Aren’t you tired
of living on crumbs?
Aren’t you tired
of fighting for crumbs?

Of waking up 
after three hours’ sleep
and lying awake 
until morning?
Of rising and aiming
your heart at a job
that takes all you’ve got
then returns a few scraps from
some folks at a table 
you won’t ever see
that hangs above you
like a solid cloud —

aren’t you tired
of waiting for crumbs?
Aren’t you tired of 
living on crumbs?

Of hearing three words of praise
for your being and doing
for every four hundred 
you hear in rebuke?
Of seeing the horizon
as some kind of carrot
to keep you running 
with the stick right behind?
Of becoming the person 
you dreaded you’d be
when you thought the horizon
was a sweet dance away?

Aren’t you tired 
of scratching for crumbs?
Aren’t you tired
of living on crumbs?

Here comes day
and then night
and then day
and then night
and every hour
falls into gray
till you can’t tell the difference
anymore

Here comes something
falling from the table
One atom of sleep or
one atom of comfort or
one atom of peace or
one atom of how to get by

And just as you catch it
It melts into memory
Then it grows in your memory
That’s how you survive
By turning those bits
into magnified moments
Turning those moments
into amplified stories
Fantasies of joy
you claim to believe
and try to believe
and want to believe — 

A whole culture feeds that
even while it bleeds you
Makes it hard to get past it
and realize that
it’s the dark of the day
and the dark of the night
at the same exact moment
and it is every moment…

you know you are starving
though you can’t admit it — 

and aren’t you tired
of living on crumbs?

Aren’t you tired?

In most overheard remarks
on this first frost
is a sense
of saudade — a sweet sorrow —
for an ending

when one could instead look forward
to the dying off of weeds that have been
strangling the yard and air
with gnarled vines and snarling
pollen,

or to the cooler, cleaner
air and light pouring through
branches now clear
of leaf clutter so one can see
what can no longer hide
as easily. It’s true that soon

shrouds of snow will follow, but for
a few weeks this naked clarity will 
offer more opportunity
than was available in the dank 
and overgrown summer;
do not forget that this year
there is war
and this is the season

when enemy and ally alike 
come into open view,
when battle lines
are drawn,
when the fight
truly begins.

I filled my pockets
with my hands
after wringing them
just a bit, then

tied a thought to one leg,
a prayer to the other, 
jumped into a flood, and
sank to the bottom.

Down there were thousands
who had sunk before me.
I cut the weights from my legs
and handed them out.

It was like the Sermon
on the Mount — I’m no 
savior but it seemed like
one thought and one prayer

went a long way
around that crowd.
As I rose back
to the bright air,

I started to think
about opening my heart and mind
to what I’d seen
but became afraid 

of taking on too much weight, 
drowning, suffocating like those
below.  Breaking surface
I swam ashore,

grabbed another thought,
another prayer, tied them on
as I stood on the bank, ready
to dive again, to do my part.

When people die
this way, taken 
from on high,
there will always
be someone who says,
do not speak
of how it happened
until we have wiped up
the blood and after
all the wounds are
bound and healed
or buried.

I confess,
I have been that person,
and in some ways I still am.
I cannot speak of
missile planes
and falling buildings
to this day.  I do not know
if I can be or ever will be
that person who can
argue or imply, 
speak truth or falsify,
dig snarling into another
over how and why —

but if you can, try.
If you can by such talk
somehow prevent
me and mine
and countless others
from standing
bloody and mute
among the dead, if you
can with all this chatter
open new doors and close
old ones, try.
I fail when I try.
I fail when I look
into a victim’s eyes — 

but out beyond the pain
of the moment, or perhaps
within the moment,

someone must try.

I’ve stopped talking out loud
about the fate of the nation

having decided we’re stuck with it
until it breaks more of the people

who do not believe
they could ever be bent over

the knee of the nation’s
loathsome mythologies

Those are not my people
I do not know if they ever could be

Right now I know who hears me
and to whom I will listen

I know who loves me
and to whom I will return love

I know who will fight beside me
and to whom I will lend my sword

These are
my people

Beyond them already 
comes the war

as it has always been 
only louder

It has always been
at my door

yet somehow it seems a new time
has clicked around

a time to stop seeking
civility among the gray ranks

The time for talk
is done

Four hours of sleep,
five days in a row.

Five minutes to think
between fatigued stupidities,
and still they spill 
out of my mouth
as if carried on 
a swift stream that cuts
through without stopping;

such a splash each one makes.

Three hours of sleep,
ten days in a row, and

I don’t even know 
the current name of the country
I live in.  Trying
to put my finger on how else
it has changed, I drop
another clumsy chunk
off my lips into water
everyone has to drink. 

I’m trying to figure it out
even as I make it worse.

Apologize and then say no,
it’s not that, no,
it’s not that, no,
it’s not that.  

I am not afraid of
offending, only of offending 
by not being clear.  

Two hours of sleep,
ten weeks in a row;
two hours of sleep
ten months, ten years,
for a few decades now;

this place I’ve always called
America, to be honest,
is only comfortable now

for those who get 
all the sleep they are allowed

with no alarms to wake them
and no lumps in the bed 
and no noises to rouse them
into night terrors.

As for me?
One rotten hour a night
hundreds and hundreds
of years in a row;

I can’t tell you 
who I am.