Someone designed
a monument
to a stray cop bullet
that broke through walls
and killed
a child asleep
in a crib,

couldn’t decide 
on which city
needed it most
as there were so many
to choose from,

cast a giant version
of it and placed it
in the dead geographical center
of the USA

where it was supposed
to become
the singular idol
of all who saw it,

its shadow coloring
all the land around it
for thousands of miles,

where it stood until one day
people began to ask
why the statue had been made,
why the statue had been placed so centrally 
as to shade everything so deeply,

and most of all,
why honor the bullet
and not the child,
why the bullets
and not children,
why build such
a statue at all
instead of building a wall
between our babies
and such
hard, officially blessed
Death.

The people reached
to tear it down
even as some cried out
for the vanishing beauty
of the bullet’s hue.

The people reached up
and pulled it down
even as some cried out
for the loss of memory
they feared would come.

The people turned their backs
upon the empty pedestals
even as some cried out 
for the loss of their big, beautiful bullet
and the fear shadow it had cast
for so long.

“Though violence is not lawful, when it is offered in self-defence or for the defence of the defenceless, it is an act of bravery far better than cowardly submission. The latter befits neither man nor woman. Under violence, there are many stages and varieties of bravery. Every man must judge this for himself. No other person can or has the right.” — Mahatma Gandhi
“The principle of self defense, even involving weapons and bloodshed, has never been condemned, even by Gandhi.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.
Gandhi and King, you say, King
and Gandhi
Though you never quote them completely
or well
Please stop selling me
hippie shit
about how love is all
I need
and trying to convince me
to unclench

my fist
in the face
of someone who has said they
want to kill me
for my parentage and my wish to be
left alone to try
to live a life unlike the one
they think I should have
under their god and their sexytime rules
and all their ancient proverbs
So miss me with your
quick spouted peace talk
If you don’t want to swing on one of them
stay out the way
Some folks have lived generations
ducking their fists
It’s time at last
to swing back
Gandhi and King, you say, King
and Gandhi
You never quote them completely
or well

I did not punch a Nazi today
and I am sorry
Instead I punched my keyboard
until I’d named them and shamed them
Forgive me for avoiding violence
I am not opposed
I am just too weak

I did not pepper spray a racist today 
and I am sorry
Instead I found their address on the Internet
and took their job
but they lived through that
Forgive me for not killing them
I am not opposed
It’s just not my place

I did not scalp a Klansman today
and I am sorry
Instead I learned where he lived
and shamed him to his parents
Forgive me for not letting his blood
I am not opposed
It’s just not within my strength

I did what I could today
and stood up to my father
My uncle
My brother and sister
when they spouted evil and sounded evil
I carved them from my life
and it hurt like a death though I survived
Forgive me for this weakness
I am not opposed
I am merely lonely enough without them
to have hesitated

Forgive me for the Nazis 
the Whitelords and the Proud Boys
I am not a steel enough wall to save us from them
or from their furious stymied anger
Instead I reflect on how I made them happen
by apologizing and doing little to stop them

I am game to admit they are my fault
and that I’m not enough to finish what I started

A man lifts his head
from his despair couch,

sees pictures of 
his family on the table

across from his seat,
imagines them seeking

comfort. Right out loud
he asks the empty room:

where will we hide
if the fire comes?

I grew up and away
from having to think 

about this, and now
I have to think of it

again, not only for myself
but for loved ones, 

wondering how
to keep them

from the fire if it comes — 
and if fire comes

will I be ready, will I
know how to shelter us

from flame
and storm and

the long night
that will surely follow?

The pictures
do not respond,

staring into his
numb, silenced face.

A breeze shivers
the house.

The summer air 
simmers.

The couch accepts
his face as he falls

back into its warm,
illusory hug,

the night still safely
dark around him,

no sudden spark out there
breaking the world into coals.

I rise early to start work
upon a treatise 
to be called,

“An Inquiry Into Not Being
Violently Sick To My Stomach From
Reading The News.”

I don’t have a clue as to 
how to begin this. There
is no talk therapy for it.

Every effective pill is either fatal
or so obliterating that
the rest of my life

would be swept away too.
I could do what some do and 
never open a book or paper

again and try to forget, sink into
coffee or beer or weed, play 
the oldest music I could remember,

plug into unplugging from the right now.
I’d be lying if I said I haven’t tried
all that; I’m not capable of lying

anymore. My stomach keeps me
honest, spits up truth in spite of my fear.
As convulsed as I am minute to minute 

it would be hard to say
I’m not a better person for it:
my gut’s well-toned enough now

from retching to take whatever
stab or blow or bullet that comes;
even if I am pierced, even if I am killed,

I will leave this work behind and survive.
I dip my head over the page,
fight back what’s in my throat, and begin.

A bald brown man
is out on the curb with a black
trash bag of a kind disallowed 
by my city carefully picking through
our building’s recyclable bins
for cans and bottles, almost tenderly
placing those he cannot use
to one side on the pavement before 
adding to his bag with what little
he gets from us and then
putting the ones on the pavement
back into the bins, although
I cannot be sure
he puts them back into the ones
they came from they all go back
into the bins where they belong
without ever touching the yellow bags
the city makes us use for trash
and then he straightens up and 
moves on, up the hill, up the street
to the next three decker, then the next;
then he crosses over and descends
doing the same on the other side 
where I see him one more time, 
directly across from my window, 
picking through the plentiful options
from the green building’s bins,
and I note as an afterthought that
he’s new, not one of the usual crew
who come through on Wednesdays
or Thursdays if Monday was a holiday;
he’s younger, fitter, more neatly dressed,
stands up straighter, looks like he can carry
more weight as the bad black bag the city
won’t let us use for trash is full now
and he is tying it off and pulling
another one
from his back pocket
where you’d expect
a man
to carry
his wallet.