Behold: a country of nested
borders.

Look at it and be awed by
the Big, the Bright, the Beautiful of it.

If you manage to twist it open and enter
you’ll find another within —

less Big, less Bright. (Beauty is in
the eye of the contained.) If you

go in, you will find another,
and then another; it will be dim in there.

At the heart, a battered core with two faces:
one, Black Kettle, the other, Nat Turner;

it is nowhere as Bright and Beautiful
as the Big Doll you can barely recall

now that you’re
all the way in and can see

that even though it is full,
it is also hollow.

They will look back upon us and see us for idiots
looking for stars to do work we needed to do.

They will say the great conjunction
was not Jupiter and Saturn’s illusory closeness

but our own embrace of magical thought
in the face of the growing heat and disease

that took us down. They will say this
while shaking their heads at how

we ignored the mocking laughter
of the implacable science that runs the universe

as it rolled right over us. Our hatreds
spread like a plague even as a true plague

spread just as fast, as we choked the oceans and air
until we were choking as well. The Great Conjunction,

they will say, was not the doubled up light in the sky
but people down here, a black hole,

angry, scared, crowded
into one another so tightly

nothing could penetrate.
No light, no heat, nothing in there

but faith in the efficacy of crossed fingers,
crosses, and whatever the stars might say —

although the stars said nothing except
this one, dear people, is all on you.

This society’s been
huffing gasoline for so long
it can’t sense anything else

All those cells vaporized

It has killed its way
to this point and now
it has only itself left to kill

in the hope it will feel something then

Thrived on erasure
All those bodies left behind
that it can’t even see

The dead keep screaming for it to turn back

Maybe it hopes
that those corpses will compress and fuel
a future like their past

It imagines that it lives on dinosaur leavings

Of course it is wrong about that as well
but without full brains
the people it has sheltered will never understand

how all they have left is fire

We are the movie
(you know the movie)

which just doesn’t look the same now
(does it)

If we had seen it from the beginning
without the mystique

or the audience theatrics to guide us
to an opinion on it

the cringe coming up in the mouth now
at the offenses

might have surfaced earlier
and while some of us had fun for a long time

there were others who said
it wasn’t working for them

and we looked at them funny
at the very least

At least the music was good
and some of those on screen were hot

and we now know how
when certain people show up or speak

we are supposed to yell
ASSHOLE

but overall it’s mostly horror
at what we’ve been fed

Isn’t it nice to end up in a place
where the scent of your own disaster
is hidden by the local atmosphere?
Isn’t it justified and good to be breathing in
the same staleness for which you’ve always lived?
All you past loves hate you, all your past wars
were lost causes, all your big mistakes were
ongoing, and yet here you can be free to call them
romances, victories, and corrected. Perpetually now
you can be a boy with a gun and clear enemies;
perpetually you can now be wronged and small;
you are perpetually heroic now, in that dinged up
tinfoil armor. Breathe it in, suck it up.
If you start to choke it’s got to be the fault
of the world outside where shifting and changing
are sins of the weak.
Isn’t it nice to be able to call that out then breathe deep
and call this stench perfume?

To begin with, take off your funeral suit
but do not put it completely away
in the back of the spare room closet.
Do not forget how it looks on you
and how often you’ve had to wear it.

When you begin to speak, remember
that some folks have never been to
the number of funerals you’ve attended.
Some have never been to any
and will not understand a word you say
but talk anyway. Some don’t believe
people die as often or as unfairly
as you know they do

and you will not make them feel grief
easily or quickly. Talk anyway; you might need
visual aids. Some only see death
when it’s as close as the next room
so when you speak of death to them,
you will have to simulate the sound
of death knocking on the adjoining wall
to make them understand.

Some of them will smirk and speak
of Darwin and some will speak of Jesus.
All of these people will speak of what is right
and what is deserved; most will stare you down
and shout the word “justice.” Talk anyway, seeking
those among them who, even as they sneer,
will avert their eyes. Talk to them; ignore the rest.

Many of them will be the kind of people who say,
“If I die…” Show them your funeral suit; tell them
how often you’ve worn it; show them the shiny cuffs,
the worn tie tucked in the pocket after the church hall
reception; say the names of the dead and how often
they died saying, “if I die…tell them how
I was killed. If I die, make it mean something. If I die,
remember my name.”

Maybe you will say something to someone that will work
but don’t put away your funeral suit after that.
Don’t bury it deep. Don’t assume you’ll get to wear it again
only when they put you at last into the ground.

We are better than this.

We are better than this.
Observation or imagination?

We are better than this.
Twenty-four carat certified
path just barely tightrope wide
between those two. Show me
anything solid for either
and I will kiss your feet,
make you my idol.

We are better than this.
Aspirational, delusional?

We are better than this.
Are you? Am I? I can’t tell.
There’s such a difference
between the ways we are
that better means nothing
or less — what were we,
what have we been?

We are better than this,
in spite of every last nail
in every bed we’ve been asked to lie on.
In spite of all the people around us
soothed by the hammering.
In spite of hammers, and nails,
and the majority
who can’t even admit they’re bleeding
from the pressure and the points
and the constantly broken skin
of their backs.

We are better than this.
Say it until
you choke on it,
and then
what?

Cut a head of cabbage in half
with a large, sharp knife. Reserve half
for soup.

Take the other half
and chop it roughly
into shreds. Set aside —

in a large skillet heat olive oil,
saute garlic. Add the shredded cabbage
to it. Stir violently, over and over,

till coated and as it starts to wilt
in the hot pan progress to adding
generous salt and coarse black pepper.

When wilted down to a limp mass
eat at once, with other meats or
on its own; simple food, a little hot,

a little sweet as well. You will be
fortified for the next war —
and of course, you will have learned something

about the heft of a large, sharp knife.

The driver of the white Sentra in front of me 
at this legendary most dangerous intersection in the city

has tossed a handful of crumpled bills into the face
of a panhandler on the curb. 

He’s turned left onto the highway ramp,
accelerated, is gone.
I could see him laughing
through his open window
before he got away.

I turn wide around the old man
as he steps off the curb into traffic, 
bending to try and collect the money
before the wind takes it.

If this were not
the most dangerous intersection
in the city, I would stop to help,
or at least to block the cars
behind me. As it is

I’m hydroplaning
as I turn onto
that same ramp —

slipping toward ruin
on a puddle of shed grace.