It’s night again of course
and the air in here is still not breathable
not because of the air
but because my throat closes when I sleep
it’s gotten worse lately
so I panic all night instead of sleeping
and I’m going to write about something Big
to pass the terror time and free my mind

there’s no poetry in choking

I guess I’ll write another poem about race
and gender and the damned state of all things
I’d rather blame my panic on that
than on my diseased throat

I can’t solve that mess
so it’s safe to complain about it

A simple trip to the doctor
might save my life
but I afraid I can’t afford such things these days
without giving up something else vital

I’d rather be seen after my death
as a martyr to the big causes
than be known for dying because
I didn’t know how to breathe

(It’ll look better in the obit anyway)

I’m genuinely frightened
of only two things
That I’ll choke in my sleep
and die
and

that I’ll never know how anyone else does it —
gets through
survives
thrives even —
while choking on bile
and hating everyone
I feel if I knew that
I could die OK
if not happy
It might help

That said
here’s yet another chance to write
the last poem I’ll ever write
but I can’t think of anything I haven’t already said
about how it feels
to grow up not white in the home
and nothing but white outside
swinging a knife because daddy taught me how
and hating the tickle in the groin it gave me

Ah, who’s gonna read this anyway
I’ve choked this chicken so often before

Shit
I hate how the races and genders and all that
play us
Being anything is a drag
after all
There ought to be something to say about it
that I haven’t said
Something to stop it if I can write it
Something I can write instead of going to sleep
where I’m bound to drown on my tongue
one of these nights

I’m so scared of choking
that I’ve stopped caring
about anything else
But I haven’t stopped smoking
haven’t lost weight
or exercised recently
all of which might save me
Too busy writing poems
about dying and choking
and the race and the gender thing
and certainly about God and suchlike
and the social order
and the closing throats
and the wind
and the recognition
that we all die
from choking these days

so who exactly
is any different

It’s night again of course
and again the air in here is not breathable
not because of the air
but because my throat closes when I sleep
and it’s gotten worse lately
so I panic all night instead of sleeping
and I’m going to write about something Big
because there’s no poetry in choking

I want to write another poem about race
and gender and the damned state of all things
because I like blaming my panic on that
instead of on my diseased throat
I can’t solve that mess
and though a simple trip to the doctor
might save my life
who can afford such things these days
without giving up something else vital
so I’d rather die a martyr to the big causes
than simply die because I keep forgetting
how to breathe

(It’ll look better in the obit anyway)

I’m genuinely frightened
of only two things

That I’ll choke in my sleep
and die
and
that I’ll never know how anyone else does it —
gets through
survives
thrives even —
while choking on bile
and hating everyone
I feel if I knew that
I could die OK if not happy
It might help

That said
here’s yet another chance to write
the last poem I’ll ever write
and I can’t think of anything I haven’t already said
about how it feels
to grow up not white in the home
and nothing but white outside
swinging a knife because daddy taught me how
and hating the tickle in the groin it gave me
But who’s gonna read this
when I’ve choked this chicken so often before

Shit
I hate how the races and genders and all that
play us
Being anything is a drag
after all
There ought to be something to say about it
that I haven’t said
Something to stop it
Something I can write instead of going to sleep
where I’m bound to drown on my tongue
one of these nights

I’m so scared of choking
that I’ve stopped caring
about anything else
But I haven’t stopped smoking
lost weight
exercised recently
all of which might save me
Too busy writing poems
about dying and choking
and the race and the gender thing
and certainly God and suchlike
and the social order
and the closure of the throats
and the wind
and the recognition
that we all die
choking these days

so who exactly is different

Hello,
dead people
who are now where
we all will go.

You don’t need
luck, I suspect, though
I’m sure it’s different there
from here;

you probably don’t need
anything
needed on this side
to get by there.

When we think of you there,
we have to cast that
in our terms
because we have no others
that fit;

so I’ll say it:
good luck.
Good luck,
though it took no luck to get there
and what it takes to be there
is, apparently,

not for us to know.

What ripple in the ether
made me ignore the map
and turn left instead of right,
I don’t know.  I had somewhere to be
but still I took the left instead of the right

and ended up crossing a narrow bridge
over a cold, fast river
with the gas running low
and not a station in sight;

still, I kept driving with the insane thought
that somewhere over here there had to be fuel
and I would be able to continue the detour
for a while yet, even though the woods
had closed around the road and the dark of winter
had settled into threat.

As I turned a corner, green eyes lit up ahead of me
and with no time or place to turn,
I flinched and drove straight on
praying that whatever it was —
fox or cat, dog or skunk —
would get out of the way: but
no such luck, not for the creature
I felt under my wheels
as I swerved left, and then right, after
the sickening squish and crunch.

When I looked up, there was an Exxon sign
not fifty yards ahead.  I drove there,
turned left into the pumps
and then right onto the road
after I refilled my tank
while refusing to look at my tires or bumper

and there was the on-ramp for my road home.

Sometimes, we don’t make a turn for our own reasons,
or we make a turn for no reasons we can name.
If we’re smart, we don’t look back at where we were
and we choose to believe in luck, or fate,
or the Shadow that tricks our green-lit eyes
into thinking we’re so in control of the way home.
into thinking we control what

A cat has caught a squirrel,
and I have come out to stop
the noise.

First, I chase the cat away from the squirrel.
He does not go far, sits
and watches from the lawn
as I bend over the small body

that is screaming
limply, the hole in the throat
weakening the voice slowly
but not so slowly
that it does not make me cringe.

Next, I step back to watch the squirrel get up
and try to climb the maple three times,
getting no farther than four or five feet up
before the grip gives out and there’s a clumsy tumble
into this squirming on the ground,
eventually lying on his (or her) side,
panting, squeaking softly
like a balloon
losing air.

I am glad my knife is sharp.

I lean in and set the point on the ground near the neck
and draw it fast and firmly across the leaking wound.

It all ends instantly,
the animal going limp at once.

I wipe the blade on the rough grass
next to the curb.

The cat is still watching, waiting for his chance to see
what has happened to his kill.

His kill?

At home, I wash the blade in the sink for ten minutes
under the hottest water I can stand, then do the same with my hands.

I know I have done the right thing
and I cannot stop shaking;

this is, sometimes, what it takes.

“The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones.”  — William Shakespeare, “Julius Caesar”

Jimmy Marvin died
on a railroad track
where he’d passed out
after one last night
of fighting and drinking,
drugging and pissing
people off. 

No one would let him
crash at their house that night,
since he’d broken so much furniture
and burned down every bridge,
so he slept where he fell,
and the train cut him in half.

Once his fire
had been smothered
and all that was left
was the charred surfaces
he’d roared over
in his race to burn,
it was easy to forget
that there had been light
around him, too,
in the times I saw Jimmy
share his smokes or beer with us
in the moments before he became
his normal night time raging self,
swinging wildly
on friend or stranger alike
at imagined slights, pushing himself
on girls he’d just met,
and all his blind inattention
to the rules of keeping safe
and sane.   

Whenever
his name is mentioned,
his friends point
only at what was destroyed
and shake their heads.
It will likely stay that way
for as long as he’s remembered.

There’s something to be said for that, say
all the immoral immortals;
better to burn out than it is to rust,
burn the candle at both ends, etc.,
and don’t take much care as to who
loses skin in the process,
as long as it’s not you.

Do unto others,
then split; when in doubt,
freak out — things
Jimmy always said
before he turned up dead,
and I can remember those lines
better than I can
his jokes.  Nonetheless,
eventually we just let him die out there
on the tracks,
but we have not forgotten him,

no matter how hard we’ve tried.

Onward to
a Meaningless Goal —
upon death,
to be recognized for
most toys,
best artist,
most tragic figure,
grayest beard,
longest torture session —

whatever.

They’ll surely put roses on
your chest either way.  That’s
The Big Prize —
a well adorned corpse.

Onward then into
the night, collecting
markers all the way.

All you ever are
in the end is your leftovers,
and all you can hope for is that they will feed
those left wanting in your wake.

Seeing you slip
toward fiction

your firm arms
becoming a memory
nestled in your softening brain

fearfully opening
the book of myths
to see yourself there

I keep reminding myself
that myth is strong
and fiction rules the hours

between dark and light
I want to remind you too

but there’s already so much water
between my side of the River
and the one you are approaching

all I can do
is wave after you
hoping you’ll turn back to see

how deep
into the myths
I am already planted
how strong the story
you’ve left me to live by

Memorable dog
that you are, pissing
on your trees,
lying down in prime sun to sleep,
offering a belly for my comfort
when I need to touch living flesh,
alerting on the slightest triviality
and reporting it to all:
“THERE! THERE! THERE! THERE!”

I”m going to miss you
one of these days, I know
that already.  No way we’ll
spend the rest of our time
together, bud; you’ll go on
before me, you and your
signal tail and fresh eyes
on things I’ve long ignored.

I’m sure I’m going to see you
when I get there, wherever
it is. There will have to be things
I need to see, or will want
to see.  Bud, I’m counting on you:

wait for me, just like you do now,
and shake a tail when you see me;
roll around in front of me
and then leap up like your old
puppy self and point me
toward the good stuff, the bad stuff,
all the stuff; tell me all about it, Bud,
with a sun drenched yelp of
“THERE! THERE! THERE! THERE!”

Consider the killer’s last words
when strapped to his execution table:
“Boomer Sooner.”

Consider his last meal:
steak, fried okra, strawberry ice cream, Dr. Pepper.

Consider his capital crime:
strangling someone
during a common robbery.

Consider the stature
of each of these epic decisions
when viewed from a distance,

then consider yourself, your grand
and grandiose notions,
what scripture
you reach for in extremis,

how and what you would choose
in such circumstances.

Sad day, I sing
to my carcass. 
I laid you down here
as a stepstool,
stuffed you with poisons
to keep you still,
and in return got only
a lazy handful of songs
like this lament
for what comes
from not keeping you strong.

My carcass remains silent.
My carcass refuses me —
this is marvelous! 

Toast me
after this becomes known
and be happy, comrades,
in spite of my leaving you;
for I have succeeded at this
at last, climbed the elephant
to see as far as I can,
and now…I never enjoyed much.
I never liked much in fact,
so this is no small thing
to feel such love for the world in me
now that I have no carcass
to express it with.

I should have done this years ago
and saved the world from me
and these recent dumbly rut-conscious songs. 

I should have done this years ago —
split my body into work and carcass
and left the carcass behind
so the work could live on.

— T. Brown, 9/5/10

Whatever happens
or has happened
or will happen,
I am raccoon clever;
I unlock any trap
and bandit my way home,
soft chuckling to myself.

Or instead,
maybe I snake it on out of there
on my belly,
getting up
once I’ve scared everyone
and am out of sight.

Shapeshifting’s a staked game
with low limits:  your life, your death.
You don’t play with your own treasure.
At the last moment, always,
I find the right shape to survive
the crisis.

Brilliant as a kamikaze moth
upon striking the target,
I crackle with connection
at the moment of encounter.
If  I have to burn myself up
into escape,
it’ll be the right thing to do.
I’ll have won

as the animal nature
of life into death
always wins.

If the frog you struck
in the road tonight
had had anything to say
as you spun him into the brush,
it would surely not have been
an expression of surprise.
They live like that all the time —
in constant expectation
of being spun into the void
by a predator or car. 

And we
are the delusional higher beings
who find it strange that others
might accept with no surprise
the honesty of death
that usually comes suddenly
and often in the strangest of ways,
often at our hands but with no malice
at all as a simple consequence
of living as we do, moving along
blindly, carried by our large lives.

When you sit at home tonight,
think of that.  Listen
to the corking and uncorking
of our bottled confusion
whenever these things happen
and to the gigantic roar
of What Is Coming.  Think of how
the frog said nothing and accepted
his last flight, his broken body,
mouth torn so deeply
that any last croak would have been
pointless.  Then,

say what you want to say,
what you would want to say
when it is your turn.
Say what you need to now,
for it will be drowned in the roar
when it happens at last…
don’t let it die stifled behind
your slack jaw…