It’s uncomfortable 
some mornings
to be alive and hurting
with a broken belly full
of unloved 
but necessary
food.

If this is healthy eating,
give me a gut full of air
and call me ungrateful 
for my privilege and 
relative ease.  
Tell me again

how many go hungry,
tell me again
how my own illness
is self-inflicted,
tell me how glad
I should feel right now
to be alive and here
in this body,

and I will tell you
that shame and guilt
for feeling such anguish
when I should be above it all
are fueling
what’s inside

where pain’s pain,
death’s death, and 
all I want to do
is make a swift
common cause
with the worms
who do not care
who any of us are
as long as
soon enough,

we are theirs.

After the dinosaur, the flight, the bird.
After the Australopithecus, the slow beginning, the man.
In the first tentative feather, the albatross, the poem.
In the first chip of flint, the automobile, the rock and roll song.

I keep a jar of egg teeth, bone Venus idols, hollowed whetstones.
I shake it to time the march of progress.
It’s not an evolution unless something vanishes.
It’s not an evolution if no memory remains of the vanished.

I go sometimes
to the border
and look back to you,
to the place
I’m from,
the place
from which I’m exiled.

I want to hold your hands again.
I want to look you in the eye
and tell you I’m sorry,

for you’re lost
as I’m lost,

and I think we’d do well together,
my flooded,
impossible to drain,
tumbledown,
insolvent,
sunken-eyed, sullenly
beloved homeland.

All I wanted
was to love you, to put you
out of our shared misery,
but what I call love
you call treason;

if we can agree
that both are true,
how about
you let me come home
and prove the former
to you?

Sunrise rolls
across the earth

and every one of us
wakes up to a door
where there was none
when they went to sleep.
Even those who slept rough
find one planted
in the ground before them.
All doors in existence
before this morning
are locked tight.

Wow
comes the collective gust

from anyone not terrified
into silence; then
several hundred million
approach those doors
with a hand stretched out
at knob level.

Some
yet-uncounted number
are set upon
and dragged back
and some are beaten
and some are killed
by those scared
of this morning’s
unsolicited gifts;
then comes

wow,
again,
though
that
doesn’t explain
any of this
well enough
for the epic nature
of the day;

it’s still
a fruitless
wow

when
it’s almost
the next morning
and these doors
aren’t open
yet.

Before a hyacinth blooms
or tulips and daffodils
stick their commonplace faces
into the air,

spring shall be announced
in the impatience of housecats
who try to escape outdoors,
who succeed now and again,

who long to sit by the street
and imagine themselves
suddenly tiger
or lion.

For some
the process
of receiving
a tattoo
is a path
to peace
through pain

The ink 
and image 
left behind
are only
artifacts
of the journey

Recalling now
the pilgrimages
and trials of
saints

Contemplating
their relics and 
the cathedrals
raised around
those finger bones
those locks of hair

All that is
as human
as the etching of
pictures
of carp
and skulls
and flame
and names
we bear
on our arms

Applause
for a calm minister
who steps down
from her pulpit
and walks out
of the church
into the street
with only a banner
for a shield.

Kudos
for a wan doctor
who refuses
to treat a symptom any longer
and pickes up a gun,
thinking all the while
“first do no harm.”

Reverence
for a frightened cop
and a scared firefighter
lighting the wicks
on bottles of gasoline
which are then tossed
into the centers of
station
and firehouse.

Shouts for
a resigned brigade
who refuse to leave
their barracks
to respond
to all of these
when ordered.

You say
you want
a revolution? Remember
that it often comes
only when at last
the tools of power
turn upon power.

The dark drive home
alone, not quite sleepy
but filled with gratitude
that the ride is not longer;

drifting around the apartment
setting things to right,
restoring order that was upended
before leaving;

the exhale upon the couch,
releasing last tensions
before sleep — this day
was lived

toward this moment.
Toward eyes closing
glad of nothing urgent to do
upon waking. Toward peace.

You fantasize
that you will be a dead man
fully conscious
after your departure
feeling
only a bit different
clearly disembodied
but able to hear everything 
they’re saying about you
It’s all so nice
All pleasant
You were a capital fellow
a real peach

No 
Sorry

They’re going to be angry
angry as picadors
wanting to stick your bull
till it bleeds

It won’t matter
whether you do it yourself
with a tool or weapon
or whether you do it yourself
with food or a drug or a mistake
Everyone will know
you did it yourself
and they’re never going to say
anything nice about you
I promise

No
Bull-boy
You may think you are beefy
and everyone will dine well
after you go but

the bull
is always forgotten
in favor of 
the matador
who stands and fights
wins and is loved or
dies fighting
and is loved

suppose you close your eyes
and think about who you see
when you are asked to see

a rude one
a hipshaker one
one on the burning decks

a band member
with a lone snare
with a box full of twiddly knobs

suppose you describe

a good singer
with a holiday voice
with an everyday scream

a gamer
a headphoner
someone banging a stickered painted guitar

suppose you picture

a black bloc ninja
with a hot hand
with a brick

a mystery photographer
a fresh young disturber
a breaker mid-spin

suppose you came upon

a salt-well digger
a good cop
a rough shaman

a dog teacher
a horse doctor
a fat welder

suppose you open your eyes
suppose you say now who you saw
in each case

was it a boy
in each case
a girl in each case

did you see
any men
any women

did it get
all mixed up
in your head

did you ever not choose
a boy or a girl
did you ever resist

did you ever see
yourself
or a loved one

did it ever change
mid-picture
is it changing now

Sing (to yourself,
not out loud, not where
you could be heard)
your favorite songs
that carry some offense
in their lyrics.

Watch (quietly, in the dark,
so as not to disturb others)
every television show or movie
you laugh at or live for
that has a stereotype or two
for a beloved main character.

Stare (once you’re alone,
only after the first two exercises
are complete) at your bookshelf
full of well-thumbed pages
of nonsense and somewhat
troubling oppressive thought.

It’s all been part of a problem.
You might want to get cozy with it;
maybe you get fetal, pull up a corner
and fail. Or you might want
to reconsider the sources of your joy,
then dig in and extract and reset

whatever nuggets you can
from the matrix where they’re embedded —
one chord progression, two ensemble moments,
three turns of perfect phrase. From now on
it is not going to be easy if you are inclined
to do anything more than just survive.

Froggy as nerves are
no true surprise in how jumpy
he got with drink in his head
after it happened

and him being not in such
a good place with it,

became a monk of a man
in a hood and a vow
with abbot fringe on it,

no reason
to believe he’d calm himself
after a fire like that one, him
calling out to his children burned,
no longer here except as ghosts,

him not a problem to most though
we none of us liked his wailing over his loss
no matter that we saw how profound it was,
how dark
that hollow, how firmly he moved in
and lived there ever after until
he died

and we saw him
lying on moss behind his hut
not anymore riled and righteous,
now asleep and no longer disturbing us
who long ago felt sad
but trod lightly now outside in case
we stirred those finally sleeping
small brittle kid-spirits
who really should long ago
have been at rest.

I’ve surrendered so much:
watched the coins
vanish from my pocket
due to my need to write poems,
lost breath and energy
to that craving for ink,
dulled myself
with too many poems,
become deaf
to the music of poems,
blind to the sinews
and gymnastics
of poems

so I shall pick a marker
and say after this,
no more.  
No poems after
this day, or after writing
this many more, or 
once this happens…

If I don’t stop
I know only
that I will continue
and that feels not bearable
at all.  
It feels like a 
sentence,
not a 
joy.  
Not a life.

If I start again
I’ll at least know 
it’s too much a part of me
to be excised…

Who’s going to be there
in my mirror
the day after I stop?

I look forward to him,
to my face not on
a poet’s head,
no matter how little time 
we may have together.