You drive your big car
up to your big house.
I look through the window
after you’re inside
and see
your mink’s
been tossed
onto the chair —
damn, a mink coat?
Such an archaic tell —
don’t you
understand cruelty,
don’t you hear
the people’s disapproval,
or are you just too rich
to feel?

You and yours
are a problem to solve.
I and mine
won’t solve a thing
if we don’t choose
a little war from the tool kit.

I hate you, if possible,
even more
than I did before I spied
that coat.

I shall box you,
bury you in filth, then
bury your coat
in clean soil.

I’m going to feel alright
afterward.  A little right death
never costs that much

at first,

we’re just getting started,

and I’m sure that
unlike you,
we can stop anytime.

during a process
a mistake
a break in routine
a darkness falls again
into my life
a stone of pure gloom
I know well

as that rock strikes
it hurts to breathe
as always the air goes crisp
and sharp

I am no Stoic

if there’s something
to be learned
from the darkness
this time
I must plead
for it to be
soft learning this time
let it be
a gentle lesson
let there be
no pain
no pain
at all

As soon as I can
I’ll strike the tent,
douse the flames,
set out on the path.
With the moon’s slant light
through the trees
to walk by
and stream beds
to lead me down
from the hills,
I will not be lost
once on the way.

I will step out of the woods
to the edge of a place
I once left in rage.

What will come next?

I can’t help it —
I must find out.
When this is in me
I can’t help but move
the way moths
strike at a hot light;

this time
I may come
to the same end
as a moth,

but as I said,
it can’t be helped.

I want to go
to the top of that range
of mountains.

I want to look back
at my climb and be
satisfied, if not happy,
that I’ve gotten that far.

I want to look
along the crest
to the north and then the south,
to the mist at either extreme
where the peaks disappear
into distance.

I want to stare with longing
for a good while
at the other side
of the divide.

Above all I want the chance
to stand
upon the divide itself,

and to choose
whether to go
north, south,
back where I came from,
or into that far country
where I’ve never been.

did you fall before the strings
stopped humming?  Did you fall
to your lowdown dirty knees and
cry while you were down there?
Did you wrap your arms around it
and beg for more?

Did you call that a prayer?
Did you call it a single hymn
or a whole hymnal’s worth
of a crawl toward glory?
Did you stop to think that blues
was as much a song of Paradise
as any grand chorus?

Did you start to
imagine that heaven wasn’t on high
but rooted in the rich soil?  Did you ever
think that God is as deep
as Deep Ellum, carries us
like a freight train carries
secret travelers, can bend a note
like an ocean bends the shore,
and when the last note stops humming
you’re always going to fall on your knees,

for the blues isn’t really  a devil’s method —

if it was how could it wake up your soul
again and again
one twelve bar run at a time?

The gun
is official,
is the weapon of
choice among those

who limit choices.
The gun 
fires white teeth, 
set jaws, wide grins. 
The gun

kills you
with explanations,
shoots you full
of bites
and blows.  The gun

is not easy
to aim, often
backfires with song,
joke, retching.  The gun
is at its best

riding on a hip,
sneering, cresting
a war wave in civvies.
The gun

overshares.
The gun
is never yours.
Never yours.

They will give up
the gun to you
only when you pry
etc., etc.,  

in other words 
never and you will have 
to take it if you want
to stop the gun

We shall see what happens next.
We are already a little bit on fire.

We’re burning, but are we burning
more with pain or with joy?

We understand it’s hard to separate
one from the other much of the time.

It would be helpful to know
if we should be glad or terrified.

If the response is “what do you feel
more, fear or ecstasy,” we’re going 

to get angry. If we knew how we felt
about burning like this, we’d be gods —

and we are not gods; we can’t sort reality
well enough to define it.  If we could

we’d never have caught flame
in the first place, even if 

it would have meant ecstasy all the way
from singe to ash.  No one

really wants to burn, ever,
not even a god.  The preference

is for warmth in slight degree only:
burning is for the few

who were born to be fuel. So
we shall see what happens next

in this most unusual circumstance.
We were not meant to end this way,

not even if it is going to be
the most perfect ending possible.

If there was
anything to say
that would
“change the world,”
don’t you think
it would have been
said by now?

All the millions
writing, all the ink
and electricity
spent on this.
and really,
nothing to show.

Still, there are moments —
a mountain shifts
one inch to the left,
an earthquake swallows
the bad guy for once.
Can we take credit?

There is a reason
it’s called
“poetic justice.”
We take
a moment to imagine
we indeed had a
small part to play

and somehow,
unwittingly,
we played it.

Talking to you
is like whispering 
with a whirlwind

Can’t get a word in
against what’s pouring
out of you

I don’t blame you
for your hurricane life
You are what you are
for reasons beyond you

I’d go fight your parents
if I wanted to make it right
but
I’m not
putting up with it
either

so
blow away
blow away
try to stay alive
until you can
come again another day

when you
can be still

Many times 
I’ve said before
that I was leaving
and then did not
but somehow
a key has turned
a lock has released
a door has opened
and I am
tumbling through it
into the Next
and it is not as
ugly in there
as I was built
to believe
so what else
is untrue?

New human emotion:
the satisfaction
of deleting 
unwanted names
from a list of contacts.

It’s not done the same way
as it was formerly,
there’s no tearing 
of pages from
an old address book,
not the same as burning
the book
or the envelopes
bearing the addresses,
letters, sentiments,
and the very spit
of the people
set to vanish — 

no.  

It’s the thrill
at our magical potency
in the moment
of vaporization.
We say:

at last,
here the dream of 
the Nuclear Age 
is fulfilled,
one annoying soul
at a time.

I love the first blush
of a fever
that makes me appreciate 
how good I was feeling
till just now; 
makes me nostalgic 
for ten seconds ago.

Ten hours from now
I’ll be miserable, of course;
I’ll look back and it will seem
faintly ridiculous
that I laid glory
upon some germ for this, and

if by remote chance it kills me
this will be prophetic and tragic to some
and stupid and sad to most others,

but I’m going to sit here and enjoy
the little rush of warmth right now,
the throat scratch,
the vague buzz of my body
shutting down for repairs:

no matter how it feels,
it’s still a sign that things
are as they should be.