A low-grade fever
flaring: that is how
the chronic urge
to self-destruct becomes
acute, the same
for one person as it is for
a nation: sometimes
a dank heat goads one to
frantic energy, one begins
slashing at anchors; a desire
to let all go bubbles inside
like infection; one may
say it’s better to burn,
better to release and fall
to embers and let another
build again; no matter
how familiar it is
it seems so simplistic,
so terrible,
to feel in the daily news
a steam that resembles
the heat of
one’s own will to die.
Tag Archives: political poems
A Low Grade Fever
January 7, 2017
Whisky sip,
smoke draw
across lips,
snow,
St. Paul
and the Broken Bones —
soundtrack sweet as
buzz: a breath of peace
before deluge and
plunge, before
what soul is, where it
came from, who
holds it close, who
cannot grasp it, is
forgotten.
We sit, temporarily
satisfied in deep night,
sibilance outside as
one storm hisses toward
ending, as another
approaches.
Another sip
of whisky. Another
deep pull of smoke,
another song, and
at last,
sound sleep.
Lifesaver
When I was a lifeguard
there was a shed on the beach
where they kept the tools for lifesaving
and recovery
including
a set of hooks
for dragging the bottom
of the pond
to find a body if all hope
was lost but
I was never taught
to use them
so I’m currently useless
whenever there is no hope
but I am willing
to learn
because even if all I can do
is drag and weep
in the aftermath
of what’s coming
I will be willing to learn
for
the willingness to learn
in the face of disaster
is itself
a small but vital
type of
hope
In Contemplation Of A Possible Funeral There Is Precious Little Humor
Funny
he said as he
put white and
cream yellow gardenias
on the headstone
laid flat into the ground
with dirt still fresh around it
from setting it there
Funny
he said without laughing
that the off-whiteness
of some of the flowers
probably would have had
the departed
shaking mad
Funny
how that struck him
amid everything else going on
To think that whiteness
would have been
mandatory for the one interred here
even in death
even after
such strict adherence to it
was so much a part
of what killed them
Funny
Singed Eagle
I woke up to
a singed eagle
perched on a limb
outside my window,
could smell burned feathers
through the glass as if
the bird was still smoldering.
It did not call out or move
once in all the time
I was watching it, but disappeared
silently once I turned attention
to the daily routine;
the smell lingered, clung
to anything it had touched,
so that we could not move
without being reminded of fire.
I Dare Not Speak
I dare not speak
of how snow has not covered us
yet this year. I am trying hard
to set myself apart
from my usual despair at white,
all white upon everything.
I dare not speak of how
night will soon come
to us, nor will I dare to assume
that it was designed only to conceal
what we love, or how shadowed
this town will soon become.
I dare not slander. I dare not
praise. I dare not utter any word.
I’ve laden so much upon my words.
They are beginning to break
as I am, as we are all beginning
to break. The sound of words breaking
in every stressed breath.
Each word pulled between lie and truth.
Each season, each time of day
open for interpretation. White purity
or poison, dark evil or joy,
light full of stab and soothe,
dark brimful of peace and strife.
That anyone bothers
to communicate beyond
touch and intimate connection
leaves me breathless. Words
are failing us, falling from our lips
with nothing inside them. To survive
we will have to do more than talk
and when we do speak we
will have to look each other
in the eyes and admit so much
of what we’ve let words cover:
our fears, or assumptions,
all the things we dared to do
from behind them. We will have to act
as if no words existed before this
if we are to remake this silenced world,
and I will be confident with neither praise
nor slander for anything that happens
until that great work is well begun.
Let it snow. Let it be an all white world.
When night comes,
let all the white world
fall into in that gentle dark.
I will build either way,
pushing new words,
like bricks,
into place.
The Task At Hand
You thought it was going to be
slow blues from here to death,
but here you are, fist up
at the edge of the pit again.
You thought these days would be lyric
and pastoral, and instead
you’re back in the narrative,
hoping surreal hopes.
Upon consideration
you surrender to it and see
that you’ve always been
at the mercy of surprise
whenever you thought
things were settled once
and for all. No matter how you try to be
for you, you always let yourself be drawn
back for all and as much as you know
you can’t do otherwise, as much as you know
you’ve never done otherwise,
you wish it had not fallen to you
to be here one last time —
fist in the air
at the edge of the pit,
shouting the story of
the dissolved timepieces, the bruised
American hearts you thought you could count on,
because this is such an American tale, isn’t it —
this fable of reinvention, this constant
faux-noble bewilderment at the rush
of circumstance through
your remaining time here. You’re
no hero, you know — just another
aged-out scene kid praying it makes
a difference when you put your body
and voice into one more time
on one more front line. Understanding at last
you’d do it with no hope at all
because you couldn’t do otherwise
and look at yourself
ever again. So: fist in the air,
waiting to die, hoping there’s one last
twelve-bar respite ahead of you,
you plunge into chaos
shouting against a bitter end.
Perfect World
in the perfect world
there is a king
whose breath smells
like John Wayne’s
plague sweat
in the perfect world
there is a queen
who has moved
mountains to make
grand graves
in the perfect world
their armies carry
guns of gold and
can stab you with
a sharp flag
in the perfect world
you are a creamy poster or
a near-white song of victory
a mascot on the sideline
a horse to carry their spoils
in the perfect world
the things they’ve stolen
back them up or lead them
like suicides
off your cliffs
in their perfect world
you are the Elder Race
they call upon to charge
their teams and weapons
with magic
in their perfect world
they don’t exist
any more than you do
as they are individually lessened
to increase larger perfection
How To Be Done With It
Shout “good riddance”
when lightbulbs burn out,
when discarding
envelopes that won’t adhere,
when contemplating
the bitter end of the bank account.
When the television
goes off for non-payment,
when the phone
goes off for non-payment,
when the heat and the lights
go off for non-payment
and the landlord has ominously
mentioned
“proceedings,”
sit there with either a sneer
or a triumphant,
head-lowered demeanor.
Don’t kill anyone
too much, except in your mind (admit
at least that you feel up for it though
before you shake that thought
out of your hands
and back into the steel trap you keep inside
to hold such wickedness).
Tell them
to bring it on,
whatever it is.
It’s time for it,
whatever it is.
It’s not like it’s been
sustainable for a while now.
It’s not like it’s been
a society for a while —
more of a cautionary tale
or a bucket list
getting checked off
more and more
aggressively,
so tell them
you’ve got plenty of pens
and all the time in the remaining
world.
The Story Of A Painting
Once upon a time
a painter stole a canvas
from some people he met
and painted over their work
in flat white.
Forced some other people
to help paint over it,
painted some parts
himself…and here it is.
It’s not all terrible. Some parts
are sublime in fact. But a lot of it is dreck and
some parts are just OK. How you feel about it
depends on how far back you stand.
Inadvertently, it’s high concept
and interesting. Execution is
imperfect and inconsistent. It’s
insistent and overdrawn and
it’s all compounded by having
a terrible frame. Currently it hangs
on a wall that’s on fire. Flames loud
as a band — some say it sounds like
NWA, some say it sounds like
Lee Greenwood. It just sounds like
fire to most who see it, though some
just like closing their ears
and warming their hands before it
while staring at their favorite parts —
this perfect flower, that lovely flag —
while thinking about
happily ever after.
An Explanation
Whiny
you say
They’re whiny
Sore losers
They should stop whining
They lost
You are mistaken
No one’s whining
You don’t understand the difference
because
your own voice
is all you are used to hearing
and you do
a butt-load of whining
about how precious you are
and about being told you
no longer should be
so precious considering
your pedestal
rests unsteadily on
bones
What you are hearing
is not whining
Is keening for
what has died and
for what may yet die
followed by
a war cry
Stop Talking
We kept saying, “Speak
truth to power,”
and eventually they said,
“Truth doesn’t matter.”
We kept saying, “Money
can’t buy happiness,”
and eventually they said,
“You’re right,” and simply took ours.
We kept saying, “Not
special rights, but equal rights,”
and eventually they laughed
all rights into a bucket and kicked it.
When will we see
all the problems that come
from talking to them
in the first place?
Slowly Lying Down
Slowly
lying down as if there were
long unconscious hours ahead and
not such short time
before necessary waking.
Head
upon pillow as if nothing
has changed at all and
daybreak will bring just another
round of work and play.
Heavy
eyelids closing as if there were
no fires burning and no one
screaming for rescue as their roof
tumbles in upon them.
You don’t recognize
this slothful self.
You don’t recognize
this frightened, frozen
self who hears and sees
all this yet decides
to crawl into bed
and fall into such
an evil sleep
that when you wake
you aren’t even sure
that you should
be allowed to continue
to use your own name
in polite company, you’ve
stained it so.
Our Dragon
Originally posted as “Crisis” in 2009.
We claimed
we didn’t know anything
about how this would be
right up to the day
the dragon we had been
feeding for ages,
whose back had been
humping up the earth
like a monstrous gopher
for as long as we could recall,
the one whose eyes like star sapphires
had dazzled us into long inaction;
until the day the dragon rose into
full view demanding our firstborn,
our second-born, demanding to be
slaked and satisfied with our legacies;
demanding everything and nothing explicit
because his sheer sudden command
of the common sky told us all
we needed to know then and evermore;
and then we ran about like cinders jerking crazily
in the general cloud of destruction, becoming
sparks that vanished even as we flew
lost in the heat of a moment
we’d known was coming for years
and yet had denied as easily as any other god
we’d ever taken on casual terms.
Of course, since we had made this one
ourselves, we still believed
we could remake it
right up to the second
that we fell, consumed,
back to the black ground
to enrich the soil for
whatever folly would follow us.
Predation
Predation is
a lovely thing.
Efficient and
sweet on the tongue.
If a predator
becomes prey,
no matter as the meat
is no less sweet.
You aren’t used to it,
at all — this sense
of being stalked.
This sense of
teeth behind you
glistening.
Welcome to
how it is
for most. As it has been
for those who’ve long lived
ahead of you and
your teeth. You never
thought of yourself
as a predator and
thinking like prey
doesn’t come any easier —
those have never been
your terms. Welcome, then,
to the new dictionary
of how you are going to have
to survive. Learn
predator, prey, consumer,
consumption, product,
commodity. Learn
escape, camouflage,
resistance, flight,
fight, fight or flight.
Learn or die. Remember
that you started this
and were oblivious
to how it worked
for a long time. Try to forget
how sweet it tasted.
Try to taste, instead, the fear
in the meat you used to savor.
Taste it on your own lips.
Dark Matter 