It will certainly not take
another poem,
or comment thread,
or hand-wrung tear
of dim empathy
from me.
It may take nothing
from me, in fact,
except surrender
of whatever I have that
is only mine to offer:
my reserved place in line,
my nodding acceptance of it,
my learned willingness
to get along
by going along.
My fear-frozen tongue.
My centrality.
I woke up today
face down
in a roasted chicken.
The evidence around me
suggested that I may have
slaughtered, cleaned,
and cooked it here
in the backyard
while I slept,
as I did not
recall any
of this bloody
and brutal work.
I wiped my face,
grabbed a leg and thigh
and went inside
to find
hides in various stages
of dressing and tanning,
thin hint of blood,
buckets of guts and hair,
tools I did not know I owned
strewn on the kitchen table,
and again, recalled nothing
of this hard labor; didn’t ache
in strange places, was not
at all tired, could find not one speck
of gore upon me —
so I turned from all this
and sat down
upon my couch
and turned on the TV
for stories of slayer drones and
the machinations of money men,
tales of police killings and
poisoned water, go-slow language
for urgent issues — all else
that happened while I slept
and could not feel any pain
or fatigue for having done.
Well fed, clothed
as if by magic,
as if by invisible hands,
I am still sitting here
with only a vague sense
that I should
hurt.
They did not imagine
back when they began
that we would still be here
this deep into the future.
It was a failure of imagination by those
who have always exaggerated
how much imagination
they actually have.
They always believed
that the future was theirs
to corral and segregate,
that they would own the walls
and floors and doors
and locks and bars
forever. They built that way,
they taught that way,
they thought that way
was the only way. Their way
was the highway. They thought
we would always be
like pavement: underfoot,
smooth, forgettable
as any other necessity
someone stole long ago.
Now that their pavement is
breaking, now that
the roots they thought
they had killed
are pushing hard new life
through it toward the light,
they dare to ask:
who are you to break
so much, block the journey,
question the wholeness
of us? We respond:
use your imagination,
what did you think would happen?
And when they say nothing to that
and bring out the stale old weapons
and the antique crushing weights
and we rise in spite
of all that and they
are astonished, saddened, cooing
and cajoling and saying there, there,
calm down,
don’t be like that, we say:
use your imagination.
What do you think is going to happen
now? And when they stand there
on their broken ground amid
their shattered walls and locks
and doors burst open and held open
by the swift and violent greening
of our resurgence, when they say
what now, we will not speak. We will shrug
and turn our imaginations elsewhere.
Dig these cozy homes
hiding lockboxes full
of dark
these thick lawns seething
with maggots from bodies
underneath
those smiles with those teeth
flecked in new flesh red
and old bone brown
Dig unmitigated miles of this
Dig them wrong or right but
there for sure and certain
of staying put
no matter what happens
Dig their home security signs
in their politely policed windows
Dig facade voices
turned up full blast to drown out
their pet ghosts
squeaking
in their lockboxes
those sounds
of chewing
from below their feet
Dig
now
history
Dig history saying
Ha and
HeeHee and HoHo
Dig history
with keys in hand
and a shovel
Dig history
handing them to you
Dig history saying
Put up or shut up
Shut them down
Dig
“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?
How deftly she moved
through the changes — her fingers
on the strings, her face
in moving shadow — her voice
a deep incantation, first
sweet as cool dawn,
shifting toward the sound
of a stream in full flood still
just within its banks, ending in a spill
of soft clarity —
all this before
the police dragged her
from the sidewalk
and hurled her brick-hard into
the side of the cruiser, calling her
officiously a Commie, a terrorist,
a mistake, an insult — building
that dam against all she’d
set to flowing
just seconds before —
one of the cops
snatched her guitar
(almost gently)
from her hands as they did this
as if he believed that it
could not be blamed
for what was happening here
and did not deserve the treatment
they were meting out —
handed it
(to the surprise of all)
to another in the crowd —
as the police
took her away
another set of fingers
began to work
those bereft strings
and other voices took up
that same song
Link to a video of Judy Collins’ version of this song here.
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?
1.
At 5:45 AM
I took out the trash
and did not startle
when a neighbor spoke to me
while my back was turned
because I am not a target.
I watered the container garden
when we were done speaking
and then sat right down
on my own front wall
in the high humidity
and, in the name of
going back to bed
and getting more sleep,
took a few hits off half a joint
and wasn’t too worried
though it was full daylight
because I am not a target.
I could have been a target.
I could have been but almost
in spite of all my handsome
paternal ancestors,
I pass for White
and always have
and thus regardless
of my own thoughts
and obsessions and internal
maladjustments to the way
my frame doesn’t fit my picture,
I am not a target.
I can love and rage
and live out loud
because I am not a target.
I can walk a street
with my eyes set straight upon
the eyes of others
because I am not a target.
I can watch every video
of targets, and target practice,
sit there staring,
crying out and raging up
and falling out,
then turn them off
or turn away
because I am not a target.
2.
No one
and everyone
knows what’s coming.
No one
and everyone
understands
what will not stand;
no one knows how it will
fall. None but the targets
understand
how that’s going to feel.
Everyone’s
going to learn something —
at the very least, how
not to turn away;
at the very most,
how little it will be,
has ever been, about them.
3.
I went back inside
and was ready to sleep
until one of my handsome
paternal ancestors
rose into view,
right through the floor;
she hovered there,
her regalia soaked in blood;
she shook her head,
she would not look me in the eye;
as hard as I wanted to be before her,
I could not be hard. I instead fell
to the same floor she transcended
so easily, and saw then
how difficult it was going to be
if I wanted to claim anything
of what I thought myself
to be; and when I looked up
she was gone, and the blazing eye
of a bull bison hung in her place
for a second only
before leaving me alone
to choose.
Talking about a sensitive topic with friends;
there’s a word you think applies
but it’s from language
you were not born with.
You would like to include it
in the conversation — holding it in your mouth
before placing it with right reverence
and emphasis
on the perfect space on the board so to speak —
but are unsure of its reception
and frankly are at least slightly uneasy
with your right to use the word
as it is not
language you were born with.
You consult your dictionary
and find the word there, guide to pronunciation,
all the various connotations, even a sense
of the same dis-ease you feel while considering it.
Now you have permission. This is why
you own the dictionary in the first place:
to give yourself permission. To provide yourself
a place to keep
all the language you were not born with
until you choose to use it.
As you speak you have freedom of choice
to think (or not) of all who’ve died
to provide you with your dictionary. Those
whose mouths once held selected words
that were fortunately plucked
in their ripest darkest moments
and then tucked almost tenderly into your dictionary
to sleep until you needed them. Language
you were not born with, language still blood-sticky.
Talking around a sensitive subject with friends
and there’s the perfect place to stick the word.
This is why you own the dictionary: so you’ve got
something to point at in the silence that follows.
Something to stand on. Something
to hit the dead with when they come forward
to ask why you took what you took from them.
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.
You grew up as expected,
fit prescribed dimensions. Then
you met some people
you weren’t supposed to meet
and did some things
no one had planned you would do.
You began to grow in some areas,
shrink in others, shrink
from some others while growing
toward others, toward people
largely unplanned for by those
who planned you out.
Now you’re scared of the flag they revered,
scared of the uniforms they obeyed,
and they’re a little scared of you in return —
or so you’d like to believe. It’s possible
that they don’t see or hear you at all now.
Wrote you off, a failed experiment. Wrote you
into a narrative that preserves their own.
That’s how it started, after all:
with you fitting into their story.
Now you fit into it by no longer
fitting into it. It’s all win for them,
and for you too once you choose
to let their story go
in order to embrace your own.
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.
Dark Matter 