Tired of all our words
being about ourselves and other
people.  Not only tired of
the bad words, not just tired of
the good words; sick of all the words
being put into service of our selves
and our venal yearnings.

To be or not to be,
to do or not to do,
whether we should do it
or someone else should,
how much we are loved
and how much we love in return;
all too much.  All unworthy of
one more weary attempt
at squeezing art
from the commonplace, 
the pseudo-universal — 
we are so little of what is.

To give up the pursuit
of human meaning,  
the exclusive chase for
human justice
and human peace, 
to end this unceasing gaze
upon human, human, human —

here’s a rock. Tell of its
inner life, its mineral dreams.
Here’s an oak log rotting in 
the deep unraked leaves 
of old growth. Speak of how the decay
feels to its empty cells, to the molds
and fungus inhabiting it. Perhaps
these last small patches
of grey, ragged snow may offer
a unique perspective on the advent
of Spring, some point of view
unheard till now.  Get an ear on these
and listen. There may be new ideas here;

listen. There may be a new urgency here;
listen. There may be a need for
entirely new language here,
it may require a new brain; if so, listen

then grow whatever’s needed to get beyond 
the tired trope of human; it can’t hurt
much more than what we do now hurts,
and it may not even work — in fact
it won’t — but it may be that
this attempt, this translation, is
what we were put here to do,
and for the love of all 
that’s yet to be seen as holy
if that is the case
there’s so little time
and so much left to be done.

That there is such a thing
as a cedar waxwing — olive splash
high up in the crowns of trees,
rarely seen though plentiful because
we keep our eyes low —

that there is such a thing
as a leopard slug — elegant
upon the sidewalk, long enough
that when first glimpsed it can shock
with its size, its patterned skin,
its silver path laid out behind it —

that there are such beings
right outside the front door,
that they endure in spite of us and our
casual, presumed engulfing of all,
our arrogance regarding our absolute power
over nature —

that such as these remain
although we think we’ve taken all away,
wringing our hands over our Power —

that such things exist to rebuke such hubris
with the laughter of their persistence
is my unending joy, my fallback from despair —

to know that we will likely not endure
as long as these will
is enough knowledge of the future
to keep me here.

You replaced
your mental image
of your anatomy
with a weather map

Though map
is not territory
this has influenced your core
into becoming a named storm

Centered among the isobars of rib and spine
a cyclone of terrible size gaining strength
Enough intensity to change
the landscape so completely

you would need a new map
You need one now in fact

You traded
your natural trust
for trinkets to hold
as you prayed against fear

A gun or a knife
Some talisman for a promise
that if Danger loomed
you would strike back

A bottle or some jumble
of pills and smoke 
kept close to ward yourself off
if you became Danger

You held so tightly to them
your crabbed hands could never hold a child

You swapped out dark for light
then reversed your decision
then reversed that decision
then reversed that decision yet again

with the speed of a sewing needle
in an electric machine 
stitching together a garment
from contradictions

Blind stabs into whole cloth
to make a scratchy cloak
for whenever you stepped out
to face the world

You were naked underneath and
terrified that everyone could see

So half naked and fully armed
and built from bad weather
you are still here
in spite of yourself

All your fallacies intact
All shades of hunger and want
remain the same today as they were
when you first lied about them 

You’re really just a lonely old body
made of pure ordinary and
if you surrendered now
the howling within might lessen

What name would you give
to that quiet 

Say, for the sake of argument,
that one day it all slips into place
and works the way it used to work
or works the way the mythology
insists it works:

say that you and your longtime love
fall into joyful fucking like first time teenagers
but with the benefit of experience
and deep knowledge of each other
and every day after, you remain that way;

say you save money and retire well
and travel and become in late years
learned and wise about human kindness
and as you travel you become beloved
and every day after, you remain beloved;

say that you live suddenly in the place
of refined definitions where freedom
is a free thing and all have it and live it
and honor it and dance on it and in it
and every day after is a dance within a dance;

say it and say it and say it, someday
a myth and a story and a tale will unfold
exactly as they are supposed to
and the morals they bear will all be the same:
every day, there’s a chance for it all to go well

and what we say of why it doesn’t
is as much a myth giving shape to atoms 
and energy as any story of happily ever after
or triumph over pain and wrong; and every day
we choose the path from our words

to the next day’s words, and so 
the grove of happening is sown and grown,
the forest we will walk through without noting
any of the trees we planted ourselves
if we don’t agree to speak of them every damn day.

I hope
to carry always
an air of
disrepute —

not to sport the stale
bad boy label,
not to dress myself
in an outfit stitched
from assumptions
and bad cultural
hangovers;

not to paint my face
in dark primaries
then go out at night
in good black
and sad spots of silver
shiny enough
that even when I creep
the shadows, I’m sure
to be noticed and noted;

no, what I seek is

just enough
gnarl and twist
in my carriage and form
that from one glance
a stranger might say,

“Well…from the look of him
it’s hard to tell what’s what.

It might be
danger, it might be wisdom,
it might be hard roads or
soft boundaries.

Whatever it is,
I wouldn’t have voluntarily gone
where I suspect he’s gone, but

I’m glad someone did.”

Sad on behalf of that which is blue
and is not supposed to blue ever;
sad today for blue lips cooling, blue skin
under reddened eyes, weightless blue words
doing little to heal or correct a broken moment.

Angry on behalf of that which is red
which should only be red now and then; angry today
for blood on faces, blood rising in faces, faces soaked
from inside in blood until the dragon stain
of red carries through to words and breath itself.

Scared on behalf of that which is white,
even that which has become so under pain of death;
scared today of ghosts, surrenders, pale knights on pale horses — 
all the panoply of what terrifies; most of all, afraid
of white faces; it shouldn’t be so, but it is so.

what you love
you claim
what you despise
claims you
what you know
and remain indifferent to 
explains you
what you do not know
and others do
reframes you

thus I
learn like mad
have opinions
avoid hating many
and love few

all in an effort to 
surrender little
of myself

stories you tell
of what you see
become what people see
of you

stories you tell
of how you see what
you see become
your angle on what
you are

when pushed to speak
I over-explain
and therefore negate
how little I surrender
of myself so
I am learning
silence and
how to tolerate
the growing lack
of self-delusion
that naturally follows

people who are
indifferent to me
are killing me
by millimeters

I am learning
indifference to them
each lesson a bullet
fired in self-defense

this resultant loneliness
is an expression of
a kind of poverty
much like how after a war
a country
is often in ruins
its people walking dazed
by what was once familiar
having become indifferent
to its former self

they starve eventually
or leave