World in peril
under the lead
night sky: we stare at

the nose of a bullet
aimed up
and viewed from within  —

each of us one grain of powder
ready to ignite
and push it toward its target —

each of us wondering
what blow will create
the moment of ignition —

and how can we know
which of us will be the first
to set it all off?

We were created
to vanish
in that moment of propulsion.

Everything we do
before that
is just waiting:

potential in a chamber,
knowing what will crumple and fall
when The Day comes.

In the middle of
the infield
during a stock-car race,

he lifts his camera
from the roaring before him
and snaps several shots

of barbed wire
atop a chain-link fence
with the blue sky behind it.

Is there any way
to begin a sentence
that doesn’t immediately
predestine its ending?

I keep talking
in hope of breaking through
to one.  It’s not working,
and it’s not easy.

If you speak often,
you’ll repeat yourself
often.  If you act often,
you’ll act and react. 

Whatever chance I have
to say or do something original
before I stop speaking or doing
is rapidly vanishing into the haze

of things I’ve said or done before
that hangs around my head
and keeps me from seeing more
than what I know I have done.

Silence, of course, is the answer
to the original question…

After dusk
but before the sun is completely forgotten,

find the growth that is strangling
the fruit tree.

Split it down its horny middle
with your shaman’s nail;

pulp out the translucent flesh
on your sky finger.

Hold it up
and see the moon, rising, out of round

and pink, through the mess.
Spit twice to the east and wipe your hand

on the moving ground.  Leave nothing,
not even a stain, upon yourself;

see it there before you waiting to be abandoned.
Walk away. Find the nearest spring and wash naked

no matter how cold the source.  This is enough,
you should tell yourself three times.  Enough

to make the fruit tree whole again, to make its seeds
edible and fresh

wherever they eventually fall.  Do not speak of this to anyone!
Let them think it was magic.    Let them live unaware

of how it was: the cry of the tree upon being pierced,
the gross shudder of the earth upon receiving the pulp.

It is enough to live.  Enough that you lived through it.
Enough that the knowledge exists, and that you will remember it.

Whatever
“the good” turns out to be,
I imagine it will be
more of a recovered memory
than a new discovery.

We seek it
everywhere, seek it
in piles of filth, seek it
in a reason for bloodshed,
seek it in the eyes
of those we’ve rejected.

Though sometimes we defend ourselves
into some misdirection, some blurred view
of its nature, we know it somehow
when we see it:  “the good”

is recognizable, a dawning
remembered for its warm presence.
We seek it
knowing it already; duck and cover
before it, ashamed of our long distance
from it, abashed in knowing
it’s never been far,
always near by and always sensed,
if not always
conveniently placed.