Originally posted 12/12/2011.

War
can make my blood
sing a little.

I know myself
and the animal somewhere
within.

If I pet it the right rough way
now and then,
it stays quiet  — mostly.

I’m at peace with my bloodsong.
I do not deem it necessary
to pretend I cannot hear it,

and I do not deny
that war is a part of me.
It has settled on my hands

as tightly as skin,
snuggled cozily
in my mouth,

and my blood
bursts scarlet from my wounds
as if it were the chorus of a grand opera,

glorying as much 
in being shed as I do
in my potential to shed it.

Revile me for that
as you will — I will be 
your paradox: at peace

with not becoming
the hypocrite who turns away
from the sludge he carries inside.

Originally posted 4/25/2010.

According to my doctor
I’ve become
a limousine — 

I carry passengers,
and not necessarily
ones I’d choose on my own.

When first I heard I begged the doctor
for a uniform
or a very special hat.

“I’m afraid not,” he said.
“You aren’t the limousine driver,
you are the limousine.”

It was hard to accept at first
that I was no longer a vehicle
for my own journey

but I’ve gotten used to it.
It’s still a life
most of the time.

When the noise in the back
gets to be too much,
I raise the glass and forget it.

Once in a while
a voice will catch me right
and I’ll listen longer than usual,

maybe repeat
what it says
to myself when I’m alone.

These riders don’t care about me
as long as they get where they’re going
and the ride has some style all the way to the end.

I’m a limousine today but I don’t know 
what I’ll call myself
after I’ve worn out at last — 

a box, a rustbucket,
a shadow parked for good
in an unlit space.

Originally posted 6/20/2009.

From the street,
the dense chunk 
of a slammed car door.

A hard, confident summons:

“Hey pendejo –“

Two men speaking.
I can’t hear the words.

Then,
the first big voice again —

“You never know.
When it comes,
it comes.”

After that,
nothing more —

no car door,
no house door,
no words.

I turn off my lights, 
climb into bed,
waiting for something
that never happens.

Whenever it comes,
it seems
it won’t be
tonight.

Originally posted 10/18/2011.

You! You
tower of smart dirt, 
intelligent water,
column of excited minerals, whirling
storm of atoms, chattering prophecy
of the pure light
hidden in the darkest crevices — 
how is it possible
that all you want to talk about
is stopping the end of the world?

Get serious, you.
This world is not going to end.
Our species may shuffle off at some point,
other species will fall with us,
there will be suffering, it’s all a big mess — 
all true, all of
no consequence.

Your atoms are going to keep talking.
In a thousand years
they will come upon better truth
than you ever conceived,
or on to the same truth
you won’t acknowledge now:
we’re an extension of
the pure thoughts of stones.
Nothing’s ever going to stop them
from thinking, no matter how hard
we try to deny them the pleasure.

You! Get serious — 
yes, ease suffering,
redistribute wealth,
play fair,
establish guidelines, even
salvage as much of the planet
as there is in our remaining time
as you can
but do it because

it is in our shared calling
to do it
even though there is in fact
nothing ever lost
and therefore 
nothing to save.

Originally posted 5/31/2011.

Face up in bed,
wide awake,
waiting again to be impaled
like a bug on a pin
upon the memory
of the time I mercy-killed the squirrel
on the front lawn after its mauling
by the neighborhood stray
we all hated.

I pulled a strong knife
and slashed once, then twice,
over its tooth-mashed throat;
saw the spurt, saw it relax at once.
Then I reached for a stone
and nailed that dog in the ribs.

and it took off howling with me howling
after it, running it off, its shallow flanks
pumping ahead of me too fast
to catch.

I do not fear the memory for its horror,
but for its delights —

its promise of deus ex machina,
its flavor of massacres, camps,
and gallows blessed by others — 

its tang of permission.