All you have is trajectory
to sell you:
clear arc from
yesterday to now;
clean framing line
in mid-air revealing
origin, path, and
predicting destination;
but what are you now,
in the moment? Freeze
a second, long enough
for us to see your eyes
and the lines around your mouth;
are they from laughter or anger?
Let us see because assuming
based on trajectory is not
sufficient. Face us for once
as that arc behind you is smoke
and no one can tell
if you’re still on fire.
Let’s just hand over the water coolers
to the spies. Let’s see them
try to process all the loose words.
In a place born for free speech
why are we all so terrified that someone
might be listening to it?
Let’s get over it. Let’s
talk louder. Let’s not relent
at all; talk about everything
at once. Mention your
bowel movements in the same breath
as your passionate defense
of the right to violate a law
in pursuit of justice beyond it.
Give breakfast cereals credit
for insider trading. Describe your car
as the perfect example of style so wild
it terrorizes the road under it.
Don’t capitulate: overwhelm.
They won’t know what to do
with a firehose narrative. If by chance
they come for you, laugh at them.
We’ll laugh with you, all of us. Laughter
is the war they’ll never win.
Session the first:
it looks like a pin. it looks like a needle. it looks like a sting. it looks like a pain. it looks like a reminder. it looks like a bad time. it looks like a place to go. it looks like here is there.
Session the second:
a tube. a tunnel. a closed space. veins. arteries. empty inside the vessels. a heart pushing air.
Session the third:
it’s what I imagine the worst to resemble, but it seems peaceful. a man is there. a woman has just left.
now the man’s leaving. now the pin is in his hand, its point in the skin. he’s not bleeding. the empty veins. the whistling out of a wind that was in him. it seems like here is there.
have I done well? has this been a success?
what I was
keeps breaking
what I am
what I was
reminds me
I’m not whole
what shall be
terrifies
what I was
what I was
terrorizes
what I am
what will be
never minds
what I want
what I want
is to be
what I am
while never caring
for the pain
of what I was
What, were you
sensational and I
missed it? Apologies
from my bottom core — I was
elsewhere, captive
to smoke and some
shackling dream of
complicated motives.
I was enslaved and
I don’t use that term
lightly –it’s too heavy
a word for that. I didn’t
like my master and
hated my chains. I
lay there wishing I was
with you, really,
it’s not an excuse but
truly all the forces
that held me were stronger than
my desire to be there.
And you were of course
sensational! Of course
it would be the night
I was laden with blue
stone, held down to the earth
by its very bedrock, unable
to rise for you or me or anyone,
it’s purest coincidence that
I’m up and about now, a freak
emancipation raised me up
and I know it’s no excuse but
that freedom came too late
to let me get to you, and
there you were being sensational,
as I was being crushed, as I am
crushed now, figuratively
but still I’m crushed, it’s no excuse
but crushed really is the word
to define the blue granite basalt marble
nature of what kept me from you,
you being the sensational you you are
or so I hear, it’s not an excuse
I know, it’s not an excuse, it’s
really not about you,
you were I’m told and I’m sure
sensational and it’s
not an excuse, not about you,
it’s about me.
To begin, for each guest
a gift of honey in a small jar.
Broad leaves laden
with sticky-starchy rice, a bed for
cloud-white fresh fish, steamed
and spiced. Tall tumblers
of cool juices, a good wine
of unknown provenance
in a thick-walled carafe.
After, unfamiliar fruits
placed within reach
to be eaten at leisure.
Then I woke and this all became
a rapidly fading dream —
don’t recall, ten minutes later,
what the perfect conversation was
that accompanied it, do not know
the name of she who sat across from me
and made me feel small and
as full of future as if I were a seed.
I remember her eyes,
the taste of that fruit,
how the honey in glass
glowed in the sunset,
and how much I wanted
to call that place home.
Shabby mansion —
we’re so tired we are
starting to shake
more than usual;
afraid
of icecaps and ice tea,
we fear
children of various kinds
whether they’re on
magazine covers
or on our streets
after dark. We justify
anything from Listeners
to Watchers to
Robot Killers based on
our need to be
Absolutely Safe. Of that
we sing, reiterating
that the banner
continues to wave
through it all:
our very theme song
derives from
a siege mentality.
But the view
from the windows,
the view
from the porch:
still a prayer worth
raising, a waning
wilderness but still
worthy of awe —
what say we burn
the old house down,
camp here, build something
more modest?
Maybe this time
we can treat
our neighbors better,
give up our fear of Dark?
Maybe there’s something
to be said for dancing
around a fire?
Perhaps its light will validate
the ash left when we burn open
gates and walls.
Think of what faces we see
within the word
“us” — how many
do we let in? The children we kill
by gun and by drone
are children we ought
to call our own, no matter
who bore them or where
we find them — they
are in our hands,
in our yards,
waiting
to enter the light
from the cleansing fire,
and they’ll come
whether we invite them
or not, whether or not
we keep the shabby mansion
intact or burn it down.
(From a prompt in the GotPoetry Live reading series Facebook group)
My favorite loving
to watch
is that of damselflies,
him arcing abdomen back
to clutch her, her looping
abdomen forward to seize him;
lighting for hours
on the edge of marsh grass,
then breaking free of the spell
to fly off separately,
not to meet again,
everything fulfilled there.
I could look up formal
names, describe this in
minute words, kill it as biology lesson,
treatise on the aerodynamics
of mating, essay on metaphorical
images to be used in romantic poems,
but honestly? Would much rather
lie here in sunlight with you, practicing
such poses, delighting in the sensation of flight.
A ball
of rage
streaking to earth,
searing
clouds as it comes;
do you think
it’s going to bounce
or crash right through?
Do you feel safe
either way?
Be honest —
you do.
You figure
it’ll pull a Tunguska
and hit elsewhere,
elsewhere as
they always do,
but if I tell you
it’s a ball made of
mass rage at masses of
clueless people,
that it’s full of voices, reminders,
old grudges, justifications
for anger, that it seems pretty
solid and focused and
well aimed,
will you worry then?
Worry about a direct hit,
or even fear a little the bounce?
Nah, not you.
You aren’t clueless
and are certain no one’s got a reason
to be enraged with you.
That is why
I’m not going to tell you
anything else
about the ball
or its trajectory
or who lit it
before they fired it:
this
is going to be
interesting. I almost
said “fun,”
but it’s not going to be
fun.
For today’s users
what is old means nothing
if it’s not remixed —
They pick the bones
confidently salvaging whatever they can
even if it was not what was intended —
The old context
that’s now a rag of skin
around the skeletal neck —
All that’s left is for it
to be torn free
from what still matters —
those shiny bones
that clatter so beautifully
though they used to sing —
No remark upon sadness
or mutilation even if it is an improvement
can be tolerated —
context and the past
will just drag the bones down
into filthy graves —
I am unopposed to progress
Slew my own old dragons in my day
Still do my fair share of junking through them —
but cannot help thinking
of how they once roared
and burned —
were they not
the most lovely horrors
without my meddling —
Perhaps now
it is close to my turn
for the scrapheap —
this must be why I understand
such fires as theirs
and how they turned them against us
Good afternoon, armed meta-
physician; good afternoon,
thug drug dealer; good afternoon
to all the ships in port,
good afternoon to all
the tanks in formation, all
the gunners straining to shoot,
all the cavalry wondering
why their horses are flying
so hapazardly overhead;
good afterpart afterglow
of the afternoon
of another day of war…
bang bang BANG,
yes I meant afterglow; how
can the similarities
have escaped you?
How did you miss the foreplay
all morning, the undercard, the small
scatterling bullets
taking a life here and an arm there;
surely you were here for the main event,
the top of the bill, the monstrous moist licking
we took, the thrust
of what we gave right back?
How did you miss it? How do you not see
that it’s the only reason
the armed metaphysician and
the thug drug dealer ever find
common ground — when the horses
fly through the sexy air and land with
grand breaks and splayed eyes,
strange bedfellows practically
spoon, war seems less violent
and more romantic, more red,
more chemical reaction, more
of what men have decided
makes them come.
The classic rock band
on the concert stage
looks down upon you
holding up their one great album
in the front row
for an entire hour and a half
and says
it’s like the old days
but nothing like the old days
(or two of them do,
the two original members,
the rest being hired guns
who look at you and say
shame i’m not getting royalties from this gig
and proceed to rock out
with the clock out
figuring dollars earned
by notes played)
And what do you say?
You say
EEEEEYEAH!!!!!
and
WOOOOOOOOOO!
and are thus
entertained
well and fully
and are convinced
and are sated
and can go home
rejuvenated
well
a little
A redtail in the backyard,
startled from its prey
as I stepped out to water the garden,
rose with mouse or squirrel in hand
and then was gone.
This dense city around it of no importance —
here was a hint of wilderness.
Its abrupt departure loosed energy
into the morning, which surged into
my arms and at once I longed to fly.
Forget it all — the city,
its violent moves, its daily suppressions,
its suspicions and its
easy flipping from embrace to smother.
Forget it all and rise to the simplicity
of soaring, swooping for meals,
endless hours watching from high above.
God, I said, make me a hawk
and I’ll worship you like a hawk
with bones and blood and implacable eyes.
And then I went ahead
and watered the garden
and picked some cukes and
killed some vine borers, came inside
and had coffee and searched for hawk videos
while I waited for it to happen. I’m still waiting.
I’m sitting in the city
imagining not only
that I’m not here,
but that I’m no longer human.
Suddenly,
I find I am beginning
to laugh at myself.
I am not sure a hawk
can do that.
“Let it go, stupid.
You don’t need to hang a label on it.
You don’t need to rage about it.
You don’t need to fight.”
“Let it go, stupid.”
You have a shiny bleachface.
You have a cute bubble there.
You live in Bleachface Nation.
Let it go, you say? NO.
I hang a label on it.
I rage about it.
I need to fight.
“Tired of hyperbole…”
NO. Not exaggeration.
Must say it. Must be said.
My friends walk around terrified, mad, tired,
and I’m terrified mad tired with them.
Bleachface Nation demands terror
of them. How can Bleachface
shine without that?
And yes I look a little Bleachface myself.
I look just like the Big Fat Old Baddest Bleachface.
I am none of that — instead, my dark dad’s son.
But you’ll never know if I don’t prove it.
If I don’t prove it, state it,
call it out, fight, rage, battle,
hang a label if it needs hanging,
I become Big Bad. I become
the Lie. I might as well
knock on Bleachface Nation’s
pastel door. Might as well
stride on in. Lock out
what’s hanging on my heels.
Lock out my dad, grandfolks,
cousins. Lock up a bit of me —
shit, I might have to share a cell
with YOU.
Elevator music
The sound of what’s wrong
In small rooms rising and falling
The sound of what’s wrong
In offices
The sound of what’s wrong
These songs used to be actual songs
Now they’re the sound of what’s wrong
(In the restrooms the workers come and go
humming along to fake Coolio)
Someone likely my age who likely looks like me
takes raw music and polishes the edges off
Puts together a soundtrack
made for maximum uplift
and boost to productivity
or to calm a jittery rider
(man who isn’t a jittery rider right now?)
Isn’t it lovely instead to hear
something soft and pointless
and harmless and clear
(while back in the toilet they come and go
pissing and pooping to something slow)
Sound of something wrong
made comfortable so you don’t have to be
uncomfortable
rising from street level to penthouse
or falling slowly but certainly
from penthouse to street level
What instruments are being played
Why is no one ever singing
These used to be real songs
They contained real people
Used to be sung now and then at least
Sometimes conveyed real feeling
(while in the hallways the sleepers come and go
stumbling along to Curtis Blow)
Elevator music
the sound of something wrong
No one knows anything about it
Songs used to be
full of fire and bad notes and grit
but in the elevator or the doctor’s chair
we don’t have a second thought
we lie back and take it
and later we fall from on high
to watered down Clash on invisible speakers
and are not the least bit ashamed
It’s the sound after all of everything wrong
and who would debate that
everything is wrong
meet the new moss
same as the old moss
growing on the gangster
paradigm
all we wanna do is have some fun
lost in the supermarket
forgetting the words
as we shop
and the streets that bore it all for us
fall to riot and killing
but thanks to elevator music
we never have to hear about that
Dark Matter 