With everything turned off in the house
the only sounds are the knocking of the furnace
now and then, occasional scrabbling in the walls from
invader mice, the cat snoring
if I try really hard to hear.

It doesn’t sound like the apocalypse
unless you count the furnace sounds
as the voice of depletion, the mice as inheritors
of our ramshackle ruins, the snoring cat as
the voice of inattention to threats.

That is a choice one can make, I guess,
a choice to let things be what they are and 
not give them meaning. I have tried that
and been found wanting. I have been found longing
to let go, but then the cat stretches and snorts,

something moves in the walls, something
heats up under my feet, and is that the refrigerator
or the rumbling tide of history? 
Perhaps it is not, or it is, or perhaps what is daily
is also what is deadly, and the end is in fact near.

It would be worth your time
to learn how to lie, 

sir. We can see
the smoke rising from

your pants, can see
your nose growing;

perhaps these are illusions
as well, tricky lighting

caused by the waving of
your flagship hair, the shadows

emptying from your mouth?
Sir, we can’t see you behind them —

unless all you are is shadow?
Sir? Are you nothing but smoke

and bad lighting, only a simulation
of human — some kind of 

puppet?  Sir, understand:
we are asking, do you bleed?

Do you weigh anything at all,
sir, or is your incorporeality

so galling to you that you feel
you must stamp this hard on the world?

It would be worth your time
to learn to be a better liar, sir.

Your smoke is showing.
There is nothing in the mirror.

When I fell face first and bleeding within
from amphetamines at prep school,

all the school did was counsel me
and send me home for a week or so
on medical leave. That and my family’s begging
kept me on the college track.

When my buddies at the summer party 

dragged the cop out of his car
and began beating him with stones picked up
from the gravel pit, I was asleep,
drunk in my car, and missed the whole thing.
That and my family name kept me out of jail and the papers.

When I got caught smoking weed
in the Student Union building,

all the cop did was take
my bag and pipe and toss me out
and tell me to go home to the dorm. That
and the decade’s weariness with such crimes
kept me off the court docket.

When I told a cop off for an unjustified stop,
and he let me drive away.
When I tossed the barroom groper into the street
with a broken nose where he hit the sidewalk,
and a cop finished what I’d started
with a laugh.

When I realize how much I’ve gotten away with
and still get away with
compared to some, I am ashamed,

but not enough to do anything
but write this
and swear I’ll do something about it
eventually. That and my kind face

ought to be enough
to protect me. To absolve me.

1.
Whatever’s going on outside,
we want nothing to do with it.

The weather’s gone
snarling and snappish.

It has a nuclear tone
of voice.

It’s not safe in here either,
but at least it’s quiet.

At least there’s heat, right now
at least. Water

and smoke and liquor. Enough
to eat, books to read. 

Whatever’s going on outside
seems ignorant.

It’s not our place to educate
an entire climate. 

Someone else who knows more
ought to take that chalice.

2.
We stared into their homes
from outside. So many of them

had fireplaces but even the ones
that did not seemed warm.

They seemed happy enough
so it was hard to understand

why at the first sight of us out here —
whipped and stung, soaked into despair,

being killed by the howling
taking over — why did they

draw the blinds against us?
We do not wish our fate upon them,

do not wish to
displace them. All we want

is to get out of the storm.
A share of a drier way to live.

They cannot possibly wish this misery
on us, can they?

3.
Those out in the storm
deserve the soaking they’re getting,

though they are not the reason
for the storm.

Those dwelling safe within the storm
are not the reason for the storm.

All the time, there are those
who live above them all,

high above the storm:
seeding the clouds, fanning

lightning into full stroke,
adding thunder and darkness.

There is a method to
this madness.

It is necessary
that some be made mad.

Some must become lost in the storm.
They must feel all of it, suffer and die.

The others must see themselves
as under threat of storms.

The ones who feel the storm
must fix their focus on what they cannot have.

The others must remain focused 
on what they stand to lose.

Everyone must want to climb up
and get away from the storm.

A few make it but only if they take hold
of an offered lightning bolt

and toss it down into the storm
when they get here.

It’s how it works,
how it has always worked.

As for life above the storm?
It’s usually sunny, 

but we hear thunder
under everything:

sometimes, like sweet music;
other times, like the drums of war.

Suppose you find yourself
to be a battlefront
in an unconventional war.

At night you’ll ring your bed
with sensors to prevent
incursions.

You’ll wake up each morning
rubbing bullets
out of your crusty eyes.

Walking in daylight:
dangerous. Walking
at night: dangerous.

Somewhere else, politicians
shall argue about how best
to resolve you

without ever lifting a foot
to come down off their hill
and really see you.

Pieces of your soul
will become refugees from you
and you’ll wonder if they’ll ever

return, even in the peace
you would hope will come
once hostilities have ended.

If that day comes soon enough,
you might become whole
more swiftly.  None of this means

you’ll never smile or feel love
or joy or even a dash of silliness
now and again, more or less often,

but you will always know
the cost of being the site
of a war you did not choose to fight.

Keep sleeping,
says the White Prince.
It’s not safe out here.
We have work yet to do.

If while you’re sleeping
you see something,
say something, says
the White Knight. However
your particular dream-fever
manifests, if it brings you
to a crisis, we want to know
about it. How else to keep you
safe — how else to keep you.

If you reach out in your sleep
for a body, a warm heart, a generous
soul, speak up, says the White 
Lord, and we will slip in beside you.
Spoon you in our mighty arms.
Protect you from being touched
by any but the most pure. 

Keep sleep holy, says
the White Hierophant, who
are we to question the needs
of the body as it longs not to know
what the waking might bring? You
are one of us, one of the Whites
yourself. One of the stunted
royal family, those not properly
exalted yet for dark reasons. 
If only you will sleep, we promise
to wake you when we have finished
making the world ready for you.

Keep sleeping, says 
the White King.  Keep sleeping,
so say we all from Prince to Lord,
from Knight to High Priest and all the way
to King. If you do not sleep
we cannot maintain this luster
you’ve granted us. See how we shine
like the sword we will, one day,
ask you to hold for us,
ask you to carry into battle
even as you continue to sleep. 

All new, all new,
everyone saying it’s
all new. 

All new, all new,
except for those 
who already knew

that this everything new
is not quite nothing new,
just close enough: old ghoul

in a new outfit, old gun
in a new hand. Some see
that face and say, we’ve never

seen that before; those
who know every line of it
find it hard not to laugh,

voices somewhere between
choked croak and open scream,
eyes closed in memory of those

who didn’t survive it
when it burned through town
last century, or yesterday, or

five minutes ago. All knew
someone, all know
it’s nothing new at all.

If what little is new here brings others
to the front, all well and good — 
if they stay. If when they’re safe

they go away? Nothing new
there, nothing new. When they go
those they leave turn and say,

nothing new there, nothing new –
and as always, we knew.
We all knew.

I keep waiting for this place
to prove itself worth saving.

I pace the floor imagining
I’ve missed something

redemptive, something
of the frame work that hasn’t

gone rotten.  It sounds half-good
on paper, but how to separate the words

from how poisonously they’ve been used
and turned to awful ends so far — that’s

what puts the twist in my gut.
Maybe if we kill all the money 

the living words will dig out from under
that pile of death. Maybe

if we drive out the magicians
all their secrets will be laid bare

and no one will be fooled again.
Maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe

if the whole unbalanced tower
wasn’t built on stolen land

and labor it wouldn’t be falling
on so many right now.  Maybe

it wasn’t built to stand this long,
no matter what the framers thought?

I keep waiting to find an argument
that it’s worth saving. I find

that the only person I’m arguing with
is myself, and I am losing; I can tell

by the sick joy I feel
that is starting to drown my fear.

1.
Go to where you keep silverware
and pull out all your forks.  Which
was the last one you used
before hearing Michael Brown
had been shot?

2.
How many times
have you washed your sheets
since you first heard the words,
“drone strike?”

3.
True or False: 
you have showered
with greater frequency
since September 11, 2001.

4.
a.
How many times 
has a single tear
rolled down your cheek
as if in homage to
those icons of your childhood films
who were depicted as 
stoic but for that one 
brief moment of humanity?

b.
Which eye has served you best 
in this regard?

c.
If this has never happened to you,
is it because
you cry such plentiful tears
that there has never been just one?

d.
If this hasn’t happened to you,
is it because you remain
unmoved, even now?

5.
Identify on a map
all the locations
where you brought
your A-game,
where you really
came to play,
where you showed up
in a big way.

When you’re done, 
connect them with a ruler
and a pencil.

Look at the polygon created
by the borders you’ve drawn.

a.
Who lives in there?

b.
Have you been there?

c.
If you’ve been there,
why didn’t you bring your A-game
there as well?  

d.
List five reasons
you left it behind you
at the border.

6.
Go to your desk and find a pen,
then write your name
thirteen times.

Imagine you are signing 
executive orders.

Would your third-grade teacher say
that your current signature
resembles the one you had then?

7.
Give yourself away. Do you miss it?

8.
(NOTE:  skip this question
if you’ve never had an orgasm.)

a.
How have your political beliefs
affected the orgasms
you’ve had so far in your life?

b.
How have they affected
the orgasms
you’ve given to others?

c.
What has changed the most
since you first became sexually active:
your beliefs or your orgasms?

9.
If you own a gun, does it feel
better or worse
to hold it than it used to?

10.
Think about the room you were in
the last time a news report gave you hope.

Has its decor changed at all since then?

Contemplating the distance
to their planned shining city on the hill.

Calculating what it would take to build
a broad road to it, broad enough
for all manner of comfortable vehicles
(and a very small amount
of super ambitious and lucky foot traffic
just to make it seem accessible to all); 

trying to determine how much gas 
will be needed, how much coal 
will be required to power it once
all who will fit have arrived;

then,
once the numbers are firm, 
putting all their plans into 
the passive voice. 

Roads will be built, walls will be built, 
coal will be mined, oil refined; 
order will be established and maintained
and if threatened will be defended and
enforced.

Not bothering to ask the unspoken question
behind those circumlocutions:
who will do all that?

Knowing the answer already.

Looking directly at you with a cold dare in their eyes.

You thought
it could all be done 
without bleeding,

and you were right, 
of course; you never bled,
not once. You never once got

your hands red. With 
a little effort you missed seeing
every story printed in red ink

and every color photo
of small rivers running 
and pooling in the street.

When you did hear
of such dreadful things
you were able to

wring your hands
loudly enough
to drown them out.

Fortunately
it worked out
to your benefit.

Gladly, you turned
to friends and family
and said so

and no one spoke up
to contradict you because
benefits like these 

rely on silence for their
existence, and that
was enough reason

not to speak up; that
and the faces outside the door
leaking blood and brain

into the gutters, the faces
that stare mutely into your window,
having forgotten how to scream.

Maybe what we need is bells
on the front door,
the back door,
the windows.

Maybe
hang them in the trees 
along the path leading here,
too.

Maybe a gate or seven
gates and bell them too. Build 
rings of gates and bell them all:
signal bells on each, larger and louder
the farther away they are from 
us. 

Maybe build a beacon fire
on a far hill
and put a standing guard there
ready to set it ablaze
to let us know.

Then, of course, we’ll need
to be very quiet all the time.
Sit silently in the dead center
of the house, equidistant from
all the bells, with vigilance
for the near-certain fire
on the far hill;

have to stare
out the window at that, 
constantly, waiting, guns
in our laps, in every corner,
a knife on every hip;

our children
in the soundproofed basement
hidden away,
learning defensive trades
at forges and anvils,
stabbing practice dummies, 
shooting practice people;

growing up in the dark
for their own good
as out there offers only
the dangerous chiming of bells
in the rank wind coming
over the borders.