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.

Welcome. Everybody is welcome.
Tired masses, welcome.
Those who were brought here, welcome.
Those who were here, welcome.
Old and new family, welcome all around
to everybody in line right now.
You are all the tired masses right now
and right now everybody
has to get in line. Get in line, everybody.
Lines being drawn, drawn around the tired masses.
The tired masses. We are everybody,
we who are tired. Masses of us
in lines, welcome. Welcome to the lines.
Welcome to the masses.
Open up your windows and your hearts
to the people in line. Break a window if you must,
if it’s holding you back. The cops will be by
shortly to handle the broken windows
between you and the tired masses.
The cops are so tired of the masses.
The line forms before the masses.
Get behind this line, masses.
Get behind this good blue line.
Everybody is welcome to stand
in line behind the line.
Welcome to standing in line
behind or in front of that blue line.
You will be asked to speak. Know your lines.
Know where you stand. Speak. Stand.
String yourself out along your line.
Lines tugged back and forth.
Every line, also a string.
Your strings are being pulled.
Strings are being pulled everywhere.
The cops are not pulling the strings.
The cops are just pushing the line.
Did you forget who pulls the strings?
Welcome, everybody, to the line.
Choose a line to stand behind.
See where you stand
and see who’s behind you.
Everybody
is watching everybody
to see where everybody else
chooses to stand.
Everybody is so tired.
Welcome to the fatigue state.
Welcome everybody.
The minute you think, you fall.
The second you fall,
in that second you are more than welcome.

Police have just announced
their symbolism will change
from blue to purple
in an effort to connect more deeply
with the bruised people
they’ve created.

Elsewhere, bankers dress down
to tout the green hue of money.
Get you some, it’s good for the planet,
they say, as they bury heaps of their own
in the holes left from others
working the black seams of the earth.

Don’t have a color of your own?
Someone’s out there with a straitjacket
that’s perfect for you. If you don’t see it on the rack,
ask. It’s likely in the back, the mythic back
where all the good stuff is held in secret,
the back you never see.

They keep changing their colors, you keep yearning
for your own. “Kaleidoscope” doesn’t really cut it
as a description of their colorway world. “Rainbow”
holds it all but they bought that too.

Out in the hot light of broad daylight
they try to leash you to their vision.

Makes you long for something
easier on the eyes.
Makes you long for the simplicity
of black and white.

They have something for that, too.

Revised from 8/28/2020.

In first light I see
the black cat waiting for her food
below her perch in the kitchen window.

“Jump up, beautiful girl — you
can do it!”

She leaps up light,
lands heavy, settles in
to treats and wet food. The calico
does the same for her bowl across the room;
they are, for the moment, content.

I allow myself a weak smile
before I start the coffee,
before the scent fills the kitchen,
before I look out the front windows,
before I take a breath
of the Stench out there
and ask the daily questions:

dare I turn on the television,
open my mail, think of how things
might be getting better or worse?
Dare I count the dead? Dare I count
sneers and curses? Dare I measure or note
the indifference of the alleged good majority
and call them out as the source of this smell?

It’s taken me far too long to call this as I sense this:
that it is not behavior seen or anger heard
nearly as much as it is an odor that chokes me,
makes everything taste less healthy;
odor so thick it coats my skin,
distorts my touch; a pale Stench
from a host of dark graves;
blood so soaked into our soil
that it stains every foundation
and leaks into the roots
of every tree and blade of grass.

In spite of how I choke upon the Stench
the cats seem to ignore it, are purring and happy,
falling back to sleep in their favorite spots
before I pour my first cup of coffee. I suck it down
and here I am again, wondering if today is the day
that I will suffocate at last.

One cat sneezes. I look up to see
the calico stretching. She wheezes a bit.
Might be the Stench,
might be simpler than that.

I’m sure it’s simpler than that.

My love is still asleep still in the next room.
All I want is for her to live through this
and thrive again, breathe clean again.
For myself? All I ask
is that I live long enough
to help clear the air.