“To begin with, not all
homicides are crimes.” That’s 
the first sentence I find
when I look up the word
in a legal reference source. “Not all
homicides are crimes.”  Legally

if a person dies at the hand
of another, that’s a homicide and
then a decision must be made
by some lawyer somewhere
about what to do next —

they look
at the body and begin:
this one’s a victim,
this one’s not a victim,
this one deserved it,
this one did not,
this one’s a murder, 
this one’s a manslaughter,
this one, this one, this one…

plucking petals
from bouquets of daisies
laid upon a coffin.

Even if they land 
on there having been a crime,

hoops must then be jumped through
to get to what is called justice:
the hoops are sometimes huge
and hung low
and easy to step through
and the lawyers practically skip on through
and the killer or killers are dragged on through
and there’s a trial
and some one pays, or doesn’t.  

Sometimes, though,

the hoops are small, 
are hung high in the air,
are greasy with lighter fluid  — and swiftly
the flames rise from them
and no one dares to jump through
the hoops or the flames;

the killer or killers
turn from victimizer to victim
and the victim turns
from victim to slug or thug 
and everyone involved bemoans
unfortunate presence in wrong place at wrong time
and sometimes they even call the killer
dutiful servant
or hero.

“Not all homicides are crimes.”
It all depends 
on who hangs the hoops 
and who has to jump through them.

Meanwhile, the petals
that were counted to decide
whether and how the hoops
would be hung 
remain where they fall
on the graves until the wind

pickes them up. They collect
in odd corners in towns named
Ferguson and Baltimore and Baton Rouge
and Winslow and Worcester and 
New York and Oakland
and oh, pretty much

everywhere.  They collect
and decay.  They’ve become sticky
and we are slipping upon them. There are so
many underfoot we can’t help but fall soon,

and if we crack open upon landing,
if we die, will that be
homicide
or accident
or perhaps act of God —

who will count
the petals from our
funeral bouquet, who will decide
where the hoops for that death
will be hung?

They are clearly at the point
of casual denigration, of shameless
spitting upon us as they cannibalize our children,

apparently near the point 
of openly tossing all their copies 
of their own law books into their cross fires;

they are closing the distance to the point 
of admitting they simply adore
the warm ruddy rush from our open wounds,

and are long past the point
of shrugging off every last breath
drawn from among us by their guns.

At what point do we accept
that no vote will stop them
because they have made sure

that they are the ground
upon which the vote rests,
and up or down and yes or no 

are now pointless?

Sign a check
you never expect
to be cashed;
take a stand
somewhere your face
can’t be seen, someplace
safe, warm,
and dark; after all,
you’re nothing like the ones
on the front line.
They’d rather be safe too,
and feeling the same,
but safety’s not for everyone,
even if it should be.

If you
are one of those
inclined to hide, 
you should hide,
even if it’s 
behind them; go ahead,
hide
behind them, but
not so close
to their backs
that they
have to worry
about you; 
they wouldn’t want
to mistake you
for what’s in front of them,
and you wouldn’t want that either.

They got this
without you,

without
you back there
safe and sound
and
breathing down
their necks.

It’s still early.

Still only beginning to be
unpleasantly hot here.

Still looks to be a bad one for the garden
and the people. 

I have a hose with a problem
called a drought.
I have a political lawn sign
with a problem called
a small matter of 
a war in the streets.

I had a little love for many.
I have turned that into
a lot of love for a few
and the rest can shrivel
or burn or both. I don’t have
time for them — there’s
a small matter of a war and
also a drought.  

I had a bet down on getting out of here
before it got too hot
but I’m a loser and a sore one
at that

so now I have a problem
with a drought and a 
problem with a war
and a political sign and a hose
won’t do me much good — can’t
fly out of here on a sign,
can’t keep a battle off my lawn
with a hose, not anymore.

And it’s still early,
or at least it’s still early in this dry heat
of a summer, early in the skirmishes,
early in this last late show about 
problems with drought 
and war and lost wagers
that it wouldn’t come to this,

and not a drop of cooling in sight.

Doomsday tongues 
in broken faces
sing their longing for rain
in this rainless season.

No words or songs alone
can cool this heat, but 
songs come anyway.

In the near distance,
darkness and silence.

Beyond that?

A lie is a lie is a lie.

Long chains hold us 
to our pasts. We claim
to have cracked their locks
and are now free of them, but 
a lie is a lie is a lie; 

we give our faith to 
such talk, choose not to hear 
those who still bear the weight
we claim to have thrown off;
it’s clear that we are not fooled
but are in thrall to our lies,
and a lie is a lie is a lie;

our lies form a base on which we build
those truths which may in fact be true
in the small scope of our own small lives
but which are bitter jokes in the lives
of those whose backs hold us up; a lie

is a lie is a lie. We lie with our lies
when we sleep safe and sound
in our safe beds; to lie
in those beds is to lie in and on
a bed of lies and what is safe,
what is sound, what is
a sound sleep

when each breath we take in sleep
is matched by those whose breaths 
are long since — and even now —
cut off, choked off, stopped
by blood in the throat? How is it
that we do not dream of blood
come to drown us
when we lie down
when our lie is a truth for some
and not all?
If it is a lie for some
it is still a lie,
is all a lie, 

and it’s no lie to say it kills.

Not so much
a hierarchy of classes
as one of castes here:

Greenback Caste, 
Faint Hope To Prosper Caste,
Edgewalker Caste,
Underwater But Bobbing Up Now And Then Caste,
Bottomed Out Caste;

solid, none too porous,
none devoid of nuance,
each with special provisions
for how you or your parents looked,
how you live and love,
how you are what you are;

not splintering, not 
softening, not becoming
more pleasant.

Easy enough now
to move
down the ladder. 

Harder than ever 
to climb it.

Nothing
this vertical can stand
intact forever — 

it cannot stand
but it will take more 
than talk 
and lightly scuffed skin
to tear it down.

It cannot stand,
and when it comes down
it will come down hard,
stone from the sky
falling in fire, wailing
a storm behind,
splashing everything
with ruin
right down
to the last greenback
and marble arch.

The Pyramids remind us

that even with massive slave-built bases
that made them strong,
that even while stripped and roughed
they remain impressive to this day,
after all is said and done
they are today
just empty tombs
for men who long ago
turned to dust.

Harambe:

a Swahili word meaning
pull together
let us pull together
let us pull together as a people

Harambe
I learned it when I was a kid
I read it in a National Geographic
way back before Rupert Murdoch bought it
I read it in an article about Kenya
replete with requisite stereotyped photographs
Harambe
a rallying cry during the struggle for Kenyan independence
Harambe
pull together
let us pull together
let us pull together as a people
Harambe

I’ve never forgotten that

When they first talked about that gorilla named Harambe
I remembered
When they talked about the cage that gorilla was in
I remembered
When they talked about shooting him to save the child
I remembered
When they started to be mournful about the gorilla’s death
more than they were thankful for the still-living child
I remembered
When they talked so sternly with great condescension
about that child’s parents
I remembered
When they roared and roared for someone’s blood
to be spilled for the dead gorilla
I remembered
Harambe
pull together
let us pull together
let us pull together as a people
Harambe

A roar for blood
on behalf of a caged gorilla
who shared his name
with an independence movement
Harambe

I remember

Do you remember
Tatiana
a Siberian tiger
who killed one man in the San Francisco Zoo
injured two other men in the San Francisco Zoo
after escaping from her cage
after being taunted by some or all of the men
after having pinecones shot at her from slingshots

They shot Tatiana

There was talk afterward that the taunting was only publicized
to shield the zoo from repercussions
even though the men admitted it
No charges were filed
and no one remembers if anyone
roared for blood on behalf of
Tatiana

No one knows the names
of the African painted dogs
who tore a boy to death in the Pittsburgh Zoo
when he fell into their enclosure
from an observation deck
where his mother had raised him
to the railing to see better
No charges were filed then
It was deemed a tragic accident
Lawsuits were filed and settled
Only one dog was shot that day
The other dogs were removed
were sent to other zoos
The zoo replaced the nameless dogs
with cheetahs
who do not appear
to have been named

It’s dawn and I’ve been at this for too long
I don’t know how to pull it all together
which is fitting I guess
for a poem about a society
that can’t seem to pull it together

Harambe

The villains
The heroes
The gunned down
The living
The sympathetic ones
The blameworthy ones
The ones who write the narrative
Who get to tell the story
Who own the means of transmission

Who pulled the trigger on this
Who fell
Who declared the black and white of this
Who roared
Who loved the taste of blood in this
Who thirsted 
Who danced around their desire
for all involved to die
from one bullet
from one choice

Harambe
pull together
let us pull together
let us pull together as a people
Harambe 

Harambe
Is gone now
Is over now
Is over
and out

If our house had more of a roof on it
then we wouldn’t get wet
and we’d also see less of the sky.

If there was more heat we’d shiver less
and we’d also miss out on the deliciousness
of warming up.

If we had a comfortable home
then we wouldn’t die of discomfort
and we would be less satisfied with crumbs.

Look up at the mansions on the hill.
Look up at the penthouses, look out
at the beach houses.

Look at the people who own them.
Look at them. Look
at Them.

Think of how much
it takes to make
them,Them.

Think of what it has taken
to make us, Us.
Think of what

was taken from Us to make Them.
Think of how little we would likely have to do
to make Them shiver. Think

of a fire we could light, a roof burning,
what sky we’d see behind the flames.
Think: we’ve always taken our happiness

where we find it.

The party’s over.

The roof’s 
been on fire
and now it’s coming down
despite all the efforts 
to save it.

The streamers
plummet onto us
stuck to burned bricks
and beams; the air
feels smoky and wet
all at once.

You’d better grab whatever you can
if you decide to run —
it may be better to die here, of course;
choose while you still can.

How slow
the implosion
of the great hall;
how long it has taken
to cave in; how many years
of small deaths
from early debris
that taught us nothing,

and now here we are
in our party clothes
trying to dodge catastrophe,
wondering if there’s time

for a last dance.