Ending now
a pursuit of knowledge
I once demanded,
I light up with the smile
of an idea: maybe
I know enough
to carry me forward
from here. Perhaps
there’s no need to sample
further, perhaps there’s no 
reason to inspect and codify
each speck and moment.
There are so many birds
and songs in the world,
so many people to know
that perhaps I should stop
and assume I’ve had enough
of them all, that any new experience
can be understood through applying
what I already know.  
This is perfect: I’ve grown tired
of unrelenting.  

Exhausted,
I lay me down on a cool bed
in this well ordered place,
and cease dreaming, comfortable
at last.

Don’t you fear
that the battle we’re waging
is lost already?  
Already the sky’s red
with our cities burning,
with tearing rockets unstitching the night.  
Already the sea is lost
and the earth is awash
in spilled oil and blood;
already we’ve all lost good sense,
can’t explain why we’re still fighting,
other than to say we must
if only to keep
from slaying ourselves
in despair.  

And yet we stand
armed and ready,
armed to the teeth
on behalf of what will not return;

and yet we are here,
frontline desperate,
rear guard
desperate,
hands slippery,
feet horned and howling,
guts open to the fire.  

Here we are.  We still
fight, fall in love, fight,
bear children, fight, fight,
sling our fists balled up against
the incoming, sing, fight,
keep a bulletproof coat of colors
on the back door for going out,
wear it out to fight, say
we look good, look like warriors,
the cause is lost but now we’re found
in the war, the war, we’re here
for the war, we’re here,
here in certain harm’s way,
here, regardless of the urge
to give up, raising children 
not to give up even though
the war’s lost
and we have nowhere
now to be.  

this drink’s
cold enough
for the thirst I have now

but in an hour?
will it be cold enough
for the thirst I know will grow
the more I drink?

it’s like my hunger
that gets quiet on crackers
now 
but will holler like a stevedore
in the night
awakening me
demanding entire cows — 

the more easily I’m satisfied now
the less satisfiable
I’ll be
later

Explosions outside —
Fourth of July weekend
but that’s nothing new,
there’s always a big bang
at least once a night — the signal
of a new universe,
perhaps?  Makes sense —
who’s not looking for a new one
these days?   I know that after
each sharp report
I wait in vain for a fresh planet
to soar past my window, and
blowing something up
to get one seems
more and more attractive. 

The dangerous people
stare out of doorways
at the safe people

on the streets
the safe people
call their own.

In some streets
they switch places. That’s how
we keep everything running:

call it a safety valve. Call it
the social order.  The dangerous ones
get to be the source of safety

in their own neighborhoods.
The safe ones get
everything else.

Sometimes
a safe one will love
a dangerous one.  They

keep this to themselves;
it softens things.  It makes
the streets sodden

and uncomfortable.  That’s
how we re-allocate the streets
from time to time: when a street

gets too sodden, it changes hands.
Another is chosen
to replace it, everything goes back

to normal, with the dangerous ones
in their doorways staring out
at the safe ones

until
someone in love with the Other
cracks it and the flooding starts.

There’s a nice small house
unfinished on the beach. There’s this

one last board to be held in place,
one last half driven nail.

There’s this hammer
on the shore, and a wave

coming in — in fact, there are
a lot of waves. Big strong

waves.  The wave
won’t pick up the hammer,

but you keep trying, though.
You keep putting the hammer

into the waves expecting one of them
to drive that nail for you.  

I say, you could just turn around
next time you’re holding the hammer

and finish this up,
drive that nail, you know.

Yes, you say,
but how will the world ever learn

to bend to my will if I do 
everything myself?  This is

the right thing to do, you’ll see,
and you go back to 

trying to float a hammer on the ocean
while your little house leans into the sand

behind you.  I walk away before
the tide starts to come in.

Big mistake,
entering the store late
and walking around not certain
of what I want —

I pick up the store detective
almost at once, hovering
one aisle over, his own certainty
about my larcenous desires
a tangible fragrance.

I lead him on.  Lean into
racks of shirts and swivel
my head around.  Duck down
where he can’t see me
and preserve the elements of proof —

dude, I used to do that job.
Not here, but elsewhere, and damn well.
I know you’re cursing yourself; been there,
done that.

I’ll take pity on you tonight.
Catch your eye, smile, shrug.
You look so angry! Isn’t it good
to know I’m not stealing anything?
Isn’t it good to be wrong about

another human being
who is not living up
to your worst expectations?
Are we both this far gone
that this is our Saturday night?

Here’s to you,
wake and bakers,
joint over coffee suckers,
hiders of whiskey
in “World’s Greatest Dad” mugs;

hail, hail,
pills at daybreak takers,
Marley rocking pajama stoners;

here’s a toast to you carpool dodgers
passing the buck in favor of lifting
the mood, here’s to your health
and the health of the children
you didn’t drive to soccer practice
on a Saturday morning
because the clouds were so…
cloudy;

raise a glass to you, 
shower tomorrow people,
maybe tomorrow people,
call it a day before 9:00 AM people;

here’s to you.

May you live long,
the liquor firing a thunderstorm
in your gullets, your eyes
red as sunrise flashing back into the dawn;

may you dance clumsily behind the blinds
and tell yourself, again and again,
it’s just this one time
as you slip into the folds of the comforter
and fall into a stupor.  

Once you’re past the morning
the day has always tended to crumble;
may you instead open the party and close the bar
before the rest of us even know you’re wrecked,
and may the sleep you enter
be dead, and may the death
be temporary.  

May you open your eyes
upon a new life
where you can swallow the morning straight
and never have to answer for these lost days.

May you find yourself drunk at last
on nothing but the good light
of the good day you believed, always,
would someday come
without having to coax it into being.