I was always told,
“Pick your battles,”
but that was one piece of advice
I was not able
to follow. No,

my battle picked me
when I was young
and tattooed a new name,
“Casus Belli,”
on my sword shoulder.

Threw its own
meaty slug of an arm
over me, pointed me
at a corner, said,
“Stand there.

Let them come to you,
don’t be more afraid
than them, and turn loose
everything I’ve taught you,
every time.”

Now, after all these years,
I’m a pretty hyena laughing
as I gnaw you down.  I’m ready
to admit the transitory fun
I have…but know I didn’t

choose this role,
I’ve just made the most
of a bad moment
that never
seems to end.

Let me promise you
that I’m truly ashamed
of how good it feels
to let the sharp edge
swing.  In all my dreams I see

a vulture singing
for me, a carrion fly
in my ear…and I know
what meal they’re waiting
to enjoy,  so know I am no happy-go-lucky

warrior.  I just can’t escape
my first kill, who
has never left me.
He wants your arm
for his arm.  He wants

to see me fall
the way he fell, and pushes
on my back every time
I see the apparently easy mark
of my next attack.

When I come for you,
remember this.  Release me from it
if you can.  I long for it,
or rather he does, and somewhere
the first battle that picked me

is sleeping soundly,
secure in the wisdom
of what happens when
that name is given to a scared young man
and he is handed a weapon

he will soon learn to love
more than he could ever
love himself.  I doubt he stirs
much in his sleep.  I bet
he couldn’t tell me my real name.

Tags: poems, poetry, meditations

Like water
that becomes a rope
or snake
when you close your hand around
the stream pouring from the end
of a running hose;

like air that furs itself
and shoves its nose
into your palm
when you hold your hand
upright out of the window
of a moving car;

like grass biting
your legs and arms
as you roll upon it,
leaving you stung and itching
for hours —

some things,
once invisible or seemingly
innocuous, come to life
and push back upon you
when you surrender your usual
inattention
and bring them close.

When you let them live,
they live — not entirely
like pets, not entirely
wild:

reminders of how once
we all danced in anticipation
before barely tamed fires
and expected the entire cosmos
to present itself
and begin speaking.

Under the sounds
of the electric fan
and the traffic, the television
and the click of this keyboard,

there is a voice smooth as cedar flute
expertly played,
simple and utterly present
in this room full of noise;

I could turn off everything
and listen more closely,

but I know
there is no song
except that drawn
from out of chaos.

Feeling a strong motion
all of a sudden.
Is it the earth or the body moving?

If it is the earth,
stand still and observe.

If it is the body,
stay alert.

The elephant and turtle,
so long and so often cited
as the carriers of the earth,
are known for slow wisdom.

If the body is moving,
do not disrespect their stasis.

If the earth is moving,
take the ride.

And of the possibility
that both the earth and the body
are moving, perhaps in the same direction,
perhaps at cross purposes,
nothing more need be said except
watch, listen,
and choose the path
to be followed.

I know this buzzing —

a city inside me of a hundred thousand
at least,
commerce, trade in waste and fuel
and emotion,

you call it chemistry
but I know it is more.

I am the census taker
aware of its dark neighborhoods,
its dangerous wastelands on the fringes,
the empty warehouses of the port district,
long streets with sad vapor lights humming
and only the odd car passing;
the living spaces for the unknown people
inside me, with some of their dwellings dark
and others lit as they sit for hours talking
into the night, perhaps
with their heads in their hands
and little to say to each other
as hard as they try;
some buildings shabby and empty
for the most part with squatters hiding
in the devastated rooms left behind
when purpose abandoned them
to the salvagers who make do;

then in the downtown grid of the chest
there are the revelers who make chaos of order,
spilling from bar to bar, loud, happy,
some desperate and longing for contact
with an immoral gleam in a longing eye;

and now across the freeways in my arms
to the fingers
that spew energy as refugees flee
wishing they were somewhere else,
inside someone else
as this city I am is no place for them.

I am left to house
the least desirable, the flight outward
allowing me only the discomfort
of knowing who will be left behind —
the leftovers, the citizens too weak
to leave me and those who prey upon them.

I sit with my own head in my hands,
the city buzzing inside me,
a song of bees gone wild, stinging me tired
from holding this all together,
this city of monuments
and painful trials, a metropolis
behind my eyes,

failed capital
of a failing state. 

Tags: poems, poetry, meditations

A graduate sits,
thinking
of the old school.

Fireworks across the highway
from his couch
bang the night apart.

Back in the day
he loved the fireworks
after games,

loved the way
it smelled when the last squib
had ignited

and everyone walked home after
talking and flirting and
laughing.  Smelled

like a little bit
of hell
was in the air

and back then,
he liked that.  Now
he sits on the couch

swapping stories
over the Internet
with former hellboys.

Now and then a burst
from the campus
will give him pause

but he’s old enough to know
close up, the noise
would kill his listening

for the subtleties he prefers now:
a well-turned play, a pass carved in the air
like a swallow’s path.

As for what accompanied
the old school games,
the dark talk on warm nights,

in that he has little interest.
Give him a chance to see again
the way the game can be

an art, a painting of effort
in mere atmosphere,
and he might get up from the couch

and walk down the road to watch
the fireworks, but only after
the last play has been made.

I used to ride a horse.
He used to throw me a lot.
He used to run off with me on his back
and go where he wanted,

so I sold that horse
and got a brain instead.
It used to throw me a lot.
It used to run off using my mouth
and people shunned me,

so I put him in the stall
where I used to keep my horse
and I got myself a shiny heart instead.

It used to throw me a lot.
It used to buck and slip its bridle
and kick me whenever I tried
to stroke its damaged nose or brush its tangled tail.

So I hobbled that dinged up heart
and got myself a gut instinct.
It used to throw me a lot.
It used to make me follow it around
and I ended up in brambles
cursing what led me there.

So I put the gut instinct
in another stall
and got myself a dream.
It used to throw me a lot.
It used to run smooth for a while
and then stop short so I’d fly
way out over its head into mud
and scrape myself getting out
and stand there while it grazed,
ignoring me for not knowing how to ride.

So I put that dream out to pasture
and now I’ve got a lot of mouths to feed
that aren’t doing me much good.
That throws me a lot.
That makes me want to slit my throat
and think about electric fences and chairs
and nooses.

Maybe I should have
stuck with the horse
for a little while longer.
I could have worked
a little harder.  I could have learned
to love it.  We might have formed
a bond.

Good to be Lion. 
Sleep between blood feasts.
Be called noble strictly on looks.

Better to be Lioness.
Work the kill.
Stand over it and let the babies feed.

Better to be Gazelle.
Lie there after heart busting run.
Be part of the chain.

Better to be Vulture.
Watch, float down, eat, survive.
Hang away from the others in a pack.

Best, of course, to be Bones.
Best as well to be Leavings.
No guilt except that of unwanted peace.

And as Bones, as Leavings,
best of all to be the Same
as Lion, Lioness, Gazelle, Vulture eventually.