the ferret
pours through holes so small
water could only seep through
if it found them. when it’s time to sleep,

she sleeps. when it’s time to eat, she eats.
every detail delights her just long enough
to send a shiver up her tuby body,
and then it passes.

she’s the perfect stoner’s pet
with a thousand ideas and urges
in the course of a minute.
you could watch one not-thinking for hours.

too many nips on my toe and she gets caged.
she always eats and drinks then.
I wonder if it’s strategy
and not punishment at work…

nah, she loves being out too much.
lots of things to do.
places to see. worlds to discover
and rediscover.

an exacting enactment
of life in the moment.
I sit on the couch
for hours, just watching her.

An ancient poem, and one we’re recording for the new CD.  I mentioned it a couple ofposts ago. 

I thought when I found it that it was written after Columbine, but it’s in files on the laptop that go back to 1999 or so.  So it’s an old piece; not super old for me, since I still routinely perform a couple of poems I wrote in the 1980s, but old enough.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One aching
head, one steady eye;
one Glock, one sporting
rifle held in reserve, one combat stance —

two hands clenched, two
ears plugged to block the stun, two
hours before final dark, two faces
inside this boy facing off at last.

Three sirens, then more;
rising soundtrack for Three Fates dancing
around three bodies lying still
three stories below his stand.

Four times four makes sixteen
years that have passed
since his mother spent four times four hours in hard labor
bringing this young gunner out to see

this five fold world of land and sea and air
and daily rot and failing will.
He thinks: there are six sides to every story,
and six times six again if you add all of your own. He keeps calculating:

seven miles to the nearest hospital,
seven times seven rounds left;
eight doors from the lower floors out onto this roof;
eight bombs set to blow when the knobs are turned.

When the snipers finally find him
he lets the nine millimeter fall and
seizes hold of the long gun,
thrilled to be not yet dead, waiting for them to open the doors and die as they come for him,

twisting around
before the first door blows, casually aiming before smoke can obscure the target,
already knowing the end result: they will wait ten minutes
after their last shot is fired to be sure it’s safe to bring him down.

And then someone will tally the bodies and the reasons,
the number of hazardous songs that he knew,
all the things that someone should have noticed.
Someone will have the nerve to say it doesn’t add up.

He would say that it always adds up, but he would also remind us
that some learn to count by irrational numbers,
working their way through ragged sequences
until they’re sucked into a Fibonacci swirl that is already starting again somewhere,

the wheels turning click after click after click,
until it’s time to blow again,
until the sound of those counters
again finds its voice in another boy’s head: one, two, three …

I have this crazy dream
that haunts me from time to time
over a cup of tea in the late evening

when I’m watching the tube
or reading the news
I start to fear

that I’m gonna go
Unabomber
one of these days

Who needs the inconvenience
of a particular cause
when there’s so much to choose from

I’ll carve some intricate parts
Load up a box with tiny nails
Blow it up and laugh at the reporters

Maybe there will be deaths
Surely there will be maimings and investigations
and profiles that pin me down like a snake to water

I’ll only write my manifesto
after I’ve already begun
to make my mark

and when they finally take me down
I’ll go quietly with a leaden stare
into whatever hole they’ve got in store

for I’m committed to the plan
from conception through closure
doing my best to be an object lesson

on what happens when someone takes action
that doesn’t fit the mold of what’s expected
Everyone will stop

They’ll mostly deplore me
Some will adore me
And some will think me mad

But if it happens I should be forgiven
for my model behavior
These late nights have taught me

that someone will make themselves a scapegoat
at least once in any generation
that won’t acknowledge the extent of its sins

until the goat bearing them away explodes in the wilderness
It takes a pile of blood to make it happen
I’m afraid that one day if I offer my stinking back for the load

in my eyes you’ll see
just before you lock me away
the one truth that drove me to this

that a bad dream can happen to anyone
and in fact is happening to everyone
everywhere at once

There are people who think
we should all write more,
one poem a day,
one thousand poems a day,
five hundred fifty five thousand poems a day,
one for every thought
that slips along our nerves,
excepting only the poems about poetry;
the belly full of meaning
poetry offers
should be exorcised;
the places it lives should be cut out of us;
we should never write of it or speak of it.

Well, today
I’m ill informed and half asleep.
I haven’t watched the news for a week.
I’m alone for the night
with no one but the cat curled next to me
on the fleece blanket
while a documentary on Crohn’s Disease
plays unwatched in the next room.

I could get up,
or I could stay here until spring.

All I have tonight
is the poetry of poetry itself,
a right whale inside me,
dangerous, endangered, rising island
within my body reminding me of marvels
that could slip away and never return.

There may be something else to write about someday
and the poem I write then may be fibrous, luminous, may hold together
on its own and pass from me without pain,

but until then, I’ll write one poem about poetry,
write it over and over again,
one poem for the blessing of knowing
that poetry
still exists in me,
even if it’s hanging by a thread.

Even if it hurts.