Stay strictly
humane — do no
harm. Gentle
the way through.
Leaper? No,
crawler. Stay close
on your belly to
soil. Get stained.
Low eye level
is universal enough.
Believe not in the
door, but in the hinge.
Value not the leaving, but
the bag you carry
upon leaving —
stay close to the earth
and see what you make
of the view, the filthy slither
ahead, the gentle
way through. Do no harm,
especially not
to your self.
It is hard to fathom
that such soft edges
could draw such a large volume
of blood, but there it is,
a straight cut perfect line
across the thumb,
spilling red onto the desk.
Paper can be
a most dangerous weapon —
but let’s not go down the route
of discussing bad laws and treaties,
warrants, evil books and screeds.
Those are all beside the point
that begs to be made here:
that those thin sheets
can open skin as easily
and cleanly as any knife.
I’ve done my share of bleeding
from well angled paper.
I’ve felt how much wince
a cut can deliver.
I’ve done the slightly horrible thing,
pressing the lips of the wound
to make the flow burst and bubble
and drip onto the dropped page
leaving me on it to stay.
I’ve tossed a few of those pages —
but in my notes, in my files,
more than a few remain
with a dirty word or two upon them,
written after they’d dried;
each dated, brown cups
where the droplets fell
rippling the plane of the sheets,
ink laid right over them
describing my cursing, my
hissing expressions of pain,
my self-described idiocy
in plain view there.
Tonight, though,
there was no paper to stain.
The cut came from
something being read,
and so I wiped it up,
and kept on typing,
hoping this is enough
to remind me of the past
when I had visible reminders
of how much this work
can hurt.
This decade
you adore?
I wasn’t around for it.
I was born in time to see it,
was here for all ten of its years,
but I missed it completely.
Where I was,
we were living
differently.
We didn’t have
the luxury of it.
Didn’t know
the slang of it.
Didn’t wear
the style of it.
Whatever
you loved of it
washed right past us
while we were staying
up late with
occupying forces
and famines.
We made do,
got by.
We were not
part of
the fabulousness.
So I don’t know
your markers,
your symbols,
your retro chic.
When you say
what I’m wearing
is some geeked out
cool, ghetto
fabulous, hipster
sacred — well,
this is what I brought
with me to this place.
I had no idea
that this was
worthy of note;
it’s just some
of the little I saved.
So be it, then. Well and good.
But I cannot help
but think that
had you been present
in my decade
instead of yours,
these words you use
to explain old clothes
would not be part
of your vocabulary now.
He
flows. She
flows. They
— you know, they
flow.
Not that
ripples
from drowned rocks
don’t shock
their surfaces,
or that
their faces
don’t show it.
Not that, no. But
they flow, go
forward, those
slow them
only a little.
When
what is downstream’s
the driver, the dream
they work toward,
they flow — taking
the breaks of current
and banks in stride,
watching the river go
from narrow-swift to
slow-wide.
Nights
under silver-lit moonshine,
days baking bright and dry,
some days the river
nearly gone from view —
no matter, they flow,
they go, he flows
with her and she with him
and if you see them,
follow as long as you can —
that how it’s done,
that’s how slow and present
cleans and carves through
trouble and pain —
flows
along, coupled, joined
in progress, aimed
with no effort at the end
where the flow
joins the ocean
and disappears into
what encircles all.
A priest
who had just heard confession
stepped out of the booth
and
staggered,
then righted himself.
Inside his head,
one of the sins he’d just heard
had raged about for a while
and slapped God.
The priest saw him slip off His throne
and slump against the wall
of his skull.
“What was that?”
said a lone parishioner
entering the church. “What was
that cracking, that thud?”
And the priest thought,
and almost said
to the woman,
“That was the sound of
God falling against
the dark wall of my skull,
and possibly also the beginning
of a new Bible,”
but instead
he merely smiled,
and told her it was nothing.
He walked then
from confessional
back to altar
in the empty room —
a straight line
he almost succeeded in walking
without a misstep,
without imagining
tremors.
Ending now
a pursuit of knowledge
I once demanded,
I light up with the smile
of an idea: maybe
I know enough
to carry me forward
from here. Perhaps
there’s no need to sample
further, perhaps there’s no
reason to inspect and codify
each speck and moment.
There are so many birds
and songs in the world,
so many people to know
that perhaps I should stop
and assume I’ve had enough
of them all, that any new experience
can be understood through applying
what I already know.
This is perfect: I’ve grown tired
of unrelenting.
Exhausted,
I lay me down on a cool bed
in this well ordered place,
and cease dreaming, comfortable
at last.
exuberance,
drunken joy,
running through unfamiliar yards
in the dark.
two posts,
and chicken wire knee-high strung
between them, part
of a forgotten fence
around a disused flowerbed
by the back hedge.
I fly —
a complete front flip!
couldn’t have done that if I had tried —
and now my back’s screaming insults,
left knee’s bent, left leg under me,
no breath in my jarred chest,
lying where I fell,
realizing no one saw the stupendous
if inadvertent feat I’d just pulled.
look.
stars.
no moon,
stars.
all of the stars at once.
it hurts, but…
stars.
worth it
still, thirty years later,
when my left knee chooses
to remind me
of the incident
as if it had just happened,
as if I’d never recovered.
He ate forgetful
of short, impoverished hills;
wool-filthy rivers; metallic, undrinkable springs;
ate oblivious
to how much he’d wanted to
escape milltowns, rotted
cities, abandoned farms;
ate ravenously, ate dumb
to the irony of how while growing up
he’d longed for anything
other than this
coffee milk, these stuffies,
this knife-blade-gray chowder;
ate to fill the hole
left by the demolition
of his grandmother’s house;
ate Haven Brothers’ grease
and bizarre New York System
wieners as if they were
manna, as if somewhere
in those mysterious meats
was a potion, and the potion
was corrective, and the correction
was selective amnesia, and
selective, stomach-borne amnesia
could erase his stone-dead memories
and leave only the blooming good times behind.
Don’t you fear
that the battle we’re waging
is lost already?
Already the sky’s red
with our cities burning,
with tearing rockets unstitching the night.
Already the sea is lost
and the earth is awash
in spilled oil and blood;
already we’ve all lost good sense,
can’t explain why we’re still fighting,
other than to say we must
if only to keep
from slaying ourselves
in despair.
And yet we stand
armed and ready,
armed to the teeth
on behalf of what will not return;
and yet we are here,
frontline desperate,
rear guard
desperate,
hands slippery,
feet horned and howling,
guts open to the fire.
Here we are. We still
fight, fall in love, fight,
bear children, fight, fight,
sling our fists balled up against
the incoming, sing, fight,
keep a bulletproof coat of colors
on the back door for going out,
wear it out to fight, say
we look good, look like warriors,
the cause is lost but now we’re found
in the war, the war, we’re here
for the war, we’re here,
here in certain harm’s way,
here, regardless of the urge
to give up, raising children
not to give up even though
the war’s lost
and we have nowhere
now to be.
this drink’s
cold enough
for the thirst I have now
but in an hour?
will it be cold enough
for the thirst I know will grow
the more I drink?
it’s like my hunger
that gets quiet on crackers
now
but will holler like a stevedore
in the night
awakening me
demanding entire cows —
the more easily I’m satisfied now
the less satisfiable
I’ll be
later
Big Universal Dog
Big Universal Dog
Got those Big Universal Dog
Big Universal Dogs With Crossbows Blues
Hot dog with a crossbow
Looks out for number one
Big dog with a Crossbow
Looks out for number one
Every dog got a crossbow
Nothing more ever get done
Big Universal Dog
Big Universal Dog
Got those Big Universal Dog
Big Universal Dogs With Crossbows Blues
Mad dog with a crossbow
Makes a man look like a fool
Big dog with a crossbow
Makes a man act the fool
If every dog had a crossbow
You know those Crossbow Dogs would rule
God gave the doggies thumbs
Taught them how to draw a bow
Made them slaves to what he wanted
Now those doggies got to know
Everything we always knew
When we were the only ones
When we had all the crossbows
All the bullets and the guns
Now them doggies they can run
And they always run in packs
They remember all we’ve done to them
And they’re looking for payback
It’s the last thing we expected
Last thing we would have thought
Now them doggies all have crossbows
And we’re all gonna get shot
Big Universal Dog
Big Universal Dog
Got those Big Universal Dog
Big Universal Dogs With Crossbows Blues
Explosions outside —
Fourth of July weekend
but that’s nothing new,
there’s always a big bang
at least once a night — the signal
of a new universe,
perhaps? Makes sense —
who’s not looking for a new one
these days? I know that after
each sharp report
I wait in vain for a fresh planet
to soar past my window, and
blowing something up
to get one seems
more and more attractive.
The dangerous people
stare out of doorways
at the safe people
on the streets
the safe people
call their own.
In some streets
they switch places. That’s how
we keep everything running:
call it a safety valve. Call it
the social order. The dangerous ones
get to be the source of safety
in their own neighborhoods.
The safe ones get
everything else.
Sometimes
a safe one will love
a dangerous one. They
keep this to themselves;
it softens things. It makes
the streets sodden
and uncomfortable. That’s
how we re-allocate the streets
from time to time: when a street
gets too sodden, it changes hands.
Another is chosen
to replace it, everything goes back
to normal, with the dangerous ones
in their doorways staring out
at the safe ones
until
someone in love with the Other
cracks it and the flooding starts.
There’s a nice small house
unfinished on the beach. There’s this
one last board to be held in place,
one last half driven nail.
There’s this hammer
on the shore, and a wave
coming in — in fact, there are
a lot of waves. Big strong
waves. The wave
won’t pick up the hammer,
but you keep trying, though.
You keep putting the hammer
into the waves expecting one of them
to drive that nail for you.
I say, you could just turn around
next time you’re holding the hammer
and finish this up,
drive that nail, you know.
Yes, you say,
but how will the world ever learn
to bend to my will if I do
everything myself? This is
the right thing to do, you’ll see,
and you go back to
trying to float a hammer on the ocean
while your little house leans into the sand
behind you. I walk away before
the tide starts to come in.
Big mistake,
entering the store late
and walking around not certain
of what I want —
I pick up the store detective
almost at once, hovering
one aisle over, his own certainty
about my larcenous desires
a tangible fragrance.
I lead him on. Lean into
racks of shirts and swivel
my head around. Duck down
where he can’t see me
and preserve the elements of proof —
dude, I used to do that job.
Not here, but elsewhere, and damn well.
I know you’re cursing yourself; been there,
done that.
I’ll take pity on you tonight.
Catch your eye, smile, shrug.
You look so angry! Isn’t it good
to know I’m not stealing anything?
Isn’t it good to be wrong about
another human being
who is not living up
to your worst expectations?
Are we both this far gone
that this is our Saturday night?
Dark Matter 