The lights going out,
the body count,
the murderous twitching
of hollering masses.
Fire, flood,
etc.; a terrifying
traditional list of plagues
and calamities; nothing
undocumented
or unprophesied.
You stare
at pictures of small, cute, furry.
All you want
is to put your arms around
a baby alpaca.
That’s also a tradition:
putting your trust in the belief
that the New World
will save you from the Old.
waking again surprised to be
still alive this far out to sea
so far from the shore
and grounded living
awake same time daily
then fall right back to sleep
upon seeing and feeling
the same old drift
you have to wonder
if this started with Columbus
thirty five days into his voyage
not knowing the next day
would change all forever
you have to wonder how
he expressed his hope
to his men and to himself
that they would land somewhere full of plunder
and how many today
are rolling their hands
over and over against each other
with the same hope
that the new world on
the other side of this long drift
will offer them good luck and fortune
(no matter who else dies for it)
once this rotten ship
scrapes bottom upon
a yet unknown shore
Into excruciating detail we go.
We approach any fire focused on the embers at the edge.
We can describe the craquelure of each coal.
We can say whatever we want of shades and gradations
as long as we don’t speak of how close we are to being consumed.
Into excruciating detail we go.
We see haze and make up numbers to explain its depth.
We see smoke and metaphor it as dragon, as mushroom, as column.
We can say whatever we want of thickness and color and height
as long as we don’t choke on the constant approach of disaster.
Into excruciating detail we go.
We smell every singe on each hair currently on fire.
We speak of sweet and sour and acrid and my God, no words.
We can say whatever we want about the length of any given flame
as long as we ignore how bright and how hot we have become.
Birds don’t sing
for freedom they already have.
Birds sing
for what they desire.
Imprison someone long enough
and they will learn to sing.
Prisoners who can hear birds
will offer cage songs in response.
Any prisoner who learns
how to sing cage songs
will eventually learn
how to make them beautiful.
The warden wants to keep them
from being free.
They will take
the cage songs from the singers,
sell them to the world,
call them freedom songs.
All those freedom songs began
as cage songs rising
in the throats of those
who have been locked down.
Listen to them, the warden says.
Listen to them singing like birds.
The warden might be telling the truth
but you would have to ask a prisoner
to be certain, and no one
wants that to happen. After all
your own chains
might be at risk.
You might feel
a powerful need to sing.
Most mornings —
hell, every morning —
are for staring straight up
at those dots
stuck like pinholes
into the clouds, dots
growing larger against
the once-blessed sky.
Waiting all day
and long into the night,
shielding ourselves from
them —
all those shoes
dropping.
I keep catching tiny movements
in corners of the house. I look more closely
and find…nothing. But I’m sure of what I saw.
Something is here that stays only enough out of sight
to be elusive and yet comes into view often enough
to make it impossible to ignore.
Perhaps I’m losing my mind from seeing
all the demons we always knew were there
in the outside world coming out from under rocks
and crawling out of the garbage. Then again,
I’m assuming bad intent here. Maybe these are
benevolent? Then why hide? I could use a friend.
Maybe they came here
to hide from the demons
only to find me, and that is why they hide.
All I know for sure is that I’m getting used
to the idea of the unseen appearing in corners
I never used to look at
and in spite of myself, I’m beginning to think
that it might not be safer to keep my eyes closed,
but it might be more comfortable in the short run.
That was never a border
until Someone made it one
in your name whether you cared
or not. Once it was there
you were expected to agree
with it and with all that it took
to keep it a border, from a wall
to a law. You were expected to be
fine with how those coming this way
were kept out, no matter how badly
the starved or sickened or died of thirst
or bullets. You were expected to forget
about their children and those cages and
those tinfoil blankets and how illness took them
and takes them and how Someone
takes them and trades them out
to terror homes and no one will find them
but they get to stay here since they’ve vanished
already and for Someone that counts as compassion
even as they call bottles of water left for future crossers
on this side of that made-up line
a form of treason. You are expected to forget
all Someone did there in favor of new outrages
upon which to focus your outlaw compassion —
but, do not forget. Do not forget that
Someone started there and
what you see there will be done over and over
here there and everywhere until you are unable
to focus and you surrender just as Someone
is waiting for you to do.
Now we are at remarkable.
Passed intriguing and interesting
long ago. Deep into ourselves
we’ve gone and look at the time:
how we marvel at the long run,
at how we fascinate ourselves with ourselves.
Around the corner is obsession.
Around the corner is a track that will take us
off into the trees on the hills above the lake
on the down side of the road. There will be
no turning back once we’re there.
We took this route not expecting we’d be
so into ourselves that we’d be unable to see
others. That we’d be stuck on a road
between drowning and tumbling over rocks
and have to follow it right to the end
into whatever abattoir might be sitting there.
If you sniff the wind, you can tell
how close we’re getting. You’ll call it
perfume, of course. In your head it will smell
like the colors of the flag. Like an eagle
not tearing at your back.
Not again:
obvious lie,
the words alone
a weak response
to the moment.
Of course it’s about
to happen again.
I am tired
of saying it.
I’ve been so tied
to repeating those words
for so long
that my hand
has gone dead
for much beyond
cutting sad food and
trembling.
Any magic
that would work now
will have to move
beyond chanting.
Silver bullets.
Sacred daggers.
An army raised
in the land of
vengeful dead.
out in the streets —
massed like bristles
in a new broom
an urgent cleansing
in progress —
shaking off dust
chanting —
sound of layers of filth
beginning to shift
what was built from dirt
cannot stand —
new broom wrecking all
Tune in twenty-four
seven for the melody
of the moment. Explosions
and big deaths,
laws broken and hard weather
all get sung the same.
The newsreaders sing
the cadence of sport, sing
like play by play reporters.
They throw it to the sidelines
where generically handsome people
add touches of color to
their black and white
depictions of struggle
made simple and easy to
swallow. Every
story reduced
to winning and losing,
even if all there is
is loss. There is rarely
any story where
all are winning. That’s
not American enough.
Can’t be number one
without there being
a number two. They sing
that song in spite of
the fire behind them:
lullaby, fight song
for the last quarter.
Enough to make you turn it off
and go wail in a corner
waiting for silence to take over
and make you forget.
Make you want to stop caring
for any of it. Almost
as if
that was the plan from
the starting gun.
The red onions are trying to kill us all
with germ tricks they learned from the lettuce
the chicken and beef
and poisonous canned shrooms
The next door neighbors are in on it too
They’re nasty people
Everything is trying to kill us
I ate a whole pizza by myself last night
The pizza made me do it
It is trying to kill me
It’s scary out there
and in here too
I took my blood glucose reading this AM
and it wasn’t as high as you’d expect
after a whole pizza
and a night of sloth
It’s killing me slow
the bastard disease
of my bastard pancreas
Not like the neighbors who want me
gone quick
those diseased bastards
I wear the mask of the moment
but it’s more so the killers don’t recognize me
in some unexpected moment when I am alone
than in the belief that it will save me from anything
in this place where everything is trying to kill us
even the red onions and the bad fats in the good food
and the sugar and the Nazis and my own head-sauce
full of bad things and all the flags that mean anger
is going to win today instead of any single moment of joy
I never trusted the chicken I admit
My neighbors keep chickens
so I’ve seen them in action
The eggs are suspect as well
but it is the betrayal of the red onions I feel most
How I once loved their transparent skin
and the full bite of the first bite in my mouth
I loved that more than I have ever loved my neighbors
I expected the worst from them but not you
my produce my food my sustenance my flavor
I will hunker down with Oreos and pure white sugar
I will maintain my diligence
Keep a watch on my neighbors with new glasses
At night I will eat white onions in spite
Rip off my mask and breathe on their doorknobs
Smear red onions on their car seats when they are asleep
I will die before I let them not die as I am dying
Betrayed by the food and the air
and the eyes peering through the near-closed blinds
of all the neighbors watching to see who will fall
You can hear a recording of this piece with music here: https://soundcloud.com/radioactiveart/red-onions
I wear the name
“American”
by default only.
It’s not a name
that feels like
a good fit, but in truth
that ill-fit feeling
is as American
an experience
as feeling snug and comfy
when you put the name on.
In fact
the entirety
of American experience
is the history of
the party of the Snug and Comfy
telling the party of
the Ill-Fitting Name
that one name
fits everyone when in truth
the party of the first part
is only snug and comfy
because the party of the second part
has been made uncomfortable,
and of the discomforted
striving to make the name
fit them as well
when in truth
it wasn’t made
to do that.
I call myself
American
by default
but I keep trying
for a better fit and
I see all my fellow
uncomfortable
Americans pushing
the seams and taking in
the loose fabric
because it’s either do this,
keep living lives of noisy
desperation, or
die of exposure — but
since that’s what
the snug and comfy live for,
I swear by the bodies
of all who went before and
will come after, as well as
those here now,
that whatever it takes
to make it so,
they cannot win and this suit
is going to fit.
They are praying
to the god of gambles,
offering children in tribute.
Never had any of my own,
but still not willing to risk
losing anyone else’s. Tell me:
to what stronger god
may I pray to try
and get them a better deal?
Give me their name,
the place of their shrine,
the preferred sacrifice,
and I will make a pilgrimage
and an offering of my own
on behalf of yours
and mine —
the ones
I never had,
the ones I know
I would have died for if
I had.
Maybe that is why
I am here — to strive
on behalf
of the normalized
path I was not
healthy enough
to take. To offer
a hope I never had
to others
more equipped for it.
To be at last of some use
in a nearly useless life:
to take
the divine gamble,
offer myself to the odds.
it looks into
the eyes of its beloved
demigoddess
and explains itself thus
look
my darling liberty
we have
repaired our
repulsive pancakes
and disturbing butter
we are busy renaming
our war gamers
isn’t that enough
at least for a good start
I mean
we still have to preserve
our borders
while opening our factories
and how will we live without
circuses to go
with our sad breads
our white breads and
flatbreads
our wheat breads and
trend-sponsored
sourdoughs
right now we’re a little
under the weather
so we’ve told everyone
to wear a mask
to protect everyone except
those we are used
to killing and who
cares about them so
mandatory takes on
a new meaning
for us
as in suggested
as in contemptible
but why not try it
anything more than that
will cost us plenty and make us
different
so
with all
deliberate speed we will
dig into our thick authentic
red label
blue jean pockets
for small change
and spend it
on small change
liberty
you sweet old girl
take off your blindfold
and see me
I’m making an effort
put down the scales
and hold me
I’m cold
if you read the papers
they will tell you something else
but if you know the history
you will know we’re still
your darling
your favorite
your same old used to be
Dark Matter 