In the dead letter office
are 14 billion tears, 35 million
expressions of love, 35 million 
expressions of hatred, enough

incorrect assumptions to choke
a moon-sized shark, eleventy-one
thousand dog barks translated from
the Sanskrit, a piece of Captain Hook’s
alligator, inconsequential amounts
of radium in the form of old watch dials, 

an anonymous promise of fidelity,
his promise never to drink again,
her promise of a willingness to try,
their promises to pay, form letter
threats of legal action, form letter regrets
to inform you of the death in action…

pomegranate seeds on a Christmas card,
the eye of the Hydra, the teeth of
the Cyclops, the face of Tecumseh
on a napkin, the hammer and nails
of Jesus Christ himself, and everything
you thought you had coming to you

for better, for worse, for your punk 
credibility, for your regard for  Broadway,
for your faith in the ruthless efficiency
of the Universe in delivering what’s deserved
to those who deserve it.  It’s a big room

you can’t fathom without sending yourself
to the only place you can’t possibly go 
and expect to come out of 

in one piece — once you’re in there
they open you up, look for where
you should be, send you there 
if it’s obvious and if not
they destroy all correspondences
and auction off the valuables,

which makes the dead letter office
exactly like anywhere else.

If all the fattened cats curled upon
all the worn coverlets
in all the overheated apartments
of all the slight and slighted folks
in this rundown town
were to be asked what they thought
of how bountifully 
they were living,

most would speak of it with approval;

those who did not
would admit only to a mild unease
about it ending suddenly someday
with the passing of 
the old folks who stroke them pensively
while staring out the window
at the cold.

What will happen then,
they would ask,
suspending their purring
for a few seconds of soft blinking
into the questioner’s eyes

before falling back into sleep.

It’s been said
there are no boring moments
Only boring people

That’s a good way to shut up those
who find their moments
impoverished by dull palaver
droning on
and on

It’s said that
if you enjoy what you do
you’ll never work a day in your life

That’s a good way to shut up those
who only shovel shit for others
in order to pay for 
what they need
to live

It’s said that work
should be a game
A time to play

That’s a good way to shut up those
who won’t play the game
as they know
how well
it’s been rigged

It’s said that groups
brainstorm better 
than individuals

That’s a good way to shut up those
whose genius
at standing apart and listening 
makes them suspect
to those who chatter

It’s been said and said
and said again
that work’s about bliss

That’s a good way
to make you feel guilty
about hating the job
that makes you feel
smaller and smaller

with every buzzword
laid upon you like a hammer
until you shut up and die
nodding your assent 
to your own slow execution

A trail of broken sparrows
across a clearing

What small expression
of horror is this

string of soft bodies strewn
like tender remarks

that mean nothing and
in retrospect are fearsome

Heap of fresh broken sparrows
at trail’s end — so fresh

flies haven’t found them
yet

Must be some
rationale for it

Not your fault
for finding it but

as it is no longer
unknown it is possible

you will now carry that contagion
(if contagion was cause) or 

that madness (if madness
instead created that path of

tiny corpses) out of these woods
When you speak of it to others

(and you will for it is too much
to contain with silence)

it will spread and soon
your fellows will be 

a similar heap
of broken sparrows

if they aren’t already
halfway there without your help

Soon you’ll be alone
surrounded by those piles

You’ll wander among them
Pluck small brown plumes from them

Make a cloak of them
Try to fly

Succeed and with regret
Declare yourself Sparrow God

Weep for lost masses even as you
exalt in sunlight soaring

above trees and clearings
Above it all having cobbled together

a divinity from tragic mystery
still unsolved and you say

So shall it be in this 
Paradise Legacy Of 

Heaps Of Broken Sparrows
Who Died So There Might Be Flight

Who Must Have Died 
Strictly For That

Let’s be very quiet
this year — no words.

If there’s an answer called for,
let our askers wait for it.

If they insist,
we should walk away.

If we cannot walk away,
let’s stare back without a sound

and watch them wriggle
in their seats,

trying to figure out 
how they’ll get by

without us engaged
in answering only

the questions 
they choose.

So many questions
and answers

remain unheard,
including our own;

let’s be very quiet.
Let’s listen to those.

Let’s be quiet.
There have been

enough words from us;
anything we need to say is

already out there
on the wind.  In the air.

On the sidewalks.
In the streets. In the spaces

between their questions
and their desired answers.

Here’s to you,
obvious minefield.

Here’s to you, dark clouds
and silver lightning. 

Here’s to your reputation,
established before you begin —

but also to your falling in love again
with possibility.  

Here’s to where you stand on today
today, here’s to stepping up

to a stand you’ll take tomorrow
for tomorrow.

Here’s to your yesterday. 
May it be yesterday. May it stay yesterday;

may it remind and inform but never,
ever repeat.

Is there something else
I should do?

Is there someone else inside me
whose shadow I glimpse now and then?
Someone so different
from who I think I am that in fact
it’s a new person or an old one,
and I do not know a thing about them,
someone utterly not what I am?

Is there something else
I should do?

What work is there to do
that is not being done better
by others, work I cannot do
because I would only be in the way
of those doing it?

Is there something else
I should do?

Should I be turning the Work
over to the person inside
who is not me, or to a person
outside who is not me?

Is there something else
I should do?

Will there ever be a poem
from my pen 
that does not include 
a question?  Will there ever be
a day that does not include
the nagging sense of there being
a question I haven’t asked
that I should ask, its answer
notwithstanding;

is there something else
I should do?

Is there a question
I should be asking, one
that I can’t answer ever,
one where
the pursuit of the answer
is all there is?

If anyone thinks this poem
is about writing poetry — should I 
disabuse them of the notion?
Should I strike them or laugh
as I flee from them, or

is there something else
I should do?

Praise today for the pancreas 
that’s killing me, for the blood
unbalanced, for the ache
in my right knee that thwarts
me, for the hairs that won’t stay
in my head, leaping out like rats 
who know the score;
praise them all for doing
exactly what they should be doing
in my disrepair; there’s nothing wrong here
that a good old grave won’t cure;
really, there’s no other cure
for what drives it all; I can manage
and maintain and stave off and 
fleetingly deny, but in the end 
there is only the End, so praises
for the End, here’s to settling in for it,
here’s to how I am now slowed
to think and feel differently
as this body slows and shifts; 
praise for the acceptance of this age,
praise for the acceptance of this fight
as ultimately futile
yet worth every stroke and blow I land
as a tribute to how much I have loved
and fiercely pursued love and life
in all the years
of damage I’ve done to myself;
praise to that wounded, bloated game-piece
I call my body, with its hitman organs,
its fatal surges of desire and satisfaction;
praise to how this all is closing down
over a long time, giving me so much
to consider, to savor,
to curse, to praise.

When gawking at ruins
in far off lands, when taking

photos of them and of 
the picturesque locals

for your collections,
please remember

that each person you see
is in their own way also a ruin:

beautiful, vital and worthy
of attention and respect

from you, still here and surviving
right where they were placed,

yet still a ruin
in terms of not being today

what they might have become if,
too often, armies and generations

of people like your own had not come
and swept all before them 

into collections
of their own.