Forced to eat oatmeal each day
by my addled blood.  
Gotten so used to it
that a day without it feels like treason.

Once upon a time I liked it well enough. Still
sounds good right up to the first bite —  
a blues bowl of blueberries and cinnamon,
tan pulp gone purple with berry dye. Then

it becomes all bent notes until “good-for-me,
good-for-me, good-for-me” stops echoing inside
as I put empty spoon and bowl into the sink
with that sense of weary duty to a life I truly don’t love,

followed by seeking out morning news. Upon seeing it 
my addled blood so often becomes curdled blood;
all that weary duty feels heavier, and heavier, 
a weight in my stomach as dense as the cursed daily bowl —

but every day I force it down. I do what must be done,
take in boredom and pain and anger because
as much as it hurts, I must stay alive a bit longer;
because “good-to-me” means more than just feeling good;

it’s about doing what must be done 
to save my blood, my country, my life.
Whatever I choke down I choke down to do just that.
Gotten so used to it that a day without it

feels like treason.

1.
Get out and vote
you anti American
Get out and vote
you racist bastard
Get out and vote 
you gun stealing liberal
Get out and vote
you rich little shitcake
Get out and vote
you uninformed minion
Get out and vote
you infowarrior
Get out and vote
you Christ-chanting dupe
Get out and vote
you Allah-loving Monster
Get out and vote
you atheist dog
Get out and vote
you pole-dancing street mom
Get out and vote
you staid little dingbat
Get out and vote
you celebrity annoyance
Get out and vote
you decent confusion
Get out and vote
you best intention 
Get out and vote
you came here to do this
Get out and vote
you were born here to do this
Get out and vote
you have blood on the ground
Get out and vote
you want oil in the ground
Get out and vote
you are shamed into caring
Get out and vote
you are a shame to the flag
Get out and vote
you are a shame to your mothers
Get out and vote
you are a scandal to your fathers
Get out and vote
you are an infinite number

an infinite number

a number

number

numb

2.
On a treeless plain in North Dakota
rubber bullets are voting
for stasis

On a street yet to be named in any given city
police bullets are voting
for stasis

In any prison in any given state
forced labor is voting
for stasis

On the New York Stock Exchange
the currency is voting
for stasis

3.
Get out
and vote

It gives you
something to do

Gives you
a place to stand

Gives them
stasis

always the same

bang bang and after a rickety clack
sting box in a truck racing away
a bang again a click track truck
chock up with cops and 

always the same

long fire bang bang a short fuse as ever
a big old excuse as big and old as ever
a click track clack as rickety as ever
a bang again a body as cold as ever

always the same

blue snicker at one more snapped thread
a snap at a snicker and a fire to follow
a fire that follows the click bang bang crack
bang bang nursery rhyme for a cold kid

always the same

sneaked snaps from cell phones 
always the same cold kid always the same
roar of horror ghost rising ghosts rising
cracked cops and crushed crowns always

the same 

Once upon a time at the corner
there was a man loudly explaining 
how to change your weight by changing your name.
Look at me, he says, I once weighed 438 pounds
as John Quinones, changed my name to Remarkable Jones
and became a 260 pound tiger of svelte grace. 

I changed my name at his suggestion
to Natasha LaShotgun and ballooned to 3,438 tons.
I developed a gravitational pull of my own that worked
in concert with that of the Earth and began to levitate
quite pleasantly three feet off the ground. Reverting
to my birth name gently grounded me again.  

The trick according to Remarkable Jones
was to never keep one name for too long 
once you’ve learned the process. Shift constantly
between identifiers and you’ll never get pinned down
or rise too far above where you want to be.  

So I dug the advice and dug the doing for a long time.
Gained as John Smith, reduced as Almond McGillicuddy.
Shrank as Penny, grew as Penelope, swelled to substance
as Monster Don, slipped into feigned normalcy
as Smoky Face Butts Patel, DiRienzo Delmonico.  Sometimes

I just went with titles: the lightness of being Mister,
the unbearable lightness of being Hey You. The gravity
of Your Honor, the unbearable honor of being Reverend,
Officer, Boss. Honey raised my toes ten feet off the dirt,
Asshole sunk them pointedly six feet under. If I took

a name I was given, a title, a slur? How I tossed 
and rolled and laid about based on the massive potential
of those words I did not myself own, how difficult it became
to find a name that gave me back to my self at a size
I could work with, huge or small,
offering whatever peace I most desired. It all became so much
that I ran one day, shedding names as I ran, all the way to the corner
where the man sat waiting as if he knew I was coming. 

I knew you’d come, he said. 

The truer trick according to Remarkable John Quinones Jones
was to find a name that you could completely own, 
no matter how long, no matter how many syllables
it required, no matter how hard it was for someone else
to pronounce — in fact, that might be your best tell
that you’ve found the Right Name with the Right Weight —
that no one can dismiss it by saying it wrong,
that only you can teach its correct sound.  If you find that,
you will forever outweigh whatever name they try to hang upon you
no matter how big or small you become…

oh, he was right. How right he was.
I say it out loud when I’m by myself at night,
and I fill the whole damn sky.

Larry, Curly, and Moe have become
childhood-eating ghosts. They taunt,
they haunt, they still slam heads with
an overhand fist, still gouge eyes,
still teach the young to giggle at pain.
I recall everything they taught me
about how art doesn’t always imitate life — 
something I learned by hours of backyard practice
of every Stooge-stunt on the neighborhood kids,
just as they learned by trying things out on me.  

We went out into the bigger playgrounds
allegedly having learned the difference between
a staged massacre and the real thing.
It’s hard to believe that now.

Maybe we learned a different lesson:
one about how little it hurts
to inflict mayhem on another, or one about
how quaint such ancient comic savagery appears
when given enough filter through time and grime

to forget how much we loved it once, how hard
we worked to perfect every noise they made
as they suffered so hilariously,  how well
they set the stage for the world
we now call our own.

We have good things 
on our to-do lists:
take time to visualize a better world,
speak gentle ill of the rich,
dance like we’ll never
be asked to dance again.

A rising wind carries to us
a song of trauma —
no one singer, a plural song — 
beggars’ voices rising. 

We open
the blinds and the window itself
and hear a bit of it so, 
in just a moment from now, 
we can go out and drop coin into its cup
and then choose to ignore it. 

Granted, that song 
won’t end so easily 
just because we put cash 
in its loving cup
as it sits on the sidewalk keening,

but we feel better
believing 
we did something, 
even if it was something minor,
to keep
the minor song
in the minor key alive
a bit longer. 

“The country
seems so sad these days,”
we sigh as we turn away. “It sounds
so, so sad. It must be
the wind.  It must be something
in the air.
So much better when we couldn’t hear it.
We’re sad that it has to be sung,
glad that it’s being sung 
elsewhere.”

View from the backseat:
a head not facing you.
Climb over.  Make them look. Take the wheel.

From this side of the wall
it’s clear that there’s no gate.
Climb over. Break through. Tear it down.

Bottom floor, looking up.
No stairs, no ladders, no windows.
Climb the skin of it. Come through the roof.

No invitation in the mail.
No open hand.  No call.
There’s no climbing that.  Turn away.

Say no to all
of what they do bother to offer.
Climb up and out. Rise.