A dark version of a popular song
is on the radio.

You take that any way you want,
any song you want and think of hearing.

You decide the darkness of it,
the clarity of the radio, its popularity.

Whatever you think of it is true for you.
It may be different for someone else.

All the versions are true, even the ones
you can’t imagine that will leave you gasping.

Someday soon the goons will come for you
and they will ask you to sing your version.

You will falter and they will sneer and then
they will move to the next, then the next.

The goons know well what wet work they
are required to do.

The goons will let you all go and then you will look
at all the faces and they will look back.

Suspicious minds — what of them? The goons,
shapeless and nameless, have their orders.

All the songs are the same to them. You try
to club together with those who share your song.

It is useless, and at night you go home alone
and turn off the radio and hug your knees in the dark.

Your children don’t understand what’s wrong.
They put on their headphones and stare at you.

You die eventually and they stare after you and cry
and shrug it off and turn to their own music, their own songs.

The goons turn to each other, shapeless, nameless.
They adjust their red ties, their black shirts.

Suddenly, green — it’s green somewhere, isn’t it?
All the colors — aren’t they still out there?

A flash of all the colors, a startlingly different
song, a broken set of headphones.

A broken set of headphones. Flung to the ground,
right before the goons. And you are laughing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

onward,
T

It doesn’t matter
now. The earth
is sick, afflicted even,
but it will shake it off —
even a nuclear war
will be over in a blip
of time. No one
is going to remember
your name and meanwhile
there will still be war
and millions of flowers
and children who won’t
even recall you existed,
not more than a day or so.
You might as well
scream at the troopers
though it seems weak,
might as well stand stolidly
against the ranks until
they choose you to slay.
It doesn’t matter much.
The long arms of the gods
will serenely brush you aside
with a profound, grateful glance.
The world will eventually
catch up to their embrace.
You won’t die in vain.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

pity the sense of impotence
over profound effect —
like a heart
full to bursting
but never quite there,
a mind full of queasiness
and secondhand rejection of a scene
but not yet ready to act —
that is me, that’s me
and I am ashamed of my pity
as it’s all I can offer;
short of anger, short of sorrow,
reserved one step
from where I know I should be,
blazing underneath though
I should be on righteous fire,
instead ashamed and rightly so
of my lack of decision, my impotence
in the face of need; it’s all I can do
not to dig in my heels, not to grind
my hands into my eyes, and not stand
in the face of monstrous evils
and live for one second, maybe more,
maybe less; it’s all I can do
not to sing and scream.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T