You can be truly free somewhere,
possibly. That is The Claim:
that there is a place where horizon
is an arm’s length away
no matter which direction you face.
There, your skin shall change to a stunning
reversible bronze. Your dog gets bigger and fluffier,
your yard greener and wider. Successive partners
will dance with you under electric town square stars
where no one shall ever gun you down. There is certainly
a prophecy that mentions you and yours, offering you
perpetual honor and generous means;
and while once there you shall gently age,
you shall never pass from that land
of easy grasp and casual arm’s reach.
Late Night Cable
Dinosaurs
This society’s been
huffing gasoline for so long
it can’t sense anything else
All those cells vaporized
It has killed its way
to this point and now
it has only itself left to kill
in the hope it will feel something then
Thrived on erasure
All those bodies left behind
that it can’t even see
The dead keep screaming for it to turn back
Maybe it hopes
that those corpses will compress and fuel
a future like their past
It imagines that it lives on dinosaur leavings
Of course it is wrong about that as well
but without full brains
the people it has sheltered will never understand
how all they have left is fire
Heresy
Some people say they just need
the paper. The scent of a book
in hand, the weight of it,
the slight bend of the page
just shy of creasing
between their fingers as it is turned;
to me it is as if they hold the vessel
more dear than the words within.
It is as if the vase matters more
than its flowers. As if the poems within
are less real if they can not be highlighted,
scribbled on, or torn out; as if the stories
only work if they can be burned
for warmth when society comes to
its eventual end, which will come
once its artifacts are worth more
than their contents.
Favorite Places
when I am asked about
my favorite places among all that I’ve visited
I answer
new mexico (all of it)
venice italy (all of it)
all the ghost castles I’ve ever seen anywhere
new york city’s left front pocket and
the far corner of all those rooms
with a couch upon which I’ve been stuck
for days on end half stoned and half
ready to drown myself in the memories
of all other places I’ve visited
and cannot believe I’ll ever see again
without having to pass the veil
Oh, No, Meatloaf Again?
We are the movie
(you know the movie)
which just doesn’t look the same now
(does it)
If we had seen it from the beginning
without the mystique
or the audience theatrics to guide us
to an opinion on it
the cringe coming up in the mouth now
at the offenses
might have surfaced earlier
and while some of us had fun for a long time
there were others who said
it wasn’t working for them
and we looked at them funny
at the very least
At least the music was good
and some of those on screen were hot
and we now know how
when certain people show up or speak
we are supposed to yell
ASSHOLE
but overall it’s mostly horror
at what we’ve been fed
Fragment From Remnant
It keeps getting harder.
Small things. Triggers.
Deeper holes, steeper sides.
Darker, darkest; pure and wholesome darkness.
Not a man. A flesh wound. A mere annoyance.
Remade
As if someone has put hands
on either side of my head
and lifted it one inch off my shoulders
turned it completely around
and let it fall back into
its accustomed place
Looking at the same world
with eyes forward again
but the notion of my mind and body
forever changed
so that nothing
is in its original frame
and how I interpret
what I see now is detached
from old context
This is how I fell into
this desperation about
my now obsolete name
I am not that
Do not call me that
Can you not see
I look the same
but am somehow
altogether again and so new
The Big Window
All is right
with the world
you can see through
the big window
Windows are made
for breaking through
on your way to
the world outside
which is where you want to be
and where they don’t want you to go
They can’t understand
the garbled fuss in your mouth
that comes from
your unarticulated longing
or why a fall from that big window
looks like that yearning fulfilled
You try to tell them
the little cuts you’d suffer
would be blood
worthwhile shed
and that sudden stop
at the bottom
a wake up call delivered from
four stories up
to anyone else trapped
behind the big window
You’re fine with that
but they are less so
You curse your body
that clings to the chair
that will not do
what you want it to do
its fear of what comes after
the breaking of the big window
holding you back as solidly as
any chain or pillory
All is right with the world outside
yet you can’t even break a corner
of the big window to feel it
They won’t even let you
open it just a crack
and feel the air out there
Legacy
If there was ever tenderness
I have forgotten it.
I do recall
how honest you were,
telling me not to go
the route you went,
and here I am now,
somewhere else entirely.
If there is a rationale
for your advice,
I have become its
embodiment. I indeed
ruined everything. Indeed
I am myself a ruin:
a mystery, an unexcavated
burial chamber waiting
to be bulldozed and regretted.
Hear them revving their engines
now. You are still here and will
be here after they pass — no one
guessed that would happen.
When they finish the road
over where I was, you will
take it to wherever it goes.
I’ll be in the blacktopped
earth, still underfoot.
I did not go the route you took.
I instead became that route
and look where it got me: if ever I had
tenderness to offer,
it remained unoffered. It remains so
today. Here in the sealed earth it all ends —
for the best perhaps, considering
what I was, what I might have been.
Never Have I Ever
I tell myself: to be read
and heard
by enough is enough.
To be read and heard
by those who wanted it
or did not know they wanted it,
those for whom it filled a need
or want,
those who then were moved
to tango their own darkness
out to sunny plazas and dance on
before all,
as well as those who instead
would then take heart at what they’d read
and at last be ready to flee
the false light they were raised in
into more comfortable shadow,
that is enough and will be enough.
Enough. Enough.
The word I keep staring into —
when will this be enough?
Will I ever be able to look back and say
that’s enough, let me stop right here
and rest and offer not another word?
Enough. Enough.
The word I keep staring into —
will this be enough
or have I already passed into bloat,
glutton with this work, so far beyond
what was needed or asked of me?
And when does the whispering stop
that it was never about them
and always about trying to convince myself
that all the things I claimed
for why and how I did this
were true and enough?
To be read and seen and heard.
To look anyone in the eye at the end.
To not need a mirror to look at myself.
To not know anymore who is looking back.
To only see the Work anytime my eyes are open.
Enough.
I Cannot Write Those Poems
I cannot write those beloved poems,
poems of nature and love, poems on how light
takes its time on surfaces
like a beloved’s hand in leisure
stroking with pleasure over a perfect
arm or shoulder,
although I have nothing
against such poems and read them
like food, nourishment for
long days and nights without that beauty,
without what some consider
the enduring truth of the world
that exists beyond us, beyond the works
of humans, as if we are not a part of that world
when we war and kill and mourn,
as if to visit beauty is to release oneself
from seeing oneself in the pain of human life,
to absolve oneself from facing it all —
I cannot write those poems as my hand
is tethered to something else — not better
but not that, a coin-side away from that,
poems people would rather set aside
than read, poems some consider too immediate
or too enraging or worst of all too ugly
to be thought of as poems — and yet
for someone they are as good as hard bread
that can be broken open to reveal
delight within and then after being consumed
will offer strength to get to the next sunset,
the next perfect sunset, the cocked angle
of song bird on branch preparing to sing
as if the world could be created just by that although
someone had to dig the dirt to plant that tree.
“To Speak” In French
Isn’t it nice to end up in a place
where the scent of your own disaster
is hidden by the local atmosphere?
Isn’t it justified and good to be breathing in
the same staleness for which you’ve always lived?
All you past loves hate you, all your past wars
were lost causes, all your big mistakes were
ongoing, and yet here you can be free to call them
romances, victories, and corrected. Perpetually now
you can be a boy with a gun and clear enemies;
perpetually you can now be wronged and small;
you are perpetually heroic now, in that dinged up
tinfoil armor. Breathe it in, suck it up.
If you start to choke it’s got to be the fault
of the world outside where shifting and changing
are sins of the weak.
Isn’t it nice to be able to call that out then breathe deep
and call this stench perfume?
How To Speak Of Death To Your Fellow Americans
To begin with, take off your funeral suit
but do not put it completely away
in the back of the spare room closet.
Do not forget how it looks on you
and how often you’ve had to wear it.
When you begin to speak, remember
that some folks have never been to
the number of funerals you’ve attended.
Some have never been to any
and will not understand a word you say
but talk anyway. Some don’t believe
people die as often or as unfairly
as you know they do
and you will not make them feel grief
easily or quickly. Talk anyway; you might need
visual aids. Some only see death
when it’s as close as the next room
so when you speak of death to them,
you will have to simulate the sound
of death knocking on the adjoining wall
to make them understand.
Some of them will smirk and speak
of Darwin and some will speak of Jesus.
All of these people will speak of what is right
and what is deserved; most will stare you down
and shout the word “justice.” Talk anyway, seeking
those among them who, even as they sneer,
will avert their eyes. Talk to them; ignore the rest.
Many of them will be the kind of people who say,
“If I die…” Show them your funeral suit; tell them
how often you’ve worn it; show them the shiny cuffs,
the worn tie tucked in the pocket after the church hall
reception; say the names of the dead and how often
they died saying, “if I die…tell them how
I was killed. If I die, make it mean something. If I die,
remember my name.”
Maybe you will say something to someone that will work
but don’t put away your funeral suit after that.
Don’t bury it deep. Don’t assume you’ll get to wear it again
only when they put you at last into the ground.
Looking For Hope
We always bet
the world on Hope
although it has always been
a sort of Icarus
with its reclaimed wings
and hot-glue foundation.
We lay ourselves at its feet
and stare up into its eyes with love
although we know from its past
that it is likely to leave us
and soar until it crashes.
We spend too many days after that
staring at the ocean imagining we see it
struggling still and calling to us for rescue
even though each of us points
at a different spot and say we were certain,
this time, that we have it right.
Somehow in spite of all the times
we have found Hope’s soggy feathers on the shore,
all the time we have gone out in boats
to where we sure Hope was still afloat
and found nothing, we go back to the sea
and stare at the horizon, pointing first here,
then there, then everywhere.
Now and then we get it right.
Dark Matter 