A man sits back in a brown leather chair
and contemplates his own monstrosity,

allows himself
to remember

that he is sitting upon remains,
that his throne is made of death,

that it is so soft
he can’t rise from it; 

weeping for his monstrous 
comfort, he stays seated,

claiming that it’s better 
that a man like him

is the one
warming the seat

than some more monstrous bastard,
wouldn’t you agree?

As dark a wolf
as can be held 
inside a human?
I am that wolf.

Glimpsed behind 
glassy eyes. Held
within a trembling,
strained core. Checked

by faith and pills,
yet this human
can still
be driven to 

distraction
by my howling,
may break 
another body

on its own 
without even
knowing that I
exist. I am

that good
at making my voice
sound like
a voice of reason

in the face of
what a human
thinks is a threat. 
I am that good.

I wake it before
sunrise and keep it
awake, tired in
darkness, lying

in its bed with
bad news whirling
above it like a 
playpen mobile.

I am that good
a wolf that it thinks
I am a good dog
there to make it

feel better. Make it
relax. Put it safely
to sleep and then
it thinks I keep watch.

It thinks I am
its pet. It does not 
see me as wolf,
surely not as 

Alpha. I am that
good a wolf, that dark
a presence, that loud
a call within that

this human 
does not realize
that it is my den,
not my master. 

Not even my prey,
unless need be.
It’s my home, this
human. Tight

and warm with
crazed blood, blood 
I crazed myself.
I am that good a wolf.

I understand now
what has been happening to me
over these last months.

My hands and feet work
as they always have but feel
stiff and needle-filled, oddly
dry when they are wet, 
chilled and dripping
though I stand on dry carpet.
I have stopped trusting them.

Whether I encounter 
once-beloved faces in person
or in newspapers lying
in the street, they all seem
gray and obsolete and 
I have stopped trusting them.

I lie often on the couch
ranting into cups of weak coffee
as days have become weeks
have become months.

I have stopped counting down
to birthdays, holidays, and
other special occasions.
I have stopped trusting them 
for anything more than 
betrayals of my hope
and memory.

I have squeezed all this
into my core and pressed it 
hard into a ball and felt it
become a fusion bomb
and spread its heat
into all my limbs.

Soon to follow?
A blinding light
as I burst from within.
This is how I will 
become at last a sun. 
There will be only burning 
where I once stood.
That is one thing
in which I still trust.

Daffodils came up 
before this late blizzard —

while shoveling the front walk
last night I uncovered

the edge of the cluster.
There was a robin, fat with cold,

chowing down on the old biscuits
I’d crumbled onto the front yard

yesterday. Today, sparrows
crowd the top of a small bush there

with the snow concealing 
whatever that robin might have left.

It’s hell out there this morning —
overnight everything went hard and icy

and there’s shoveling left
that I dread, but

robin and sparrows and
daffodils suggest

that dread
may not linger long.

Arrogant young prick
filled with unfortunate
rock lyrics
but also unfortunately
pretty as hell
Did high school as a god
Did college and law school
as a smaller god-king but
held court 
linked arm in arm to the whole
cosmology of
theft
Got away with war crimes
in peacetime
Got away with loot
from unreported robberies
for a living 

In mirrors
found his fan base

James

Aged out
Started balding but
still saw that self-created 
Jagger in his mirror
imaginary groupies
in every hotel bar
and new markets to conquer
in his sleep
right to the end
Died disbelieving
that he
Jack Flash in the flesh
could die at all

Another James right behind him to take his place
of course
They all believe they are the first
of course 
Cockmonsters of the walk
of course
and of course
they are as common as
garage bands made
by sticky boys in bedrooms
dreaming in the language
of stage lights
and ownership
who put down the guitars
at a certain age
took up MBAs and law books
Glocks and badges
pivot tables and coding
but none ever stop believing
they are owed 
a spotlight
their name
in lights
tonight only

JAMES

Boulders within you. Fields,
forests of them looming,
covered in misted moss.

The rules for entering here:
duck them when they’re rolling,
climb them when they’re still.

You enter
when you learn

that an old friend unseen for years dies
and you learn that they lived close by
that whole time but you never saw each other
and did not cross paths
though many mutual friends
were held 
between you. 

Is that boulder moving
or stable?

Your family has forgotten your address
and doesn’t return your calls.
You are eating alone, sitting alone,
standing up
to pace the room alone.

How many boulders
are quivering now?

Beyond this field the mountains are rumbling.  
Landslides everywhere.
People scatter and scream;  others
shove prybars into ledges
and chortle as stones come down.
Your field is empty of such doings at the moment
and will likely stay that way as long as you
don’t draw attention to yourself
by stepping out to try and save someone.

Do you climb, do you duck?
Do you step out, or do you lie down
to be crushed like a tossed can?

All the stones of the world
whether placed for worship
or worshipped where they were found
are questions. You are so much smaller 
than they are that it seems
there are no grounds from which to answer.

Then again,
you chose 
to enter the field in the first place.