First,

I’m not embarrassed to say
I’m glad he’s dead.
I acknowledge the hyena in me.

Next,

I’m not embarrassed to say
you embarrass me
by choosing from among
so few sides
when there are so many
to choose from
when looking at this.

I’m looking at you
with your flag and your beer
and your three-letter chant
and your brave,
brave sneer.

I’m looking at you
with your Truth fliers
and your semi-conscious racist
undertone:

no way those brown bastards
could have done that to us.

I’m looking at you
reciting the ritual retelling
from the teleprompter
to make sure
we feel enough fear
to fall into joy
upon clinical description
of the wet work involved.

I’m looking at you
beat down by deceit
for so many years
you won’t believe a thing
till you can personally stick
your oft-betrayed fingers
in the bullet holes
and now you won’t get the chance
so you won’t believe anything,
anything at all.

And yes, I’m looking at him —
first surprised, then not at all,
then blind and deaf and
dead.  See him slid into
a body bag, his skin scraped,
see it all slide into the sea,
his body breaking surface
and sinking into a singularity
that will suck us in for a long time
yet.

I end up looking at myself
in a tall, tall mirror.

I’m wondering if I
look much as I did
ten years ago.  I can’t imagine
I do.  I take in all
that’s being said, and
it feels like shrapnel’s
remodeling me.

I don’t know how not to believe
in karma, but I try
by seeking to know all
the names of God, for I know
you can only expect God to answer
if you say them all at once.
I don’t know how to do that. When I try,
it just comes out
as the scream of a hyena.

I want to overforget.

Not just not recall,
but live as though
the thing
never happened.

To get in practice I’d
overforget
bunches of
movies, a lot of songs.
A lot of books.  Certain lovers.
Meals taken with those lovers.
Details, mostly.  Details
no longer attached to lovers
but which rise and disturb
and damn me to recall —
hell yes, overforget all that.

You say,
there was a movie about this.
I say no,
there wasn’t.

I would then overforget
a lot of animals I killed
individually and by species
whether by bullets, neglect, over-consumption
of resources — no matter the method of their murders,
I’d overforget them.  Suddenly
nobody has fur coats, photos disappear
from calendars. I’ve overforgotten them,
you can’t have them either,

for this is not the complete mind-erasure
of legend — I would choose what to lose
and once I had chosen
all trace would disappear from the world
for all.  Overforgetting would leave nothing
to stir even a ghost.

You say,
this would be so cruel to the rest of us.
You say,
we’d wander around with our own memories
and wonder if we were crazy to think these things
had ever existed.
You say,
how could you think to rob us like this?

I say,
who are you?

You ask me why I yearn for this?
Really?  Haven’t you ever walked
a street in an unfamiliar place
and been rocked by a scent or sound
and dived into your pocket
for the money to buy the cab fare, the flask,
the pipe or the pills
to carry you away from the suspicion
that something you’d forgotten at last
after years of work
was returning
and though you couldn’t quite place it
you knew it was awful and that you’d want
to dig your eyes from their sockets
and rip ears and nose from your head
to keep it away from you?

You say,
but you would lose who you are now
and what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,
you’re the sum of…etc., etc.

I say,
have we met?
Do you know who you’re talking to?

You say
ow, no, not this,
not this scent of bitter-burnt orange
and sick-sweet wires, raw ozone, dirt of bones,
auras on the wind here,
time to flee;

I say, oh, good, it’s working,
overforgetting,
I don’t recognize that —
isn’t it sweet,
and tangy, and so thick on the tongue — say,
where are you stumbling off to so fast?
Don’t you want to know what really happened here?

Tags: poems, poetry, 9/11-processing

The sky’s never looked the same since then

I often look up without breathing
I memorize escape routes
I travel light
I have named all my guitars
I eat carefully
I open doors for dogs and breezes
I dress for running and sitting on lawns

The highway’s never been slicker in the rain

I hydroplane on purpose often and have learned to adjust my skid
I love others when it is comfortable
I forget where the speedbumps are right after I cross them
I stream planetary influence
I articulate every word to ensure understanding

Forward motion’s become a mere suggestion

I sleep on the couch a lot
I’m afraid to sleep too long
I flash the news anchor though she cannot see me
I hear rodents in the corridors of power whispering

When the anniversary comes around I dance frantically

I am certain of the time at all times
I watch the hard freaks as if they were prophets

If there is a place to stand I conceal myself nearby

For I am unable to imagine a time
when I will place the day in perspective
and allow myself an instant to proclaim my witness
or let myself forget the ongoing ruin in my gut and groin

I cannot imagine how I will ever
Let myself fall into the symbolism of flag and anger
Admit empire into my smoldering eyelids
Dust myself back to clean gray flannel and silk tie uniform
Make myself believe I’ll return to being an innocent fool
who doesn’t know how to run and duck and cover and choke
or who has forgotten that such skills are necessary lessons
of the years that have passed since then
as monstrously as the burning of once-privileged skulls
saying to me always
that for some
there will never again be
unquestioned safe passage

This is just the trailer.  Wait until you see the film.
 — from a message delivered by the Mumbai terrorists to the Indian government, November, 2008

1.
classic film

love
rejection
redemption

define those things ever after
by referring to the movie

“it’s like when she
turned and walked away
and then he falls to his knees
in that movie…”

classic film

the trees are
perfectly shaped
there’s snow that doesn’t go gray
with road filth

“it’s so beautiful,
I feel like I’m in a movie…”

classic film

there are guns
and clearly horned enemies
to be slain

“it’s like in that movie
where the buildings exploded…”

in here there are answers
always

everything is enormous
and significant

details are just nails
holding banner importance fast

in here light is a dog
to be walked
leashed and guided
along scents
to known targets

from in here
come out and stare into living
seeing instead the light on the screen
twenty feet high

eating the apple that is offered there

learning everything
whether it’s true or not

2.
in the classic film
they walked from set to set
no trailers
no limos

walked outlaw
through shanty towns and elegance

extras earning their lines

they took direction well

“he told me I’d receive a reward,
be a big man, blah blah,
all that stuff…”

straight from the mouth of the extra
captured after
the walk though the city
the station
the hotels
the hospital
placing bombs in taxis
bullets and fire in guest rooms

the prisoner
sobbing
sold by his father to the terrorists
with the words
“look at these guys
they have money
a good life
your sisters can be married”
and his response
“fine
whatever”

blah blah blah

just a bit of business
between the good scenes

3.
“what did we ever do to them
that they hurt us so”

said a boy
thinking of how he’d sheltered beneath
his blood soaked mother and father
on the floor of Victoria Terminal
in the heart of Mumbai

how cold he had been
it felt so damp and cold

4.
the handler
for the Mumbai killers
told them where to strike
and rated their performance
based on what they saw
on the news

whenever a gunman
took an order
from his handler that day
he responded with
“god willing”

5.
when I saw the towers fall

when I saw the first plane
full of my friends
enter like a spoon into soft serve
or a hand into popcorn

it was like a movie
I’d seen a thousand times
in 3-D

they had shaken me
with surround sound
a thousand times before

but on the day
I went there
I was unprepared
to wonder
who this was
bitter and sweet
present inside my nose
right under my eyes

6.
now we watch them on predator screens
solarized and polarized to enhance a target
god willing

and they watch us on television screens
clipped and closed to interpretation
god willing

everyone
dying easily far away
god willing

7.
how it looks
is in the script
for a classic film

how it smells
is not

We fought all the time.
Two strong heads butting up
against different world views.
Work was like that, a lot.

When she sent her sister to me
for career advice, I was shocked.  Her sister
told me she’d said
how much she respected me and that I’d help,
anyway I could.

Feeling guilty, I called her
and we made plans
for lunch the following week.

I had a lot to say,

and the next day she got on a plane
and it flew into a building
and she became —
what?  Icon, symbol, memory,
martyr, victim —

She was none of those.  A huge smile
and a sharp tongue.  A quick word
and a deep thought.  A boss, a mother,
an adversary and a thorn.  Yes, those —

but I don’t know what to call her now.
She was a colleague, less than a friend,
but she looms in me now
below my heart, nudging it with her strong head,
reminding me:

I have left things unsaid
in so many places.
I have misjudged and will again.
I have held grudges and still do,

and I don’t know where her sister is today.