Ever, never;
now, always;
stuffed, hungry;
white, not-white;
manic, depressed.
I am entirely built from
pairs of words
and therefore
in all my many centers,
no matter
which ones 
you choose
to see, 
there shall be 
an observable
void.

Ridiculous name given
to a myth of a hideous animal
whose only escape plan if captured
is to turn itself into wetness and salt

There’s a tramp on a dirty road
He carries a squonk he has caught
in a dirty sack
thinking he’s really got something here

This man has some typical issues
Typical pain writ large upon him
Wraps himself for daily cover
in typical sad old clothes

He’d trapped sorrow in the wild
Hoping to tie his own to its back
Hoping to set it free and watch it all go
All he has now to show is a stain

That bag on his back has sprung a leak
The squonk falls in drops in the roadside dirt
Hemlock springs up in each little crater
marking a sting flavored trail

He’s stuck with all he came in with
and a sad myth of a squonk trapped in a bag
Who will believe he once had pain contained
and dared to believe that might make him happy

A tramp on a road with a bag holding nothing
A man soaked to his skin with damage and coping
It’s enough that he thought he might get away
Enough for the moment at least till tomorrow

Go ahead — sneer at a coming storm
the way you’d brush off
a slight head cold.

Go ahead — curse the weather people
you claim are likely making blizzards
out of flurries.

As you do,
a woman whose cardboard sign
you’ve driven by every day for months

is tucking herself into thin blankets and tarps
under the plastic roof of a lean-to
behind a long empty auto shop.

She knows how to read
that blank gray sky,
the silence, the dead cold.

She knows what’s coming.
People without homes
know better than you ever could

how cold it will be,
how deep it will be, how likely it is
that some of them are going to die.

Go ahead — complain about
the insignificance of the weather to you.
As you complain, think about

what it takes to make that true, and how much
of what it takes you could spare
for that woman (if you ever see her again)

standing on that corner 
with her sign
that says “God Bless You,”

meeting your eyes
with a look that says she thinks
you deserve that blessing.

Spent my junior year
at a prep school
where I ran with a bunch
of other problems
in letter jackets —
spoiled kings
looking for footmen
to serve us
and lackeys to punish.
We had our regular targets,
and Andrew Dillon was one.

Something
was off with that kid.
We felt it, he felt it,
it showed in all things
from locker to dorm

but his sweetness,
so obvious
behind his clumsiness,
protected him from
our worst rages. His eyes
would trickle a little
each time we’d threaten
casual violence
for his social screw-ups
and awkward moments,
and we’d be shamed
into just slapping his head
or throwing mock punches
till he ran,
and we’d laugh.
Eventually
he became our
mostly ignored mascot,
primarily (I think)
as a way to survive us.

One day
just for shits and giggles
we made Andrew
fight his best friend
in front of us during lunch.
They threw sad little blows and tried
to wrestle to some outcome
they thought would satisfy us.
We urged them on,
pushing them back together
when they separated,
snot and blood
thick and sticky
upon their uniforms.

Andrew’s fat little adversary
landed one hard on his jaw,
screamed as he did it,
a shrill primal rip
in the air around them.
I saw a tooth fly in a red arc;
I saw Andrew go down;
I felt myself panic;
I let myself run with the others.

Andrew had a lightly broken jaw,
lost two teeth,
and was suspended for fighting.
His friend was expelled.
We got a talking to from Coach
and the head master yelled at us
but because there was a game
that weekend
we had detentions for two weeks
and because we won
that was all
anyone wrote.

As for sweet Andrew,
he stayed away from us,
and the likes of us,
forever after.

Some of my
so-called friends
are in truth
proud to be bullets
resting in chambers
waiting
to bark and
bite me, and I
am unable
to offer any defense
except that
I do not want to die —
at least
not like this —

staring you down,
forever expecting
the worst of you,
fearing
you’ll pierce me
in the name of
something
you pretend
is love.

I think my life
has been a campaign
of scorched earth
except that I burned
what was before me,
and thus walked
into these barrens
fully aware
of what was coming,
feeling somehow
that all the pain
was required of me
in order to illustrate for some
what not to do,
how not to live.

My life was never 
my own, and happiness
was not for me except 
in short bursts
which were meant
to make me hurt more
when they were inevitably
blown away.

Call me what you want —
insane, mad, depressed, 
evil, deluded, wrong, 
wrong, wrong — 
I will agree
but only because such labels
comfort you,
not me,
never me.

my father told me
again and again
starting when
I was quite young:

“son, the only time
you should start a fight
is if they call you a redskin
or they call you a half-breed.
then, 
swing hard
and strike hard
and keep swinging
and striking
until they cannot
keep speaking.”

when a button 
that large
is built into 
a boy
that young,

you should not be surprised
that as a fully grown man
that boy might try to watch
a football game
with clenched fists trembling
and nausea rising
and memories flooding
until he turns the TV off
and does something, 
anything else.

you should not be surprised
that as a fully grown man
he snarls like a schoolyard 
at an office party remark meant
to describe
without any understanding
of how it once was used
to proscribe.

you shouldn’t 
be surprised
that he doesn’t want to talk
about any of this with you
until you take your clumsy finger
and your ignorant tongue
off the goddamn button.

Once this brain
could start a fire
that would warm anyone right up.
It once glowed all over, glowed more
than could be explained
solely through neurochemistry.
I didn’t understand it;
this was just how it was.

Now, this brain
commonly stays dark in its egg,
cradled in bone, a cold jelly.
When it now and then sparks
it ignites just enough
with which to get by.
I don’t understand it;
that is just how it is.

I am this brain
most of the time now.
I wasn’t always. I once lived
somewhere else and the brain
was the place I came to play
and I knew it was not all I was
and was not enough.
I still don’t understand it
but this is how it was.

Cold, dim, and lonely
in this brain. I want
to break out and live instead
among my other organs,
ease my thinking into feeling,
grow warm again seeking the light
I once saw shining from above.
I don’t understand how that can be,
but this is how it is.

I make my way each day
through a world full of
mysteries. For instance —

south of here, I’m told,
snow doesn’t melt
when held in a flame.

Sometimes I shake with 
fear, sometimes I shake
with ecstasy.  Sometimes

I’m just shaken.  Right now,
for example, I’m scooping up snow
to see what’s true here.  

Outside in a T-shirt
and shorts, in January,
scooping up

carefully measured snow.
Shaking to see what might happen.
Nervous about what I might learn.

What if the snow never melts
in a gas flame, just sits there
and stays snow

instead of becoming steam?
What if the world makes no sense?
What does it mean

that it makes me
happy
to imagine that?

Open-mouthed and young 
I trudged into the Zero,
wrapped cap to gloves to soles
against the Zero, hollering
over the Zero wind, spoiling
for a swing and a hit
in a fight against the Zero.
I had not yet learned
that no one fights the Zero
who wants to survive it.
I was lucky. I did not fall
to it. Now, I watch the Zero
from where it’s warm
and keep my mouth shut
to keep the Zero
from getting in,
though I do tell my kids
to be wary and safe,
as it’s a cold world out there.
I think they’re still
listening to me,
though I do see them
at the windows
when they think I am not looking,
staring
into what I have forbidden
more often than ever before.

A seashell
cracked spontaneously,
a stone rotted apart
all at once.

Then, whole mountains
began to slip
and trees started to sink
into their roots.

A new music revealed in this decay
was more than percussion;
there were beats and rhythms
of course as everything tumbled

but behind that was a melody,
a minimal rise and fall;
a note, perhaps two,
humming in close harmony.

Those who heard it
had to choose
to flee it with their hands
on their ears

or to stand still
and dance with it
though ruin would surely
engulf them.

Now, all is Aftermath.
Things are still falling
but most of us understand
that failure’s become default.

Some have gone so far 
as to deafen themselves
but a few are learning to sing
or play what’s left

like kids turned loose
in a broken studio full
of broken instruments.
New world, new tunes —

old mantra, rather,
and nothing too original.
It’s more like an unveiled
restoration, or recovery

of an old book of common song.
Shaped note singing. Small
intervals, easy to pick up.
Something inherently ours.

I apologize
for not at least offering
a temporary embrace
to all that passed my way.

I could not fit
all of you into my arms,
turned away often 
to hide my shame
at failing,
left you wondering,
left you thinking me
mean and small — 
forgive me.  

Forgive me
as I fail
again and again —
until it becomes tedious, 
until it 
becomes
tedious. 
Until it becomes

obvious.