They were the People. 
The People Who Defined. 
Who took to heart the dictum
that good fences make good neighbors.
Who wanted to be seen as Good Neighbors
and had to reconcile that
with the need to own completely
both what was inside
and what was outside
The Fences. 

So they were The People,
and the others were The Others.  Easy at first
when all that was required was to say
this is a House and that is Not, this
is Our Side Of The Fence and that is Yours
(also defined as Theirs For Now). 

That’s a Rabbit
than can jump freely over, and a Fox
that can follow.  That’s a Stream
which cuts through.  (They call it a Creek
over the Fence.)  That Stone
is the defining Stone.  Any other stone
is measured against that Stone, is found
Wanting.  Easy, easy,
easy…Adam’s Joy,
they called it.

The People ran into trouble
when it came to the abstract: what is Freedom, for instance,
when there’s that Fence plainly creating an exception
to however Freedom would come to be defined?
Take this Poetry, they said,
or this Painting, or this Rhetoric;
this Music.  How to define those things
when there’s another definition over the Fence
and we need to include both if we are to own it all?

Perhaps, said the Wisest Of The People,
we could define by negation to begin? 
So the Others have no Poetry, no Art,
and we can say that what we have Is,
and theirs is Not That, and What We Have is
Not Theirs?

But what if we want That Which They Have,
said some of the People.  And what if we consider
that they may have their own definitions?  Perhaps
Adam’s Joy is cumulative and not exclusive.
Perhaps we may find more Joy over the Fence.

Then we shall redefine enough to hold them
in our Paddocks and Pastures, said the Wisest.
We shall move the Fence, and call their definitions
into question for being Lesser, or Stolen.
Or perhaps,

you are not of the People?
Perhaps we missed something when we fenced you in
with us? 

Whatever, said a painter
and a sculptor and a poet.  Whatever,
said the Free. 
We just do.  We
are the source of definition,
and the Fence is nothing to those
who have no idea of neighborhoods.
Who look over the top
and never look down.

There you are,
resplendent
and undeniably
on the slab, perhaps
prematurely but
still certain of
the oncoming
outpouring of grief
and accolades —
how much did you have to spend
to get this deep into the luxury
of wallowing in your own mortality?

If the ring on your finger
falls off when you decay,
can I have it?  Is it
a poison ring
with a compartment
full of rationale? Or
instead is it a charm,
scarab as saturated
with your obsession
as any Egyptian artifact?
Seems a shame
not to perpetuate
your masterpiece of suffering,
not to allow someone else
the chance to extend
the metaphor
for a few years yet;

let me try it on at least;
let me see what I can do
with what you’ve started.

In pursuit of
an indescribable
quality, hipsters
search for vintage

as if past
holds spice
not easily found
in present.

Without pretending
to be ancient, still
obsessed with
their own youth,

they adorn firm wrists
with patina-dull watches
they will overwind
and deck taut throats

with cameos
as if those permanent
faces could mask
how their own

will soon droop
and vanish
into that same past
they revere

you call yourself a poet
which means you arrange words
into patterns for fun or
profit as do the professional
crossword puzzlers among us.  if you
call yourself a performance poet
it means that more people
than just you and your mom
like the sound of your voice when
you describe the patterns you have been arranging
for fun or profit which makes you much the same
as a crossword puzzler who goes on the radio
to speak of crosswords.  if you call yourself
a page poet you do crossword puzzles
in the privacy of your own home.  if you call
yourself a political poet you look for clues
in crossword puzzles and tell everyone
what you’ve found.  if you call yourself
a love poet you get a tingle down under
whenever you figure out 16 across.  if you
call yourself a slam poet you get a tingle
down under at the prospect of arithmetic
which makes you a sudoku puzzler.  if you
don’t call yourself a poet at all and prefer to say
just that you write poems now and then you might be
a person who when bored or thoughtful
picks up a discarded puzzle on the train
and fills in the empty blanks left by the last puzzler
while staring out the window wondering
what’s a six letter word for fish eagle
when the second letter is S and the last is Y.
you don’t figure out it is OSPREY until you’ve left
the train and the puzzle behind and you spend
the rest of the day with a photorealistic image
of an osprey in your head all though every meeting
and dull lunch break.  
see that? 
now you are just another
person obsessed with a word and its meaning
and how it might carry you through tough times
and how it fits into a pattern
and while that sounds like it might make you
at last
a poet worthy of the claim
really you will still be a casual gamer
unless and until you become
the osprey
and forgo the debate in favor of
the hunt.

Red comes first, heat
among the rods and cones.
Then black, to hide
the humanity of the Other.
Yellow’s the final hue,
the cry of the flash as it
comes home.  We’ve got
red stripes, black ops,
yellow ribbons —
why does it feel like
we’re out of order?

Blue, blue water,
drenching fire; white, the
blank peace after.  Much
of the flag remaining
unused.  What do we see
when it waves?  We’re
the big bull.  Movement
and charge. 

I sit with my hand on my eyes.
Press hard on the sockets, bring up
red, call up black;
no yellow, no blue, no white.
Not now.  Only
the blind palette of hatred.
Only the colors of not feeling
the result.  It’s
exactly enough, like
a damned orgasm.