It’s a mistake.
A big mistake
that’s been moving on foot
through the world
leaving huge footsteps
behind it. Big mistake —
shouldn’t have let it out.
That thing’s clawing
a damn near impervious trail
so wide you can scarcely
avoid it. So deep
it’s turned the whole world
into a rutted path
from which you can’t climb,
and listen up: you can’t deny
that you hear a deluge
readying itself to fall.
It’s a big mistake.
A profound drowning is
likely to follow.
Woke up — perhaps I dreamed this?
I found myself outside at daybreak
in a village I did not know.
I asked a woman I met
carrying her daily water back
from a fountain,
tell me: who is shooting at us
from the hills above this village?
I know I heard the guns.
Before the shooting gets much closer;
before you have to drop your water;
before they spill your blood
let me take you by the hand.
You could flee this angry land
and go to where there are no guns.
Do you know this place, she asked?
Can you name it, offer a map?
I will go there myself when I am able.
Just tell me
where it is —
and then I woke up
having said nothing
of such a place
to her.
Perhaps I dreamed the name too?
Perhaps I never knew. Perhaps
there is no place like that.
It seems that I’ve had
this dream before,
and more than once.
It may be
that I have forever offered
such false hope.
You are late. You are not.
Call this hour what you want.
Either way, you must be on time.
This is how it has always felt
when you know you have come home.
It’s been too long, or not nearly long enough.
It was just long enough for you
to miss the taste of this tap water.
To have forgotten how old the pipes are
in this city, in this place.
You were thirsty enough to hope
rust and scale could quench your thirst.
One gulp from the same old tumbler
you’ve always used, taken down
from the faded cabinet where it rests
between visits, is enough
for you, this time. Rinse
the glass, turn your back,
turn the knob, and go back
to the road. To wherever
is next.
Perhaps this is the last time
you will ever come home. Perhaps not.
You don’t get to know
now. You can only know that
by going. By going out
to other places. By going
anywhere else.
You do understand
the thirst you feel at once
upon leaving but
you do have to go to feel it
and you know
you are one of those
who were born
to feel it, so off you must go.
Original title “Collateral Damage.” Written during the war in Nicaragua, so…1980s, sometime.
This poem was published in 2003, in 100 Poets Against the War (from Salt Publishing, UK).
Does it do any good to write poetry?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
What d’you call it
that thing
that thing that came in the night
that hung above our village
and a war fell onto us from its mouth
what d’you call it
what d’you call it
that thing
I couldn’t see it too well in the dark
I think it had grey skin
know it had red eyes
it wasn’t a dragon
it was too hungry to be a dragon
it was too angry
Whatever it was
a thing like that
ought not to be free
ought not to be let loose to do that
ought to be locked up
ought to be somewhere else
What d’you call it
that thing
that roasts your children
that cinders your wife
takes your father in flame
melts your tongue to the roof of your mouth
burns the consonants out of you
until all you can do is scream open throated, only vowels,
nothing to give shape or form to the sound
no words
and what words could you have had before this
to describe — this
what d’you call it?
yes I suppose
you could call it
a helicopter
a vertical takeoff and landing armored air support vehicle
an Apache
a Cobra
and I suppose its anger and hunger could be
a mistake
an unfortunate incident
nothing to deter us from our mission
but
HELLFUCKER – SHITCLOUD – DARKRAPER- CHILDBURNER – SKYEATER
STORMSWAN – DEVILROAR – DEATHBIRD – WIDOWERMAKER
FLAME GOD HAMMER –
all work just as well
just do not call this
“collateral damage”
there are no clean words for some things
Freddy was a cockroach in the corner
I took him down with the toe of my boot
It was that kind of bar
I left him crinkly-dead on the floor
The evidence of blunt and violent cleansing
right there for all to see
Let that be a lesson to your kind, you bug
Was there the next day
Now it’s
the day after that and
he’s still there
Regulars grumbling at the news on TV
Talking about the war
“Again with this shit —
always something with these people”
Freddy doesn’t hear it of course
being too dead for politics
Up the street there are gunshots
or so it would seem from the sound
College kids slumming look anxious
like they wanna run
but who the fuck knows if it’s safe
Regulars look up from their keno cards
Pay it exactly one dead cockroach’s
moment of mind — “it’s always
something — happens all over
Always something with people”
That’s a Thursday enough for me
and my roachkiller boots
Big death on the TV screen —
I could get that anywhere
Big fear in the half-gentrified street —
I do get that everywhere so
I take myself home
to a joint and Snickers bar
Watch TV some more and try to convince myself
we don’t all hate each other
even more than the modicum amount
of hatred we grew up on
We’re driving into a cold-water pond
drunk or stoned and as for Freddy
he just got eaten by one of his own
back in the corner of the bar
where the regulars grumble
and the slummers shiver
It’s always something with people
Upon the televised walls
sprays of
war flavored blood.
On the window,
a mist of brain drawn forth
by someone’s convictions.
There’s no regard.
no one reaching
for gentleness.
It is too late for such things.
No matter what we say, no security
is violent enough for us.
Beyond our screens
is a ravening planet. Anyone
I see in there is part of it.
Let this be our last call,
oh friends, oh companions.
Let us admit we long
for a fire fueled
by what we see as clean hate.
Yes, you too.
Last call. Hurry up,
please — it’s time again.
It’s time.
Pour a glass then toss it
against the screen. Let it
splash all over
the walls, the windows.
Aren’t you sick of yourself,
friends? Companions?
You can see howI am sick of myself.
I want all of me gone, all of everything —
right, left, wrong, right.
I long to have my last scene
be abrupt. To have the last days
end suddenly. To have Death snicker
and say, you liberal, you conservative,
you allegedly gentle person who allows
such a flood of killing by refusing to kill —
you are as much Death as I am
as I accuse and refuse and confuse
with diffidence sprayed with blood
and the screen goes red,
then black.
We are the worst.
Yes, you too.
Imagine yourself
among white sparks
coming off a grinding wheel.
You fly off, then vanish.
Just a byproduct
of loss in the name
of honing an edge.
What do you think
will be left behind?
It can cut. It can
let blood. I suppose
it has its own gleam of
beauty and a sheen
of crafter’s skill. You
will be gone by the time
it is finished
and you feel
you deserve
neither honor nor blame
for what comes next — so,
based on how quickly
you escape consequences,
you are probably
American through and through.
What you claimed to feel
was empathy.
What you truly felt
was irritation.
How dare the news intrude
with bombs and othered misery
upon that safety you’ve
been building?
You do feel a little ashamed
at this self-interest,
but you are pleased
that you have stopped briefly
to consider others
you will never meet.
People you will never
be. Lives you are certain
will not touch yours.
This is why your people
migrated here, after all:
to be untouched by others.
Morning work:
cat kneading on
its daily blanket,
now and then
anguished or delighted
but finally completed
work from me.
If no one ever
sees any of this I know
at least one cat
is happy. The blanket
might not know it
but it has played its part
as well as it always has.
As for me: what do I call
the feeling when some work
of mine is complete
and it was misery,
it was ecstasy or outrage
or all three and more beside:
or more to the point
what do I call the feeling
of it possibly being
the Last or nearly
the Last One?
The cat is content,
and the blanket just is.
I’m driven to keep going
into their space and then
getting up and going
elsewhere into the day
without ever knowing if tomorrow
will be the same.
Who will read this poem of blanket and cat,
anyway? Why should such compulsion
drive me? Am I the cat,
simply assuming each day will be the same?
Or am I the blanket,
there when the routine is not my own?
Are all of us just the means
to a still-unknown end?
He’s the shit.
One of Bowie’s
original vaseline tigers.
Moving with tide, hiding
his creaks and fears;
a good snake sliding by
on fearsome wholesome
appearance and
remnant style.
He’s the shit
or used to be
and lives for that
more than is safe
for someone of his age,
and surely we should thank
some god
for that.
Suppose you go
tell that man in the red Toyota
who is driving
around the neighborhood
jumping out
and handing a quarter
to each person he sees
telling them with huge grins
that it is for good luck and good news
in the coming new year
Suppose you decide
that it falls to you
to decide
that he’s nuts
You pull your kids aside
and pull out the trusty cellphone
to call the police
I bet that
even if you do all that
you keep the quarter
By your roadside,
your very own, the one
outside your house.
You are waiting
to be let
back inside.
Here they come,
leaving your doors open
as if no one lives there.
Someone’s
bagged and tagged
on a gurney. Not you,
though. They know
it isn’t you. They
are giving you time,
all the time you need,
before they open their mouths
and remove all doubt.
By the roadside, formerly
your own roadside, the one
outside the house
you’ll be selling soon,
the roadside you will soon
drive one more time.
Right now you’re cold.
You wish for a jacket
and like a machine
you will go back inside
and get yours from the closet
that soon won’t be your own.
Your own house
fading from view
until you cannot see it
as you drive away
in the fresh
dark cold.
Alternative output
is when bombs hit earth
and open up and flowers
cover all.
Or, alternatively,
when olive trees come
to full ripeness in the time
it would have taken to butcher
children’s bodies
and fling the parts widely across hills
where ancient groves once grew.
Alternative output
of this stale algorithm
might resemble a culture
that has forgotten how to fear
any other and has resisted
turning into fodder by bending
from the waist
to see common ground beneath them
and then rising to look into
the other’s eyes
with a steady gaze.
Alternative output
is not falling over for death
but remaining standing
long enough for
the killers and their children to notice
they aren’t extinct and have not toppled
into their history books.
Staying alive, tossing bombs
onto their streets that will bloom
like prairie, spread like salmon,
turn rubble and the still-standing dead
into sacred space filled with acolytes
of whatever will come
after you have gone.
I’m not sure I recall
what it looked like or
how it sounded.
I think
it used to have
music with it, but now
I’m not as sure of that as
I once was.
It had
a grand texture and a pleasing skin
but perhaps it has been flayed
in the ages since I last
laid a hand on it.
I’m limping in fog toward
the last place I saw it and
my cane’s not touching pavement
where I used to walk so easily.
Now I’m in fog so thick
I can’t hear the click
of the tip of the stick
hitting ground.
Maybe it’s broken and I’m reaching
for something below my feet
that is there but refuses
to let me know it remains solid,
but I dare not take another step
for fear of a cliff
and a fall.
Happiness indeed used to be
around here somewhere,
but I think it has moved on.
Whether you are eating well
or poorly; whether you are well-housed
or ill-kept by your gods; happy in wealth
or broken by poverty before all —
you stand, wherever you find yourself,
on the backs of monsters
who made this world. Yes,
there were good people too
but not as many as you would like
to count. There will be monsters
forever in spite of hope.This is
a world you do not need to believe in
to have it be true. (Ashes
flood your mouth at that thought.)
Your children might be among the monsters
in spite of your hope.
(Ashes in the water, in your bread,
in the air.) Maybe your find your own generosity
is monstrous to you? Nonsense. Fill your plate.
Tomorrow is promised. Bastards
and saints alike will thrive and clouds of ashes
will rise forever from their footsteps as you do
your best, watching it all from the backs
of the monsters you have ridden to get here.
Dark Matter 