Dark Matter

Predation is 
a lovely thing.

Efficient and
sweet on the tongue.

If a predator
becomes prey, 

no matter as the meat 
is no less sweet.

You aren’t used to it,
at all — this sense 

of being stalked.
This sense of 

teeth behind you
glistening. 

Welcome to 
how it is

for most. As it has been
for those who’ve long lived

ahead of you and
your teeth.  You never

thought of yourself
as a predator and

thinking like prey
doesn’t come any easier —

those have never been
your terms. Welcome, then,

to the new dictionary
of how you are going to have

to survive. Learn 
predator, prey, consumer,

consumption, product, 
commodity. Learn

escape, camouflage, 
resistance, flight,

fight, fight or flight.
Learn or die. Remember

that you started this
and were oblivious

to how it worked
for a long time. Try to forget

how sweet it tasted.
Try to taste, instead, the fear

in the meat you used to savor.
Taste it on your own lips.

“I’m beginning to lose faith 
in this nation,” they said. 

I am struck by the word
“beginning.”  Tells me much

about how comfortable it has been
for some to keep the faith.

Conjures up a couch made of 
faith, upholstered in red, white, and blue.

As for me: I’ve long had no solid faith
in the nation.  It’s a nation,

after all. It does what they all do
and it’s never been more than half

on my side to begin with. 
I was never comfortable on that couch.

Always felt it was garish and scratchy.
It’s not large enough

for everyone who wants on, either:
too easy to lose your seat 

if you get off for even a second, 
and sitting on that couch, holding your place,

sinking in, it’s been easy for some
to fall asleep. Some folks never get off,

even if there’s a fire. Maybe beginning
to lose faith isn’t so bad

if it gets them off the couch. Maybe
they could come outside for a bit.  

It’s cold right now but from here,
after all, you get the view.

Do you think
it’s really OK to sing
the old songs
of revolution

Won’t we just get
discouraged
that they still 
ring true 

Maybe
it would be better
to write and sing
new songs

although
the old ones
still do the job
pretty well

Maybe it is better
that we learn again
what we thought
we’d gotten past

Remind ourselves 
the Enemy
never really died
It just rolled over

Lay there
playing dead
right next to us
in our own beds

Maybe we mix it up
New songs and old ones
Remake a few
for how we sing today

Maybe we rise up
from this poisoned bed
singing whatever we’ve got
As long as we rise

we got this
As long as we sing our way
down Freedom Highway
we got this

in movies
they show people
in submerged cars

taking last desperate breaths
from a pocket of air
trapped within

red car blue car
they crash
people drown

would it matter to you
whether your death car
was red or blue

if whoever drove it
off that road
not only escaped

but jumped and left you behind?
if this were a movie
I could see why

you might care —
visual impact, style — 
I could see that

if this were a movie

1.
Dreamed I stole 
an exquisitely tattooed horse —
a dappled palomino inked
to resemble Belleek china — 
saddled it and rode it expertly
from the city of Worcester north
to the city of Fitchburg
and arrived at a coffeehouse
which was somehow
attached to a stable
empty but for old straw and
an ancient radio tuned
to play only the songs
it played when it was new,
to which the horse and I 
performed dressage and
poetry for no one as
the coffee house had closed
hours before, leaving me
to realize at the end
that I had miles to ride
down unlit roads
and had forgotten
all the expertise I had used
to dream my way there.

2.
Dreamed I carried 
a lucky coin stamped
with a face I could not name;
although a name floated
upon my tongue
whenever I rubbed the coin
between my fingers
in my pocket, I knew
that either it was
the wrong name,
or it was
the right name and 
once I pronounced it,
the face on the coin
would change.

3.
Dreamed of standing
by an unlit roadside — 
the road south,
the road home.
No horse to ride,
no knowledge
of how to ride.
No jukebox
in which to plug
my lucky coin for
a proper song to make it
better.

4.
Awake.

First step home,
taken in silence.

Second step home,
an unaccompanied dance.

Third step?

Currently, all I have
is a dream of riding
a decorated horse
as far as it is willing to go.

the locations 
of certain political signs

on homes and businesses
to avoid

the placement 
of ads on certain sites

so that I will not 
patronize those places

the garages of pickup trucks
with giant American flags and

or giant 
Confederate flags

so that I may hide
from them

the stores that sell
certain products

I will not purchase
now or ever

the comments of people
I thought I knew

so that I may
un-know them

Filing

all of this
for now and the future

What I do with the information now
will be predicated upon the now and

what will happen in the future
will happen