“Good,” he said,
“is so non-specific.
Say more about why
you’re feeling good.”
She stretched a clean leg
out, arched her back, felt
the calf cramp rock her
like a blunt knife entering,
then withdrawing, subsiding,
fading. When she opened her eyes
he was still there. “I don’t have to
say anything about it at all,” she said.
“The point of feeling good is to feel it,
not describe it.” And she wished him gone
while she still felt good.
I so wanted an emergency
to inspire me this morning
but instead had to make do
with a full night’s sleep
and a good mood upon rising.
If I get hungry I can warm up
last night’s nutritious leftovers —
who cares if I have good pasta
for breakfast? I could keep it to myself,
I suppose, although we all know
I won’t, seeing that I haven’t yet, ever;
what did you expect? I will write on food
for food, love, sustenance;
will write about how
sometimes anger fails me, and how
angry that makes me. Hell, I can conjure
a crisis out of anything
and make it last long enough
to hang some art on it…puts me
one step away from a politician,
a journalist, a captain of industry.
Better, of course, to sit and be well
with the happiness. To see what comes
from tolerating contentment. To not have
anything come of it. Maybe
I won’t be an artist anymore,
or at least not for a bit. I could learn
how to tolerate that without making it
a crisis and then writing about it, but
seriously, would I still exist?
I am afraid to consume any food
for fear of offending someone.
I am afraid to join any organization
for fear of offending someone.
I am afraid of agreeing with anything
in case I must someday disagree with its corollary.
I am afraid of my face for not being
the face of utter kindness all the time.
I am afraid to support any cause
for fear that it doesn’t go far enough,
unless it goes too far.
I am afraid to admit to being in love
in case it is an outmoded love.
In fact to love at all seems pointless, as I can never
love broadly enough. All or nothing, they say,
all or nothing — adore afar as you adore nearby
or it’s the same as letting those afar die,
you killer, you monster, you drone.
While I was out
they slew all the bees.
While I was out
I should have stopped the slaughter.
He’s one bad President, or maybe two.
He’s my fault, I should have voted for…
but I didn’t vote for…I voted for…
not that it mattered, not that voting matters,
what a damn fool for voting, say some,
what a damn fool for disarming, say others,
what a damn fool for being in that skin
and while
we are at it,
what a criminal fatness is mine, right?
Right back to the food. It all comes back to the food
I should eat or not eat
and the votes I make by eating or not eating…
no wonder then why
I raise my hands to my ears
and, still chewing,
turn my partnered, comfortable back
on the world.
Inside the old seer,
landscapes. Still life upon
still life. Portraits,
abstractions, sketches,
doodles that once
meant something.
Impoverished, malnourished, ravaged;
he lies on a twin bed
in the attic of his sister’s house,
the last place he is allowed,
the last place he has permission to be.
Everything inside him
thrums like a factory.
What’s being made here? Will it be
like the rest of his life, something
only others can use? For him
“future” has always been just a banner
hung to let them know
where to find him, and
it’s also the last place
anyone will ever look for him.
At what we call
“the natural food place”
I grab both good bacon
and organic agave nectar,
which I insist upon using
when I brew
strong black tea.
The cashier is vegan —
we’ve discussed it before —
he looks at first the nectar,
then the bacon: “Bacon
AND vegan honey?” as if
the cognitive dissonance
is breaking his heart and head.
The first thought I have in response:
I adore negation, cognitive
dissonance, cancelling out of terms,
anything that forces me to think
strong-crackingly,
like a polar icebreaker
in the grocery aisle.
The second thought
is of bacon dipped in agave nectar,
and of how damn good
that sounds.
A heart like a trout
Cold and simple
Efficient
Only ever move forward
Might turn around
and re-cover old ground
but only by moving
a sort of forward
Backtracking but
Never backing up
Never getting caught
The moment
that freezes the room
is the moment of choice.
The moment
when the weapon appears
is the whole point of having
the weapon at all.
The moment
of using the weapon
is beside the point.
It’s the slowness, the enveloping
freezing of the moment
when the weapon is produced, as it
is seen, reacted to, feared —
as if the moment
was all there was,
no one moving before or since.
You say that’s a fantasy,
the frozen moment, the no-blood
coolness ot the scene.
You say it’s not like that.
You say in fact that
that it sounds like too
many movies, that it only
happens that way in a movie.
Exactly —
at that moment,
the weapon makes a movie
and the hand
on the weapon
is the hand of a star.
Radio man
is saying he grew up
in Brooklyn, son of
Holocaust survivors;
brought up to fear
a second Holocaust,
he and his sister played a game called
“who will hide you?”
Talking about it, laughing
a little, laughing just a little
but insisting to the interviewer
it was deadly serious.
Sitting at the railroad crossing
listening to him,
I look up
at the train and see
real swastikas
sprayed on
real brown cars
in white, in silver.
Hadn’t ever thought about this —
I would hide you. I do not know
how long I’d be able to keep you secret,
but — yes. I would.
This sky I think
is slowly getting
brighter
Most people think that means
it’s slowly getting better
How they long to break the night
Disrespect it from its fall
to its retirement at dawn
Crack it open
with lamps
Turn it away
and into day
Well
not for me
the day
but also not for me
the full blanket of dark
Fall with me into the in between
and you shall know so much
of both night and day
you shall never choose one over the other again
on a train
through the snow
in the dark
through the snow
on a train
in the dark
in the dark
through the snow
on a train
which is it
does it matter
who chooses
the dark
the snow
the train
I’ve begun to speculate
on how I will react
to the news
of your passing;
will I, as is customary
for my age and gender and tribe,
stoically free but a single tear after
a deep longing sigh? No —
I think, instead,
the air will fill with stones
so that breathing and bruising
become the same thing;
I think, instead,
that stones will cover my path
and I will stumble for miles
no matter which direction I choose;
I think, instead,
that my eyes will become stones
and I will not see anything I fall upon,
will never know everything that has broken me.
when orchids
grow wild
among forgotten land mines
when children sing of enemy mutilation
as sweet stuffed bears sit
on their neat beds
when nice ladies at the restaurant
whisper stinkhearted
about those people at the next table
when at least one of those nice ladies
owns a pink revolver and dreams now and then
of a home invasion that will give her an excuse
when that lovely blue sea
hides brown sea bed and red blood
hides terminally blue whales
when outrage easily tagged for sale
is easily diverted and easily unfocused
till it’s time to put us to bed
we are trained for contradiction
for losing the last truth in the next lie
how are we still surprised
when wherever we go
evil perches bloodied and unruffled
upon the left hand of good
There’s a certain vocalization,
the top of a sung syllable that breaks
into halves like a split particle.
Chirp and bark echoing over each other.
Fragmented call of vulnerability welded to one
of aggression.
I’ve heard it once. Someone I loved
made that sound once. Someone I loved
made that sound singing a song
in Italian. I was sure I would recall that song
for all the rest of my time on Earth,
and I have all but forgotten it — all but
that one sound at the top of a syllable
in the chorus, the one she was singing
when she turned
and saw me listening
and stopped.
Tell it
to vomit a little
See where that takes you
Tell it
you can hear music
it needs to describe
Write / discard
paint / discard
sculpt / discard
compose / discard
then smile
when it tells you
to knock that shit off
and save a little something…then
discard some more
Get with a partner
and ding the paint a little
Got a cliff?
Jump off
Tell the thing
to fly piss fuck
off
Rename yourself
then remain yourself
with a ream of paper and
blood crayons
Forget about it
Knuckle drag a week around
Club your foot into submission
Blah Blah Blah a college course
Masticate masturbate
Make up a word and
Manchurate then
define it for us
Christ,
if you absolutely have to
Drop a little acid
if after all that
you still can’t make it work —
I know a guy
Just
for the sake of crisis
stop writing 600 word epic posts
notes and updates
letters to old mentors
and essays
about how you can’t
write
anymore
Because the block
is a ghost
only as strong as
your belief in it
The truth is
all you’ve got is a bad case
of hating your results
so do the art you are meant to do
toss what you hate
you will get there
and if not?
do the art anyway
for the love of process and
self
Listen:
that clock of yours is sick,
or maybe time itself is ill.
Trust me on this: you’re going nowhere.
I won’t let you go, not until the daffodils
in the front yard are fully up and open.
There’s bad television to watch yet,
lots of it. Enough that we could get tired
of watching and go for a walk — there, it’s settled:
you can’t go until we’re both tired of bad TV
and we decide that even a walk up and down
this terrible hill of a street is better than that.
Listen, listen to me: that clock of yours
is sicker than you, time itself is what’s ill,
they’ve both lost their minds, you’re going nowhere
until the daffodills have bloomed twice
and we’re thin from walking away
from bad TV. Not this spring but next
we’ll replant the beds out front and get
something other than daffodils in there,
I know you love that yellow but face it,
everyone’s got daffodils. When we walk
the hill, you’ll see. You will see all the daffodils
in all the neighbor yards. You’ll see
how the robins are back. You’ll see
all the sodden trash of after winter
and how much still needs doing.
Just listen to me please: your clock
is sick and so is time itself. Please
don’t agree with them in their fever.
Please don’t agree with time,
with how it’s burning you up.
Say you’re going nowhere, please. Say
the only place you are going
is to the couch to watch bad TV with me
until it’s time for our walk.
Say the clock
is delirious, is making a huge mistake;
tell me it’s too sick to ever be right.
Dark Matter 