out in the streets —
massed like bristles
in a new broom
an urgent cleansing
in progress —
shaking off dust
chanting —
sound of layers of filth
beginning to shift
what was built from dirt
cannot stand —
new broom wrecking all
Broom
Families
1.
Inside a classically
tinfoil-windowed apartment
Armand sits and broods
over tangled news,
teasing out threads that lead
to other threads, pointing out
omens that predict
future omens.
Armand, his family says,
has always had the gift and the curse.
Which is which from day to day
they never know.
There’s not much distance
between the two.
2.
He’s two animals away
from having a full zoo,
is what the family
has always said about Erik
who can’t seem
to hold onto himself
for very long, thus
establishing a pattern
of strange footprints
left behind in an odd
and broken path. It’s not
even clear that
Erik has always been alone
on the journey if you
examine the tracks closely,
which the family thinks
is not at all
a good idea.
3.
If only there were
clear reasons for Daryl’s
monosyllabic insistence
upon standing so close
to the table
at Sunday dinner
that it becomes hard
to set and serve. Almost as if
he thinks the family
eats too much or
that he must block
their formality or
that Sunday dinner itself
could still be as deadly
as it was when he was
a youth.
4.
At eight AM
a baby skunk runs by
my front windows
with a yogurt cup on its head.
I try to catch it and yank it free
but my fear keeps me
from investing too much
in that effort to care;
I think maybe it will bite or
I will end up stinking
and blinded. It runs around
like madness itself trying
to get free
of what has happened
through no fault of its own
as it attempted to find
sweetness, sustenance;
as it attempted to live.
From The Bottom Of A Slot Canyon
I feel like I owe the world some explanation
for the breakdown where I live.
In truth I owe it nothing more
than to live as if I was whole
while not forgetting I am not,
but the feeling remains.
When I tell my story in public
I don’t mention feathers or powwows
or drums. I don’t speak of my old regalia
still hanging stiff with age
in my parents’ basement,
or of my memories of a late night fire
that was never left unattended.
These things are not for you to know;
they are all I have
and living here and now
has left me unsure of holding even those
long enough to take them to my grave.
When I tell my story in public
I do not speak Italian either.
Raised with that tongue till school
erased it. Much as my father lost his
when they took him away to school.
That is all there is to say to you
about Italian and my tongue;
there are more things to say
but they are not for you to know;
living here and now has left me unsure
of holding even those
long enough to take them when I go.
I feel as if an explanation is owed to someone
for the breakdown where I live
though I know there’s nothing owed to
anyone, really, on this side and possibly the next;
the feeling is strong nonetheless
and it drives me to speak in riddles such as this one
so let me say this:
when I tell my story in public
I am forced to shout it from the bottom
of a slot canyon. It does not carry well
to the top of the opposing walls.
I hold back more than I release
to keep from bringing the half-informed
to where I am, knowing how seldom
they arrive ready to listen.
In spite of the isolation here,
I believe I’ve done right by myself.
I feel I’ve done right by myself,
as right as I can,
but I still feel like an explanation
is owed to someone.
Play By Play
Tune in twenty-four
seven for the melody
of the moment. Explosions
and big deaths,
laws broken and hard weather
all get sung the same.
The newsreaders sing
the cadence of sport, sing
like play by play reporters.
They throw it to the sidelines
where generically handsome people
add touches of color to
their black and white
depictions of struggle
made simple and easy to
swallow. Every
story reduced
to winning and losing,
even if all there is
is loss. There is rarely
any story where
all are winning. That’s
not American enough.
Can’t be number one
without there being
a number two. They sing
that song in spite of
the fire behind them:
lullaby, fight song
for the last quarter.
Enough to make you turn it off
and go wail in a corner
waiting for silence to take over
and make you forget.
Make you want to stop caring
for any of it. Almost
as if
that was the plan from
the starting gun.
This Sudden Rest
This sudden rest is
unexpected:
so used to being agitated
and unable to relax that
the collapse, when it came,
was almost as welcome as it was
frightening. After all the wailing
from the floor, all the rolling
back and forth in anguish,
I’ve ended up feeling almost
as if I have been reprieved from
the weight of living, though
my body’s a bruise journal
from the hard surfaces
where I’ve flung myself
so many times. The pains,
reminders
of what has ended;
my scrapbook
of what I’ve survived.
I wouldn’t give them up
if I could. I have tried.
RV Nation
Going
as a lifestyle
has its perks.
One needn’t
be transfixed
on “home” if
you carry it
everywhere.
One needn’t
fret about
the changing
neighborhood
or how the
property has
depreciated
since, you know,
all these people
moved in. And
one needn’t worry
about all those
stationary problems —
sinks backing up
and the like. One
may just go and
buy something
house-like on wheels
and go, go, go.
It’s historically
healthy too to
regain the pioneer
spirit — open road,
living off the land,
campgrounds, blue
skies, see this big
country at last before
it’s overrun with
the Others. Maybe
one could outrun
it all. Maybe one
could even
cross a border
the right way and
keep going. No place,
after all, like home,
home with a range,
a pump out bathroom,
a pull out bed,
and all the gas
one can guzzle.
Keep going until
the end and then
be burned and scattered
wherever the end is:
keep going a little while longer
on the wind,
end up soaking into
the soil somewhere,
the green grass
of home or something
like that recalled from
the past before
the call of the karmic wheel.
Red Onions
The red onions are trying to kill us all
with germ tricks they learned from the lettuce
the chicken and beef
and poisonous canned shrooms
The next door neighbors are in on it too
They’re nasty people
Everything is trying to kill us
I ate a whole pizza by myself last night
The pizza made me do it
It is trying to kill me
It’s scary out there
and in here too
I took my blood glucose reading this AM
and it wasn’t as high as you’d expect
after a whole pizza
and a night of sloth
It’s killing me slow
the bastard disease
of my bastard pancreas
Not like the neighbors who want me
gone quick
those diseased bastards
I wear the mask of the moment
but it’s more so the killers don’t recognize me
in some unexpected moment when I am alone
than in the belief that it will save me from anything
in this place where everything is trying to kill us
even the red onions and the bad fats in the good food
and the sugar and the Nazis and my own head-sauce
full of bad things and all the flags that mean anger
is going to win today instead of any single moment of joy
I never trusted the chicken I admit
My neighbors keep chickens
so I’ve seen them in action
The eggs are suspect as well
but it is the betrayal of the red onions I feel most
How I once loved their transparent skin
and the full bite of the first bite in my mouth
I loved that more than I have ever loved my neighbors
I expected the worst from them but not you
my produce my food my sustenance my flavor
I will hunker down with Oreos and pure white sugar
I will maintain my diligence
Keep a watch on my neighbors with new glasses
At night I will eat white onions in spite
Rip off my mask and breathe on their doorknobs
Smear red onions on their car seats when they are asleep
I will die before I let them not die as I am dying
Betrayed by the food and the air
and the eyes peering through the near-closed blinds
of all the neighbors watching to see who will fall
You can hear a recording of this piece with music here: https://soundcloud.com/radioactiveart/red-onions
Words And Guitar
I wrote my first poem
when I was almost too young
and marked by that
went on to write only poems
for an entire lifetime;
that was music to me.
It was always music I sought
in words, how they butted up
to song, slope of one line into
another, beat of syllables
against my teeth and tongue.
When deep in later life
I touched my first guitar
I thought of all those poems
and as my fingers built chords
I recognized what was happening;
it was the same.
All of that is vanishing now.
The need to play is slipping
from me. I sit and think
of my dusty guitar
on the far wall. I sit
and think about the dust
on the seams of this poem.
There’s fantastic music,
clouds of it in fact,
still playing clearly
outside somewhere;
none of it
is meant
for me to play.
On Rare Days
On rare days
I can still pretend
(as I always have)
that I am desirable
in the crass and crude sense
used in daily parlance,
although when I am more sensible
I recognize both
the falsehood
and the idiocy
of such pretense.
I understand
that such considerations
should be beneath me
and that my self-worth
ought to be far less concerned
with conformity,
status quo, or conventional
beauty; desirability
can ride any horse,
after all;
nonetheless, now and then
I try to pretend
that from the corner of my eye
I see a head
snap back toward me
walking by; that I can hear
a swift horse being reined in
and turned around;
that attention is being paid,
and it fills my pockets
with good warm gold.
By Default
I wear the name
“American”
by default only.
It’s not a name
that feels like
a good fit, but in truth
that ill-fit feeling
is as American
an experience
as feeling snug and comfy
when you put the name on.
In fact
the entirety
of American experience
is the history of
the party of the Snug and Comfy
telling the party of
the Ill-Fitting Name
that one name
fits everyone when in truth
the party of the first part
is only snug and comfy
because the party of the second part
has been made uncomfortable,
and of the discomforted
striving to make the name
fit them as well
when in truth
it wasn’t made
to do that.
I call myself
American
by default
but I keep trying
for a better fit and
I see all my fellow
uncomfortable
Americans pushing
the seams and taking in
the loose fabric
because it’s either do this,
keep living lives of noisy
desperation, or
die of exposure — but
since that’s what
the snug and comfy live for,
I swear by the bodies
of all who went before and
will come after, as well as
those here now,
that whatever it takes
to make it so,
they cannot win and this suit
is going to fit.
Your Past Is Looking Up
Underfoot,
past stories
still being ground into dirt
to grow
a new narrative.
Today’s news
sounds like old news
but reads faster, looser,
chaotic, derailed.
We still call it new.
We have
a luxury
of hindsight
we don’t engage
until it suits us,
choosing our speed of
recognition.
As for learning
from history?
Forget it, we’re told.
Everything new
is new
and what is old
is cherry picked
to keep us rushing forward.
Be afraid of that, say
those pushing us to run.
It might catch you
if you look at it.
You could turn into a pillar
of worse than salt — now, there’s
a piece of legend worth
picking up. Never look back.
Never give up. Never stop,
or risk turning into dust.
At night, though, stars.
A curtain
of ancient light
flung sky-wide.
All you see there is past.
Some of those stars
are gone
and we
will never know it.
They remind us
of how much we owe
to our past. It’s all you can see
of heaven. It’s all heaven
can see of any of us.
It’s in this dust underfoot.
I Feel Petty (O So Petty)
Had I been
more attractive
in a conventional sense
I would have meant
so much more to me,
I’m sure.
But as I was not
I had to fall back upon
my broken brain
and its sad companions
my torn-up heart and soul.
I did what I could
with these and somehow
was lovable enough to some
but if I could have been
more lovable to me?
Who knows
what might have happened?
This is less complaint
than a field note,
something to leave for
a researcher to ponder.
But it would have
been something
if I’d felt
that I’d turned a head
just casually, if I’d felt
a glance burn in
a touch longer than usual —
petty longings,
trivial regrets,
a notion I’ll shake off
the second I’m gone.
School Days
They are praying
to the god of gambles,
offering children in tribute.
Never had any of my own,
but still not willing to risk
losing anyone else’s. Tell me:
to what stronger god
may I pray to try
and get them a better deal?
Give me their name,
the place of their shrine,
the preferred sacrifice,
and I will make a pilgrimage
and an offering of my own
on behalf of yours
and mine —
the ones
I never had,
the ones I know
I would have died for if
I had.
Maybe that is why
I am here — to strive
on behalf
of the normalized
path I was not
healthy enough
to take. To offer
a hope I never had
to others
more equipped for it.
To be at last of some use
in a nearly useless life:
to take
the divine gamble,
offer myself to the odds.
A Nation Fulfills Its Promise
it looks into
the eyes of its beloved
demigoddess
and explains itself thus
look
my darling liberty
we have
repaired our
repulsive pancakes
and disturbing butter
we are busy renaming
our war gamers
isn’t that enough
at least for a good start
I mean
we still have to preserve
our borders
while opening our factories
and how will we live without
circuses to go
with our sad breads
our white breads and
flatbreads
our wheat breads and
trend-sponsored
sourdoughs
right now we’re a little
under the weather
so we’ve told everyone
to wear a mask
to protect everyone except
those we are used
to killing and who
cares about them so
mandatory takes on
a new meaning
for us
as in suggested
as in contemptible
but why not try it
anything more than that
will cost us plenty and make us
different
so
with all
deliberate speed we will
dig into our thick authentic
red label
blue jean pockets
for small change
and spend it
on small change
liberty
you sweet old girl
take off your blindfold
and see me
I’m making an effort
put down the scales
and hold me
I’m cold
if you read the papers
they will tell you something else
but if you know the history
you will know we’re still
your darling
your favorite
your same old used to be
Sneer Boy
Three words —
BLACK LIVES MATTER —
printed on a banner,
painted on a street,
and you saw fit
to tear it up, light it up,
spill paint on it,
burn rubber on it.
I want to seize you,
drag the sneer off your face,
and ask you to explain
which of those three words
hurt you the most,
tore you up so much
that you had to do
what you did.
I suspect you
will be puzzled
and unable to answer
whether it was the word
BLACK because it isn’t
about you, LIVES
because, after all,
it’s not like your own
feels much like a life,
or MATTER because,
of course, in your eyes
they don’t. Maybe you
can’t tell me which one word
but you can say
you are insulted or
disturbed to think of
someone daring to say
the phrase as if it was
a truth held to be self-
evident when it
isn’t and wasn’t ever
supposed to be and now
that it’s out there you might
have to behave. Whatever.
The point is,
they do — and now
that I have you here,
sneer boy, cocky lump
of plain dumb,
big old red hatted
cracked rung on the
evolutionary ladder —
now that I have you,
I’m going to turn you out
onto the places where you thought
you were safe from having
to consider your actions
and see how you fare
walking down the street,
wondering who hates you,
who might want more of you
than I took from you, who might turn
the other cheek if you act up
again, and who might not.
Welcome to a cracked door,
buddy. Welcome to a door
slowly opening, welcome to learning
about all that’s been locked away
so that you could
sneer in comfort.
Welcome to the place
of your definitions,
where all the words
you can’t stand to hear
will either change you
or drown you out.
Dark Matter 