Close your frightened eyes
if you’re on fire;
you’ll still burn
but you’ll be able to pretend
you’re not damaged
for a little while.

Close your burned eyes
if you are blind;
you’ll have
a moment of hope
that a miracle may happen
once you open them again.

Close your lying eyes
before you dig them out
with your bare hands
and imagine that they are gems
you did not expect to ever hold
in your ruined hands in this life;

then put them in your pockets
and pray they’ll be able to see
in that darkness you carry around
in there all the time,
in the emptiness once meant to hold
valuable things.

Stalled
motionless
in sudden awareness
of the dirty rug
and cat-furred blankets,

I turn down the music
and think:  what should I do
next?

A chore’s a way of arresting
entropy toward
an inescapable fate:
things will get dirty
with our traces and fragments.

What shall I do next?
Sit down and return to the work
of poetry?
Isn’t that just creating
more dirt, or at least
pushing the dirt that’s already there
into pleasing patterns?

What shall I do next?
Sit and think some more,
let the dirt pile up,
plan to mold it later
as if I were the successor
to Picasso, only to see the work
covered in another layer
of remains and leftovers?

What shall I do next?

The vacuum in the next room
is defense against the vacuum
in this one,

and that one
marvelously
turns on and off
with a switch.

Blurry Southern Rock night
at the town beach. 
Scent of weed
and sound of horseplay
out by the drainpipe.

Pit’s beating the crap out of Russell again,
Nancy and Linda are screaming,
and I can’t get the front seat of the Celica
back to an upright position
so I can get out of here. 

Sirens
coming closer, closer, then they fade
away.

“How come they turned off?”

Next day we hear that
while we were pissing our pants,
Wally was stabbing Marc two miles away
at the pits.  Argument over two rotten
little brothers and a botched B & E,
two older brothers
messing each other up over honor
and family, which little brother
ratted out the other —

and then Marc died and they caught Wally,
so that’s it.

“So that’s why they turned off.
They went down there.  Damn.
Lucky, huh? Sucks for Marc, though,
and Wally too…” 

Russell chops out a couple of lines for each of us,
and Pit’s the first to bend to the mirror.
“Here’s to Marc!” 

Friendship’s a great thing
at times like these.  We’re gonna go all night again,
play some cards,
boogie down as always to the Brothers
and pretend we’re outlaws,
forever outlaws.

In an instant from now
a woman will start to tell someone
her life story,
not starting at the beginning
but with a carefully chosen anecdote
she has used many times before
to set the stage for all her other stories
she has to tell
but which will have to wait
for another night.

In an instant from then
the person she has chosen to speak to
will tune out and focus on
something else, perhaps because
it is uncomfortable to sit and listen
to such things, perhaps because the story
is unbelievable, perhaps because
there is another person that makes more sense,
or because the tattoos on the teller are silly
and distracting, and the storytelling
will seem all for naught.

but in an instant from then
another person listening
as she tells the story to someone else
is going to realize how empty
this life has been
and make a silent promise
to begin to fill it
as soon as this is over.

Every instance,
a connection.  Every following instance,
a connection.  Every connection,
intended or unintended,

the destined connection.

When they come for you,
when they take you down
or in, put you in the cage
or on the ground, slap you
or tase you or gas you,
call you their names
and steal your own —

when the consequences
come down at last
it may not be comfortable
or sweet, it will not be easy,
but you must recall

that they are slaves
to something — fear or safety,
anguish or tradition,
a past or a promised future.

It will not be easy
but it is the only thing
that may save you
from doing the same to them
when the wheel finally turns.

Luck and love to those of us
who sweep the corners of our rooms
to catch the leavings and the discards
and make them into something new.

Love and luck to those who see
a moment as an eon in miniature
and then pull history from its passing
to capture what we all would otherwise forget.

Love and luck to those
swept up in words,
who know how difficult it may be
to step aside from the rushing day

and work to hold on to all that which happens
so swiftly that without love and luck
it would vanish unremarked: each morning’s small miracles,
each evening’s resignation to the fall of night.

Born already fucked
as if the poke and stroke
that begat him
had imprinted him

Born a lot of things already
Broken
and maybe evil
Perpetually behind the curve

Grown crooked
Cursed into a bad shape
His better angels locked down
Straining and failing to break out

And proud
So proud of his standing
That their straining was hidden in his ramrod posture
No sign of the struggle within

No one ever touched him
the way the angels could have
He didn’t care
and stood glowering at the doors of the church

Ready to walk in
But needing a moment to pose
before surrendering
to a knowledge

that even if this was not
to be his last stop
it was a step he needed to take
and evil-clothed as he was

he needed to take it dressed
as he had always dressed
Frightened and frightening as always
but mad proud that he had made it here

in spite of having been
born fucked
and perpetually
behind the curve

Let’s start this by saying
she’s cute in that
wow-before-all-the-alcohol-you-musta-been-something
kinda way.

She’s ranting at Mrs. Bell
who’s doing her
good-natured-suffering-because-this-one-is-going-to-buy-something-eventually bit
from behind the counter.

The Ghost Of Cutie Past is agitated,
proclaims
“I’m French, German, Indian, Irish and
Russian.  I rule this earth.
I need my vodka. I have a princess suit —
I’m sensitive!  I could be
on Oprah!  I mean, I need my vodka,
why would they do that to me?”

Mrs. Bell rolls her eyes in my direction.

All I want to do is pay my cable bill
so I can have uninterrupted access to the Internet
and all the good shows on TV,
but right now
I’m beginning to reconsider
what I call a need.

As I leave, Mrs. Bell is saying,

“I know you’re angry, honey,
but honestly, they’re a business,
what did you think they’d do?”

The answer’s lost behind me
as I walk out the door
to my car and head for home.

I’m not drunk or stoned,
not too cold,
was never pretty so I’ve lost no looks to age
and wear,
don’t have a princess suit though I bet
I could get one,
and this is one sensitive half-breed
who knows he’ll never rule the earth —
but I’ve been there, friends,
I’ve been where she was, and
I’ve been where Mrs. Bell was, too.
I’ve asked the same questions,
and given myself the same answer:

How could they do that to me?

Why won’t Oprah call me, or someone
who’ll let me talk it out
and make everything better?

What, exactly, did you expect them to do?

Maybe I should have stuck around
just a minute or two longer
and found out.
Maybe I should have handed over
one moment of sympathy for these neighbors
bound to the eternal questions —

but the TV’s waiting,
and there’s a whole world of unmet friends
waiting on this
critical message
I was born to share.