At home I wring out
my hands, my head.

I wring them out flat and
dry them crispy afterward.

My hands you may understand
but why my head, you ask?

I have to dry my head
to keep the tears from being seen.

I have to dry my head
to keep the flies off the pools of sweat.

Little must anyone know
of what my head has become.

I need to keep the maggots off.
My hands don’t matter so much, of course.

Everyone’s got maggots on their hands
these days, what with all the casual death.

With all the casual need to pick up
the bodies from the street.

With all the nonchalance
with which we try to keep things tidy.

The people choose how they want things to look.
I know it doesn’t matter that much.

But my head they have to look at.
My eyes are on fire and focused.

My head needs to be seen for one brief shot.
They need to be shaken up, out of the stupor.

Out of the chill of the still damp hands.
Into the fever of the freedom-knowing brain.

So I wring my head out until it’s paper dry
and ready to be set ablaze.

I will be gone then.
Maybe they will follow me in flames.

Flames of red, white, blue.
Flames that burn down this — this thing.

I won’t be here to see it.
But someone will. Someone certainly will.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

One two three,
ONE two three —
one, two, three…

cannot escape
the rhythm — one,
two, three…

Close my eyes:
still there. Even though
I am tired of it.

Even though I know
there are others,
myriad others;

one two three
ONE two three —
all in my stomach

till I’m starving
for more — march time,
a two step —

all I get is a cursed march;
one two three ONE
two three —

almost a forced step,
almost a procession
armed to the teeth,

soldiers all of them.
All of them — did I mention
marchers, paraders,

people in timed cadence
walking toward an edge?
One, two, three, ONE

two three — they are mostly
not me, not anyone I
consciously know

except through suspicion.
I detect the march where
there isn’t one or perhaps

there is? One two three
ONE two three. Close
my eyes and see them

marching, lock step
toward the edge of things.
Toward the place of

fires. One two three,
ONE two three — world
goes along, trees

sway along — is there
a war worth marching to
or not? We are

the unwitting butchers
set to chop and we
don’t even know,

as long as we do it
in concert with others
and can do it quietly

enough — in cadence,
in step — one two three
ONE two three…

and in silence, I
march along; unknowing,
I march along;

hard butcher, unwilling;
in lock step but marching
desperately; one two three

ONE two three…

————-
onward,
T

Inefficient is the only word
I can come up with to describe it;

troubled, redoubled are the lonely words
I must use to call it forth.

Those don’t work well, either.
I’m lost in a mess between them.

If another word works to carry it forward,
let me know soon because

in the plot of things only barely known
I am having difficulty sorting the world out

from right and wrong, true
and false. You know words don’t work

like they used to do. You know
all meaning is suspect. Mostly

I live on feeling, sighing at the vision
brought to me by words

and left on my doorstep,
waiting for me to pick it up,

put it on like a stole or a robe.
I could be king if I did —

that would mean little
to anyone. Instead I live

breathlessly, un-forming
the nature of words like

beauty, freedom, and peace.
They don’t mean that much —

namely everything worthwhile,
large, and endless. Every second there

could be the One. Every feeling
could be the last one I ever feel.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

I wake up slowly
thinking,
I might like to shoot
the President today;

then I rethink it
and think about everyone else
I’d need to shoot
to make wishes come true.

I’m so tired
anyway, waiting
for the hibiscus
to bloom, waiting for

dead fires to start
among the dead wood
below me. This is why
I awaken so slowly:

there is so much to do
and I do so little anyway.
So I have learned to sleep
with one eye open

waiting for my clear shot,
for a day to clear and offer peace
to the waking mind, to pray
against hope for grace.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

So the lower river came to flood stage
The river rose until it could find no more banks
And then it spilled over into our streets
It drowned cars, dogs, homes
And the people upstream from us
Did not care that we were broken and wet
Did not care that we were hungry and cold
Did not care that we were dying

So the lower river came beyond its limits
The upper river stood by and shook its head
As it poured out upon us unthinking of our grief
The upper river masses shook their unthinking heads
They did not care about anger or grief
They did not care that we felt alone and chilled through
They did not care about how we bent down for rocks
To throw at them when we came to it at last

So the upper river changed its mind about us
As the lower river rose in a raging red tide
As we fell upon them with nothing to lose
As we rose toward them in a storm of bodies
They fell to our boulders upon the earth underneath
They rose in the daytime and cowered at night
And the air rejoiced as the water receded
And they had fallen below the line and had drowned

They had drowned unthinking with us up above
Left us alone with our thoughts and the grief
Of sharing the world with the dead until we joined them
Of sharing the world with our own dying

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

Everyone, ask the world
for mercy, ask this planet
for forgiveness;

turn your face to the stars,
forget definition and transition
and just let things be;

in the universe there are more
startling and lovely places than this
and everyone ought to know them;

there are places more tender, more
sweet to the touch, and right here
is where we get to know their worth;

if you know their worth you will strive
to keep them close even if you fail,
even if you choke on the ash heaps;

should you fall before them
and you drown in their slightness,
their unworthiness, their triviality

you will still look up at the stars
and wonder at them, even as stormy men
slay you, even as the brutes come down

with perfected bullets and advanced swords
to take you apart they will turn away
from the slaughter and one by one

they will share your dream, will
cower before it; they will share your hearts
bursting then lying still;

they will go home to their children
after all is done; they will sit a long time
in the dark of living rooms

and wonder, if only for an instant,
only for a blink, how stars shone
within you as they stepped to the work

and let swords fall, let bullets ring,
let it happen instead of saying,
“no more. No, no more.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

Leaving my rest to awaken
and see what will become
of us all.

Now, I could remain asleep and be
bewildered and bothered by it all
until my own departure

but the leaves are coming up
from the messy dirt and they
express an imperative:

you need to stay and see
whether anyone matters. So I stay
and watch and the birds change,

the weather changes, everything
in fact mutates and shifts back
to where it used to be

before the dreadful winter.
I’m not the same yet I am
similar, waiting for something

or anything different to happen.
Luminous clouds, the same yet different;
cruel men and women, the same

yet different. Still, I am
changed somewhat: like chewing
on tinfoil; like facing up to pain

unbearable and yet
bearing up to it as it bears down
like a wave on the sand.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

It’s dark. A place
is set for breakfast,
or it’s left over
from last night
where it wasn’t used.
One car speeds down
the one way street.

The radio
spins a song about
Sally, who is now a cop
but used to be a soldier
and witnessed a massacre
back then.

I’m not really listening
to this one. I wasn’t listening
before it started, to be honest.
Massacres bore me when they are
somewhere else. There are love songs
that bore me equally, to be
equally honest. I prefer
instrumentals, to be brutally honest —
I don’t have to wring my hands
and fret the meaning or step out
and do a damn thing. To be
savagely truthful I am
too frightened to move much
beyond the couch or the doors
to the outer world. Massacres
abound out there, after all.

Another car turns down, speeds down
the one way street. I turn to see
dawn light between the slats
of the blinds. Dawn here,
perhaps a last dawn? I shrug
it off. It’s terrifically silent
for a moment
and then the radio comes on with
“Blue Bayou”
and wistfulness fills the dark room;
I shrug it off yet again. Sally
was a cop, dreams come true
on the bayou, the world moves
through its terror and here I am
alone in a scary day.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T