A Jimson weed
in revolt against its bad reputation
refused to give me
visions.  A mushroom
turned its pouty ball head away
and would not allow me
access to the Outer World.
Even my marijuana tossed
her crumbly curls and denied me
her comfort.

So I played the guitar
and remembered how to feel the strings
under my fingers.  It was so hard at first
to see the music, but if I squinted
it was still there, laid out before me,
a faint carpet runner down a long hall
which led Outside
and there were dragons there still,
still there were drums in the unknown hills above the fields,
I could still smell still the warm funk of the tunnels
as I dug for them in the courtyard outside.

I have no time now to reminisce
about the old ways, how theatrical
the shamanic journey
used to be.
It’s just work now, still a spirit chase
but I run it under my own power.
I follow the dragon where it flies,
capture its fire as it burns,
carry it home in my bare hands
and cool it in the plain air
unassisted — and when I’m done,
I can remember everything.

Candy, the woman
who walks the gigantic pitbull
down Mitchell Street twice a day,
stopped to speak to Ruben
last night
and the pitbull
(whose name remains a mystery to me)
sniffed at Ruben’s leg
then gently tore the pants open
at the seam.

Ruben yelled as if he’d been
ripped himself
and Candy pulled the dog back
so hard it reared like a horse.
It looked confused as Ruben
delivered a potent cockfight kick
to its ribs. 

That yelp
sounded like just another day
in progress, Ruben’s high voice
imploring something untranslatable
to the sky merely adding a flavor to the mix.

I wish I knew these people well enough
to name the dog and know what Ruben said,

but I’m not close enough to the ground here
to understand my people’s pain, how awful
and familiar such incidents are.  Instead I cower
inside when Candy walks the pitbull by
and will not speak to Ruben though I’ve heard his voice
in such an intimate way.  I avert my eyes, in fact,
when I go by his house;
though there was no permanent damage
to him, I’ve learned a little something
about fear, about lashing out,
about the risks of simply living and speaking here.

The principal product of my hometown
is people who want to be elsewhere.
The principal product of where I live now
is chips to be worn on shoulders.

I took a job as a packaging designer
for these products of town and city.
I’d wrap them up in shroud cloth
and wait for ideas.

I’d gather my bitter friends
and we’d brainstorm.  We’d use
the same buzzwords you always hear —
let’s throw stuff on the wall to see what sticks,

or let’s run this up the flagpole and see who salutes.
We’d bore ourselves silly.  We’d smoke cigarettes outside
in rainstorms and then come in to sit glumly
over our half-finished cups of coffee.

We were really stuck for concepts.  How can we sell
ennui and hostility, we’d ask?  Everyone’s already got all
they need of both.  And we’d try again and again, to no avail.
Soon we lost the account.  We retired to a bar

and tried to figure out what went wrong. 
We certainly knew the market.
We certainly knew the product.   Maybe
a change of scene would help?

Jesus,
it is said,
will kill thousands
in the last battle
with a sword that issues
from his mouth.
This is why I’m not
a Christian anymore:
I’ve heard this sort of thing
my whole life
from the dry-honed lips
of my peers and this Jesus
sound too much like a poet
to be trusted. 
If there’s an Armageddon
some day
I suspect words will be
secondary
at the least,
superfluous
at the most, and God
will find a way to do the work
without intercession
from one of these
metaphor-slinging
cats with a vision of
how dangerous
his words are. 

Hey —
are you
vessel
or conduit?
Do you contain
or channel?

Are you
content or process?
Are you intention
or execution?

Don’t even try to push me —
don’t care if you’re black or white —

are you, instead,
colonizer or colonized?
Oppression or resistance?

If you answer,
I could be any
and am all,

we can speak further;

but if you choose,
you choose
alone.

feather
head, floating

a little this way,
a little that;

one current lifts,
another drives down;

no matter how I prop it up
with breath it will drop

at some point to the floor
where it will stir a little

now and then
but mostly will lie still

having found its lowest level.
at last, I don’t care.

the drift was movement
and what I needed to do.

that feather, my head
on the floor full of dust,

that’s my truth and my real face.
hollow, almost weightless,

a discard.  you can’t look at it
and tell where it’s been.  you know

it was made for flight and it’s not
flying now.  that’s all you and I know.

don’t say
you cannot believe
you’re in love again.

say instead you are pleased
that the cup on the shelf
is battered metal
but still holds water,
or wine, or paper clips,
that it remains fillable.

don’t say you’re afraid,

say instead that the cat
is unaccustomed to sleeping
on the back of the couch
and is striving to seem at ease
but looks like he knows he may fall.

don’t say
you are sure of failure.

say instead that when the nut falls
from its branch,
two scars always remain: one on the tree,
one on the nut.  say instead
that breakage precedes growth.

the world offers you
agreement upon agreement.
take what help is offered,
no matter whence it comes.