Once upon a time
there was
a little colony that
robbed the land blind,
stole whatever
and enslaved whoever
it needed
to maintain, then
went feral, declared itself
free (it meant “free”
in the same way
that a clipped wing
can still flap freely),
got huge and bloated,
and now
we are here,
and we get to decide
how to finish the story.
Originally posted 8/13/2011.
How can you deal
with it being so loud?
Recall the times
you went unheard.
It seems, sometimes,
that the words form
a powerful flood.
What is there to do
when you’re drowning in it?
Recall how the air
you pull into your chest
when you break surface
is cleaner and fresher
for having been riled.
But they use so many words!
How are you supposed to hear them all?
Recall your toys
and how they all got time
from you in turns.
Move yourself among the words
in that same loving way.
It seems, sometimes,
that the passion overpowers
the poetry. How then
do you worship the craft?
Recall the difference
between rock and jazz,
how each trips
a different trigger.
One does not do
as the other does.
Each suits its time.
But it seems sometimes
that it’s been said before,
sometimes right before.
How do you
tell the difference?
Recall the story
of Cain and Abel,
how hearing it once
did not stop fratricide.
Are you saying it’s all
a matter of memory?
It is all a matter of memory.
Recall the campfires,
the hunt and the grief of
how new we were once
to simply having tongues
that could do this —
every time,
it is new to a new listener;
every time,
memory lodges in one ear,
even as it goes out another.
But even after all that,
it seems so
overwhelming,
so unnecessary.
Recall the first thing
I told you,
that you should recall
what it was to be
unheard.
What part of being human
is so lost to you
that you should feel
so uncomfortable
in the presence
of a need
such as this?
listen to
my bitter
now
a bad brain
that can’t hold water
or thought very long now
footfalls from feet
on fire now
and for years before now
snapping fingers
beginning now
to hurt like those feet
an old voice
no one hears
because
it gave up
flash and
volume
in favor of
subtler and
less certain words
mined from
its most
unquiet source and
with that surrender
lost
so much and so many
fucked up now
and so many times before
fucked up
so many ways
fucked up
falling for so long
now as
everything else
falls too
maybe I do not
look so bad for
dying this way
but
still
dying now seems a
coward’s response to such a series
of dumb moves
when
I was the one
moving so stupidly
as to look like
a hero to
those stupid enough
to equate
plain old fucking up
with
artistic vision
as I did not love hard enough
or well enough
or plainly enough
now that
so much is
breaking inside me
and my
cavalier striding
through this
has brought me here
it’s so obvious
that what ends with me
in such stumble
was born from that stumble
I called a path
that was no path
that was a crash
and what you want to call a career
or a life
was in fact
a steaming pile of
stereotype
torture porn
mythology
forget about it
as swiftly
as you can
now I am beginning to
do just that and
cannot wait
to become
blank
with no need to begin again
The coffee got left on
with little in the pot.
It looks like there’s a fog inside the carafe
where the fumes baked into a film on the glass.
Such a small disaster as that
cannot be allowed to stop the morning.
My lover has taught me
how to clean such grime with ice cubes and kosher salt:
combine them inside; swirl them around;
dump it and wipe the glass; then
rinse thoroughly
and make a new pot.
I do that and as it’s brewing
I think about what else she has taught me:
how I am growing older and how I am not;
how to sit and be still;
where I am failing and how
I may recover. How to be myself with her,
and how not to be lost to myself
when I am not.
That last is the lesson
that came the hardest and
remains the hardest. As hard,
perhaps, as a film of hot fog burned
onto old glass — but with her
and with the alchemy I’ve learned from her,
no such small disaster as that
can keep us
from sitting together each morning, still
and quiet, over coffee in the shade
of the living room before we raise the blinds
and let in the hard light from outside.
My greatest fear
is of
becoming finalized.
That I set, and set hard.
That one day I look around
and say, “close enough” or
“this is the way of things” or
worst of all, “whatever.”
That I fall into contentment
from this tightrope
and settle for it.
As much as I itch
for it now and again, I know
comfort is my enemy.
A founding American liar
said we were owed
the pursuit of happiness,
then made us believe
that meant
we were entitled as well to
its capture.
I’m one who knows better.
Would not know what to do with it
if I caught it
except to let it go and
start chasing it all over again.
Call me crazy.
I do.
I whisper it
to the night.
That itch,
I think,
makes my sun rise
and set. I think it keeps me
whirling about
so that sunrise and sunset,
journey’s beginning and end,
are always just ahead of me,
always just out of reach,
always one apparent
stutter step away.
In the rough and tumbled
road rash we have made
of this country, all we do
leaves a mark.
Inside, we’re
shining in red and green:
home to the spirits
of blood and money.
Our hides? Mostly scar tissue,
mostly from how those spirits
bang us around
for as long as we live,
partly from how
we bang against each other
by accident or intention,
seeking comfort so clumsily.
It’s not easy being here.
Not that it’s easy being anywhere
but we claim so much for this place
that really it ought not to kill us
just for being here.
Suppose you find yourself
to be a battlefront
in an unconventional war.
At night you’ll ring your bed
with sensors to prevent
incursions.
You’ll wake up each morning
rubbing bullets
out of your crusty eyes.
Walking in daylight:
dangerous. Walking
at night: dangerous.
Somewhere else, politicians
shall argue about how best
to resolve you
without ever lifting a foot
to come down off their hill
and really see you.
Pieces of your soul
will become refugees from you
and you’ll wonder if they’ll ever
return, even in the peace
you would hope will come
once hostilities have ended.
If that day comes soon enough,
you might become whole
more swiftly. None of this means
you’ll never smile or feel love
or joy or even a dash of silliness
now and again, more or less often,
but you will always know
the cost of being the site
of a war you did not choose to fight.
A wildfire roaring
beyond the river
that will protect my home.
In the middle of flames,
improbably there,
incontrovertibly there:
a door.
Through the door —
can you see it? It’s what might be
Paradise
as described in my long-disused
Bible. It has it all: flaming sword, angel,
fine strong tree with a serpent
lounging among its roots.
It’s so dangerous, scream some
onlookers. It’s so clearly
not real, scream others.
Stay put, idiot, that’s a real fire
over there,
scream even more onlookers
less eager for
spectacle.
From this side of the river,
it’s a glory door, all that was
ever promised is through there,
right down to that exciting
and vital snake. But seeing the fire
— what if I burn? What if I don’t burn
and can’t turn back?
What if the door closes behind me
once I’m through? What if
the angel strikes me down
before I even approach,
saying, “you know the rules…”
Smoke rising, flame rising.
I’m safe here for now
on my side of the river
and I can’t help it,
I stare down at the water
accusingly, furious
that it makes it so easy
to hesitate when
all that’s at stake is
how I choose
to burn.
Keep sleeping,
says the White Prince.
It’s not safe out here.
We have work yet to do.
If while you’re sleeping
you see something,
say something, says
the White Knight. However
your particular dream-fever
manifests, if it brings you
to a crisis, we want to know
about it. How else to keep you
safe — how else to keep you.
If you reach out in your sleep
for a body, a warm heart, a generous
soul, speak up, says the White
Lord, and we will slip in beside you.
Spoon you in our mighty arms.
Protect you from being touched
by any but the most pure.
Keep sleep holy, says
the White Hierophant, who
are we to question the needs
of the body as it longs not to know
what the waking might bring? You
are one of us, one of the Whites
yourself. One of the stunted
royal family, those not properly
exalted yet for dark reasons.
If only you will sleep, we promise
to wake you when we have finished
making the world ready for you.
Keep sleeping, says
the White King. Keep sleeping,
so say we all from Prince to Lord,
from Knight to High Priest and all the way
to King. If you do not sleep
we cannot maintain this luster
you’ve granted us. See how we shine
like the sword we will, one day,
ask you to hold for us,
ask you to carry into battle
even as you continue to sleep.
The best words in the right order.
The perfect ghosts to animate them.
A rhythm, and the struggle to understand
how words slide over the crests
of those waves. Sound upside
of downbeat, and the opposite
as well. A trumpet in it,
a drum, a monster’s sharp and plaintive cry
as it realizes it’s the last of its kind.
A child’s scalp tingling — you can measure
the height of that raised hair in
dactyls. You can explain the creation
of the world in the precision of
enjambements. Justice
made metrical, pain
made sibilant, war
made alliterative: slice of sword
and swoosh of bullet bringing back
pull of projectile into purpled flesh.
Best words in best order and
a world fashioned in its enunciation:
and now what? What spell
are you under? What
happens now as a result of
such a thing? How are the ghosts
faring now that it’s ended?
A number only,
say the happy-go-lucky.
A milestone, say the ones
who love to make marks.
A privilege, say those
who see how hard it is to reach it.
A failure flag, say those
in love with smaller numbers.
For me, it’s a wall
I never thought I’d have to climb.
Two more digits
in the phone number of farewell.
Another reminder
of what I have and haven’t done.
A mingling of relief and dread.
Another beat on an inexorable drum.
All new, all new,
everyone saying it’s
all new.
All new, all new,
except for those
who already knew
that this everything new
is not quite nothing new,
just close enough: old ghoul
in a new outfit, old gun
in a new hand. Some see
that face and say, we’ve never
seen that before; those
who know every line of it
find it hard not to laugh,
voices somewhere between
choked croak and open scream,
eyes closed in memory of those
who didn’t survive it
when it burned through town
last century, or yesterday, or
five minutes ago. All knew
someone, all know
it’s nothing new at all.
If what little is new here brings others
to the front, all well and good —
if they stay. If when they’re safe
they go away? Nothing new
there, nothing new. When they go
those they leave turn and say,
nothing new there, nothing new –
and as always, we knew.
We all knew.
I keep waiting for this place
to prove itself worth saving.
I pace the floor imagining
I’ve missed something
redemptive, something
of the frame work that hasn’t
gone rotten. It sounds half-good
on paper, but how to separate the words
from how poisonously they’ve been used
and turned to awful ends so far — that’s
what puts the twist in my gut.
Maybe if we kill all the money
the living words will dig out from under
that pile of death. Maybe
if we drive out the magicians
all their secrets will be laid bare
and no one will be fooled again.
Maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe
if the whole unbalanced tower
wasn’t built on stolen land
and labor it wouldn’t be falling
on so many right now. Maybe
it wasn’t built to stand this long,
no matter what the framers thought?
I keep waiting to find an argument
that it’s worth saving. I find
that the only person I’m arguing with
is myself, and I am losing; I can tell
by the sick joy I feel
that is starting to drown my fear.
1.
Go to where you keep silverware
and pull out all your forks. Which
was the last one you used
before hearing Michael Brown
had been shot?
2.
How many times
have you washed your sheets
since you first heard the words,
“drone strike?”
3.
True or False:
you have showered
with greater frequency
since September 11, 2001.
4.
a.
How many times
has a single tear
rolled down your cheek
as if in homage to
those icons of your childhood films
who were depicted as
stoic but for that one
brief moment of humanity?
b.
Which eye has served you best
in this regard?
c.
If this has never happened to you,
is it because
you cry such plentiful tears
that there has never been just one?
d.
If this hasn’t happened to you,
is it because you remain
unmoved, even now?
5.
Identify on a map
all the locations
where you brought
your A-game,
where you really
came to play,
where you showed up
in a big way.
When you’re done,
connect them with a ruler
and a pencil.
Look at the polygon created
by the borders you’ve drawn.
a.
Who lives in there?
b.
Have you been there?
c.
If you’ve been there,
why didn’t you bring your A-game
there as well?
d.
List five reasons
you left it behind you
at the border.
6.
Go to your desk and find a pen,
then write your name
thirteen times.
Imagine you are signing
executive orders.
Would your third-grade teacher say
that your current signature
resembles the one you had then?
7.
Give yourself away. Do you miss it?
8.
(NOTE: skip this question
if you’ve never had an orgasm.)
a.
How have your political beliefs
affected the orgasms
you’ve had so far in your life?
b.
How have they affected
the orgasms
you’ve given to others?
c.
What has changed the most
since you first became sexually active:
your beliefs or your orgasms?
9.
If you own a gun, does it feel
better or worse
to hold it than it used to?
10.
Think about the room you were in
the last time a news report gave you hope.
Has its decor changed at all since then?
born here
clutched in a nation’s hands
not clad
in that nation’s favorite colors
not clad
in that nation’s preferred skin
born here
then pushed aside for counterfeits
replaced for this nation’s needs
by mascot and magic act
replaced for this nation’s mythology
by drunk, savage, earth maiden, elf
born here
in one nation imposed upon many nations
then rooting into
what lies below that shroud
they thought
their nation had smothered all
they did not understand
they do not understand
they will never understand
what it means to be
born here
not of this one fleeting nation
but of those
many still here
from before that one
was ever dreamed
Dark Matter 