown out the whimpering
I left in the dust around it.

I can’t dance or sing anymore; 
it’s a pity that every trick in my book
was dependent on those lost skills.  Living well,
they say, is fine revenge.  Trust me,
it’s not as good as actual revenge,

which is a harsh word 
for the moment I’m in
but it’s a harsh moment.  
I want a little revenge on age,
just to still its laughter.  Just to ease

the ache of the memory
of singing and dancing and abandon
and calling them both “the answer
to a bad week.”  I’m out of such answers now,
though I can still hum and tap my foot a little

and that may have to be enough now — 
the ability to follow along
when some are living well.
Alive, responding, remembering;
it will have to be triumph enough.

Pray you never see me
coming toward you with my baggage
of wrong mistakes

not like Edison’s correct mistakes
that got him ever closer 
to the lightbulb

nor like Tesla’s right mistakes
that weren’t mistakes at all
but quashed revolutions

Like them I pulse with invention
Unlike them
I never patent anything

because I make the wrong mistakes
inasmuch as none are original enough
to sustain hope on the way to success

You will never read about me
in a book of genius
(except perhaps in a chapter

called “Cautionary Tales”)
You will never see me in a documentary
(perhaps instead a reality show

called “Really Missed
The Clue Boat Here”)
You will never see me

again 
unless I screw this up 
too

A voice or animal spirit
or other being of great impatience
screams into my ear until I wake up,
demanding that my next words
must absolutely be
about how karmic debt
is always carried in blood.  

I attempt to resist. I say 
that I don’t believe that it is, that we can rise above
such impulsive belief.

The great impetuous force
screams again that my own belief
is subverted by fact, and how
is blood not an obvious river for inevitable war
when it carries so much iron?

I am not yet awake enough to argue
so I draw my knife.
How are we now, Great Force?

It screams that I am to address it
as Lord, that I am to listen
and obey, tht I am to await further instructions
as it wails around seeking 
a justly identified enemy past or present
to hate and damage up to and including death.

I want to ask if we are doomed, but it screams
that I need to be writing. Tales of atrocity, it screams. 
The enemy’s name will as always be added when it is known.

Blessed be the youth
and fuck the youth
as they dismiss the past
and caress the old mistakes

Blessed be the youth
and fuck the youth
as they eat the best
and slip away to new feasts

Fuck the flat-footed youth
who will not flee though we scream run
Bless the fleet-footed youth
who flatten and hold on tight

Bless the youth
who manage some surprise
at every vintage act of oppression
gussied up as new

Fuck the youth
who turn away from intersections
with a headdress
and a stupid rap on their lips

I alternately bless and condemn youth
as I have alternately blessed and condemned those my age
Blessings for being human
Condemnation for imperfectly feeling humanity

We live in a time of great fuckery
and grand blessing
and cannot always tell the difference
or balance well between those poles

so fuck and bless the youth
for their maddening cavalier living
for their unwillingness to stop
for their inability to avoid our mistakes

Nine years old
I wrote something
Teachers liked it
I got noticed
I was doomed
I instantly knew it
I kept at it
Was picked on for it
Was applauded for it
But soon it became
Its own reward
It was how I breathed
That was enough

I found my doom
Another voice
And offstage sustenance
Onstage became pure and creamy junk

Still doomed

Someone loved me
Someone real loved me
Someone real paid me a bag of pennies

Now middle aged
Still doomed to this
Still amazed at how often it’s enough
Though too often because
I have to eat
I have to lay my head somewhere
I have to be warm and able to breathe
I have to have an arm around me as I sleep
I have to set it aside

I kept going
Long after I should have
Should have stopped
Should have kicked the junk
Should have died and taken
The acclaim accorded to a dead artist
But
I am what I am
Not happy exactly
Wholeness isn’t always nirvana
But doing something else and
Being something else
Aren’t my doom
And doomed
is who I am
Is why you are reading this
Piece of apparently necessary
Crap

A man I know
calls his preferred
prospective partners
“chicklettes.”
Because they’re young,
young and sweet,
he says.
Because of their fragile shells,
he says.
Because he spits them out
when the flavor’s gone,
he says.

This other man I know
has jokes up the wazoo
about women, about
“how they are.”
Because that’s just
letting off steam,
he says.
Because of the need for a break
in the battle between us,
he says.
Because it’s better than shooting them,
he says —

and laughs.

This other man I know
likes to stick his elbow into me
whenever he pretends he’s down
with what women say where we work.
Because they think I mean it,
he says.
Because as men we know the score,
he says.
Because, anyway, where were we before they talked?
he says.

Other men I know
lose track
of bedmate headcount.
Other men
keep track,
notch something soft
to brag about.
Other men I know
have heard about “no”
but they say it’s just a lock
to be picked apart.
Other men
don’t care much for locks,
bust down the door,
swear they heard a cry for help in there.

I know many other men
who I’d have sworn
are none of these,
but too often I learn
of one or more who are
not the other men
I thought they were
and now when I say

this other man I know
or
these other men I know

I stop and wonder
if men are in fact knowable,

why I seem to know so many
of these men,

why these other men
seem so comfortable with me.