I’m telling myself
I’m not here
but I am
here in front of
a duplex bearing
on one side
a rainbow flag bearing
a peace sign and
the redundant word
PEACE and
on the other side
that Nazi-sanctioned
thin blue line version
of the American flag
and in this town I’m certain
someone thinks
it’s a beautiful thing
that they can coexist
but all I can think of
is crematoria and
my god this is
the town where
I grew up and
how the hell
did it happen and
how the hell
did I not end up
here and
how the hell
is hell not here
New Village
Remembering The Palm Gardens, 1981
from 2008, revised.
What Ed at the door said was true: they were all tired, all the time.
Tired from pushing themselves through double shifts
on behalf of houses, children, better lives —
whatever they had to have.
Half the dancers were former high schoolmates
so there wasn’t much mystery about why they were there.
Half the reason we came was to pay to see
what we’d once tried our best to see for free.
“Brandy” used to dance
to the most radical rock songs she could find.
I saw her dance to the MC5 once. She made me believe
the revolution will be a miracle of taut thighs and dissociation.
You push a commodified body
against the pulse of commodified rebellion long enough,
something begins to happen.
The ones who watch them don’t usually see it,
but I never met a stripper who didn’t understand
the balance of power in any give and take relationship.
What it took to gain power, what was inherent,
what could be assumed, what was the coin of the realm;
all was there in the tall shoes and the soft tummies
of the dancers who didn’t speak
until you’d set them up with a drink or a couple of dollar bills,
who then told you everything in high brisk voices laughing now and then
at some drunk who’d gotten crude with them earlier in the night.
I’d sit there secure in the knowledge that they’d never say that about me.
After all, I only went there for the education and the irony
and I told everyone that, even when I couldn’t stop staring
at Sharon from my math class who whipped my ass in every test,
at “Brandy” and her hip-pulsing anger, at Ed
whose scars and meathook hands welcomed everyone
to the Gardens, even at myself in the mirror behind the dirty bar.
Sociology
From 2008. Originally published in “Flood,” a chapbook from Pudding House Press. Now out of print.
All people can be divided into two groups:
those who divide people into two groups,
and those who do not.
We call the people who divide people into two groups
“them,” and we call those who do not
“us.” Sometimes, we call “them” “the Others.”
Let us say everything we know about the Others:
they are grown fat with their unjust ways. They
hate us. They are the source of the Smell — ha,
they are overripe with it. If you were to crack open
the “O” at the beginning of the word “Others,” it would be
as though a durian had been split in a closet and left to rot.
In fact, the Others
are the splitters of all fruit,
the drainers of all carcasses.
We, of course, are the stitchers of that which is split.
All people, then, may be split into two groups: the splitters of things, and those
who guard that which can be split. We are the Guardians,
and we call the Splitters “the Others,” “Them,” “Those People.”
They are known for cunning, conspiracies, their inability to follow
laws. If you straighten out the “S” at the beginning
of the word “Splitters,” you see that it is a snake’s spine;
they have been holding the serpent close to their breasts
since the beginning. Venom is their milk; we
are their silent milkmaids, the ones who carry
the venom to their tables.
It sloshes onto us and we are burned
daily. All people, in fact,
may be divided into two groups:
those who are burned, and those who do the burning;
or perhaps it is those who are poisoned
and those who live on poison,
or those who worship division
and those who pray for shielding and healing;
it’s as lamentable as it is observable
that this is how it is: lines drawn between us and them,
them and us, the People and the Others.
In the end, of course, we know that all people
can indeed ultimately be divided into two groups.
and the division falls as follows:
all people can be divided into two groups —
those who divide people into two groups, and the dead.
Happening At 4 PM
Around 4 PM a newish Civic
made a magnificent left-hand turn
across oncoming traffic.
The cursing that followed it
was a stunned music for bystanders
but the driver who sparked the song
rolled on through
without taking notice
of what they had created.
Hours later, everyone
who saw it happen is still
feeling some kind of way about it.
Life for them
is so different right now
from what it was.
They all went home
filled with the spirit and story
of the happening.
That they were fairly numb
prior to the squealing
of wheels and horns
and the profanity
has been forgotten.
Opinions abounding,
hard words flying:
they were so alive then,
Death’s nearby presence
not withstanding. This left
their bodies giddy within.
It made the whole dull day
shine. You’ve got to do something
with this, Death told them. You’ve got
to make something else happen.
The Snail
Snail on
the porch rail.
A friend says,
look, a snail.
I say, no,
that’s just
a snail’s house.
The snail’s inside.
They say, but
it’s an extension
of the snail, grown
from its body. That’s
how this works. You
can’t separate the snail
from its house. The snail
without its shell
isn’t a slug, it’s
a dead snail.
Down the street,
a snake flag on
a house. DON’T
TREAD ON ME,
undulating like
the swirl of a shell.
I stare at it often,
but after this I’ll be
imagining the house
is not a house at all
but is indeed the
odd woman
who lives in there,
who will not wave
when I drive by,
who is her flag and
is waiting
to strike.
Time (Ticking In My Head)
The time is now
8:00 AM. Shoppers
are already beginning
to shout at the meatcutters
that they’re holding back
meat to crank up prices
and where is all the hamburger?
The time is now 8:30 AM.
In the checkout line a masked
but angry man is ranting how
his 11 year old nephew
doesn’t know what the USS
Constitution is and that it’s docked
less than 50 miles from here
and what useless crap are they teaching kids
instead of that these days?
The time is now 8:40 AM.
Someone drives by laughing
as I walk to my car and
I hear the words “mask”
and “sheep” and “idiot”
and my fists tighten
around the loops of
the one overfull shopping bag that
is garroting the hand
I might need if I have to fight.
The time is now 8:45 AM.
No less than eleven freezing people
between the store and here
holding signs asking for help
and the only difference between
them and me is a bad car,
a bad house to call home,
a week or so of basic food,
and the keyboard I use to beg
in place of a cardboard sign.
The time is now
9:00 AM — or never. Time to
take the watch off so I can be
free of the ticking in my head;
free to surf the Big Wave
as it storms through all these people
waiting for a future End who can’t see
that This Is It.
Fragment: the word
from 2017
In the middle of the night you wake
and in your mouth is the word
that will save everything
currently in peril,
and you cannot pronounce it,
and soon enough you forget it,
but not the knowledge
that you once knew it.
It poisons your magic for a long time.
The Shame Of Things To Come
Today is January 11
and I woke up before 6
with little to do but
accept that I’m not a man
I know it’s not true
and that even the words
“I’m not a man” are suspect
and reek of Whitestench
except that when I look at
myself and all the failures
that even I call failures
it’s hard to argue that the ‘Stench
is just covering up a good person
instead of adding its flavor to
the general reek of my
utter incompetence at being alive
I mean of course I’m breathing and
excreting and God knows I eat
but how will I escape the way
I fail to prosper and no
it’s not just the lack of money
it’s the utter insignificance of
my work when I think I’m
doing so well and it’s brushed aside
without so much as a thought
It’s the reduction of my once-keen edge
to a pinprick the barely draws blood
It’s the shame of slowly recognizing
the mistakes and looming disasters
have not gone away overnight
as they rise to the top like old bodies
in the pool of darkness in my brain
as I wake up daily before six
slightly happy until I see them
and drag myself out of bed into
the cloud of chores that each day brings
And at last it’s the knowledge
that in a better world built
without Whitestench or Manstench
or Moneystench it might have been
different but in the long run
I’m here now on January 11
already up and regardless of society
it’s still my fault that I was and am unable
to get away from all that smell
breathe some fresh air
take one deep breath and plunge
back in to do what I can and must do
on January 12 and beyond
So Shut Up
“Lose ten pounds now! In
your first week! You
deserve it!” screams the
commercial that appears
every seven minutes or so
on this channel and everyone
or at least all the people who
deserve it can hear
the monetization of
their fears and how
those ten pounds are
the ticket to their security and
frankly humanity once they conform
to the shape demanded by
this joint so full of
screaming and insistence
In fact I’ve got ten pounds
sitting on my ass right now
that I will gladly keep
to myself thank you
along with my meager money
and my preference for
allowing myself to decide
what I deserve so shut up
Bouquet
Originally written 2007.
1.
The brain
knows many things.
Some of them you know.
Some you do not.
2.
If the brain
is a flower,
you are
its scent.
3.
Perhaps the brain
is a flower,
starving for light, reaching out
through your eyes
for its sustenance.
4.
If you plucked
your brain
and held it to the light,
would you find the mind?
5.
The mind lives
in the brain and
hides in its petals.
The mind is the dark
among colors.
6.
When you sleep
the brain corrals
the mind. They talk all night,
pretending they are
you. In the morning
you are nearly deaf
from the echoes of their
conversation.
7.
It’s not part of the scheme
that you should understand
everything they were discussing.
There are things shoring up
the brain and mind
that would terrify you
if you knew them.
8.
The brain opens its bloom
long after you close your eyes.
The mind rises from its nooks and folds
to escape, moving past you,
playing in the meadows.
9.
The mind drifts back
in the hot late afternoon.
Your head grows heavy
with pollen. You open your mouth
and bees fly in
to take their fill while the mind
avoids being stung
by the danger in the commerce.
10.
When you sleep
the mind and brain bear ideas.
You pretend they are your own fruit.
The brain laughs at you. The mind
strokes you softly, saying,
“There, there…”
11.
You are the scent.
Something plucks your brain
and you die slowly. Maybe
another brain and another mind
recall you for a while, but
you’ll certainly fade.
12.
Anything
fed long enough
on vision, scent, touch,
sound, taste will double back
on its own surety. The brain
makes you sleepy. The mind
makes you frightened. You
make yourself believe
there are reasons for everything.
13.
A night blooming flower
holds its beauty
until first light, collapsing
at the first touch of your hand,
staining your memory
with a scent you can never name.
I’m Going To Tell You A Secret
Do not say how horrible
this world has become for you
without speaking as well of how horrible
it has always been to others.
If you are surprised to feel at last
its downward slant and how
you now struggle to walk anywhere
when every destination is now somehow uphill all the way,
imagine lifetimes of doing this; imagine
the millions now alive and millions now passed
who have needed to be ceaselessly wary,
clutching their hearts, guarding their footsteps.
I’m going to tell you a secret
that’s really never been a secret:
your prior ease was grounded
in the uneasiness of those others.
I’m going to tell you a secret
that’s really never been a secret:
your recognizing it today and calling it new
feels vaguely insulting to those vast crowds.
I’m going to tell you a secret
that’s really no secret at all:
some of what you wail about, what ails you
now, what hurts your back and strains your lungs?
Some of what feels so new to you
is age-old and so common
that your shock and anguish
look at least a little like a lie.
A Failure Of The Imagination
Did you imagine any of this correctly
back when you lay in your room
before dawn and school and first love
and tried to foresee your life? If you did,
did you get the background right as well,
never mind the foreground and the bad business
offstage that clouded the formal dialogue
and gave it a layer of unease you could taste —
if you did, if you got any or all of it right, why
are you here now trying to survive all of this?
Unless you thought it would fade by the time
you got here, or perhaps that you’d be among those
who would vanquish all the awfulness? Maybe you are
still at it, still making it better on center stage;
maybe you’re part of the problem; maybe
you never believed it would happen at all
and you trusted your childhood vision was going to be
wrong. Maybe you can’t even say why you pushed on
and persevered but now that you’re here
and the decay and rot of the world is so evident,
you look back and imagine how it should have been
so clear, considering how far you’ve come from
dawn and school and first love
and how none of any of that
came to be or stayed true.
To Restring A Guitar
To restring a guitar
on the morning of a snowstorm
is to convene a seminar
on the joys of knowing very little.
To restring a guitar
is to open a familiar door
and find familiar things
have been moved to a new room.
To restring a guitar
is to pull the pushpins
from a bulletin board
and throw away the outdated notes.
To restring a guitar
is to understand nothing again
and find something else
has been made clear again.
To restring a guitar
when the weather is bad
is to declare that last night’s forecast
was incomplete.
Superheroes
You lost your wonder
thinking of the closed side show
within your body,
a silent fun house
of reluctant superheroes
you can’t call on to save you any more.
It’s hard living in that bed. It’s hard to see
the empty feeder outside the window,
the subsequent absence of birds.
Before this, you might have asked
whether someone was slacking and if
someone could get it handled.
Now you don’t even ask where the birds are.
You stay silent listening for wings and capes flying
to your rescue, but nothing’s coming, so you just sit.
Social Justice
Haul wood,
chop water.
Do the hard work of
reversal.
How far
there is to go,
how futile the effort
seems to be.
The wood yet to be moved
doesn’t diminish.
The water refuses
to stay split.
Maybe it’s best
to return to
the desert where
there’s little of either.
Once there, though, visible
beyond the dry horizon
are the forests
and now and then, the rain.
Stand outside
and go through
the motions: swinging,
preparing to clutch.
Become a readiness,
a consciousness:
a hauler of weight,
a cleaver of flood.
Dark Matter 