Mountain that is
above all and darkening
Valley and looming as if
it had invented that word. Valley
that opens out into Plain
south of here or so we’ve heard and
stays dark into late morning thanks to
Mountain and still shadows cool 
at midday. 

Those born
in Mountain’s shadow,
in this Valley, 
are blessed and also sheltered
and occasionally threatened when 
storm or errant sound triggers
a slide of snow or mud into villages,
taking homes, farmlands, pets, 
futures and pasts and 
oh, everything away although
when it is quiet it is indeed
perfect.  Mountain makes it 
perfect by adding danger
to peace. Threat to safety.
Dark to sunlight.

Those south of here
where Valley becomes Plain
don’t get to understand this ever.

Now and then we speak 
as one, in voice of Valley, 
and elect to send Plain
a touch of Mountain threat,
a touch of nation building — 
we bring them Shadow then
and wreck them for
their own good. Be like us,
we say. Be like us and like us
for what we’ve wrought — 

they don’t, though; stupid people of Plain —
apparently
understanding is not for people
not of Mountain, not for people
not of Valley. Perfection’s

not for them, ever.

A mother gray whale
watches orcas savage
and slay her calf;

she lingers in the red sea
for a moment, then
continues on alone.

The calf’s carcass drifts toward
the bottom of the shallows
where it will serve its killers

as a meal to be consumed
at their leisure. I don’t cry —
not for that calf

who after all was simply in
the wrong place at the wrong time
or the right place if you believe

all things happen for a reason,
nor for that mother who lingers briefly
then moves on, nor for the orcas 

who need to feed and are only doing
what they are designed to do. I think
I’m going to cry for the documentarian

who watched these things happen
without being able to affect an outcome,
without wanting perhaps even to try —

I don’t know if that’s fair, or true; maybe
they began this work seeking that
and slipped away from it the way a corpse

dissolves to gray when it is finished
with living. In moments of such drift
perhaps they turn back towards themselves

and say there’s still hope it will change
something, awaken a viewer into action 
on behalf of those things which can be changed.

I say this on a night when video
of Laquan McDonald’s murder by cop
on a Chicago street pushes throngs

into action. No one stood
behind that camera. No one watching can see
anything there that had to happen.

No one could say that the cops were doing
what they had to, although it may be
what they were designed to do. 

No camera shows
a mother lingering
over his body. 

Nothing in any film yet made
suggests anyone is moving on;
no natural order

here, no sweet music
of the circle of life.
It’s not that kind of killing. It’s our kind —

unnecessary blood
on the street, on our hands,
on all the surfaces of earth and sea.

Wherever the next camera will be,
wherever
the next killing will be —

right place,
wrong place, right time,
wrong time —

are you going to want to see
the documentary
someone’s going to make

about what you do
when a murder happens
right in front of you? If I say

a murder is happening 
in front of you now — in fact,
several murders, many murders,

hundreds and thousands of murders,
collateral deaths and even more casual
snuffings of spirit that sometimes leave bodies intact

long after they should have drifted off
to the darkness — what will you do then?
Will you chalk it up to orcas being orcas

or will you try to speak, intervene, at least
be witness to it all? Maybe turn away, step out of view,
and say shamefaced there is nothing you can do,

say there’s nothing to be done? I wish I knew
what to say to that.  All I feel right now is the sting
of spray from the cold face of the sea.

They tell me I don’t know
how to make a better world
from this one, or that at least
I never speak of a better one or how
to find it;  they can’t see my fear

that if I spoke of it, wrote of
what I see of the path ahead,
talked (no matter how gently)
of a new world and how it must 
be built on the razing of this one,

they’d lock themselves into a closet
with their favorite artifacts and their slim hope
and not come out again — and they’d 
never hear me when I say that I see
the new world, and the path to it; I talk about it

all the time. I have nothing but hope, in fact; 
I just know that if we’re going to get there, 
one step is the erasure of the artifacts of this one,
and no one wants to hear about 
the need to let go.

YES to
a right war
a good burning
a sweet crush of smoke 
a cracking big crackle 
a lovescream or two 
a flower on a coffin
a thousand thousand bloom decked coffins
a thousand million wails of wailing august healthy grief
YES to
a stress fracture long as san andreas
a wound open as a candidate’s wide white mouth
a sky full of drone opinions making for a target
a blue hole in deep sea damage waters holding dead secrets
YES to
a why that makes a what better
a how that makes a why clean
a who that makes a how sweeter
a what that makes a when dance
YES to
a big love that manifests in a dark slap of reason
a slaughter that makes a forest rise from bones and regret
a dirt pile over ruins heaped on top of high stacks of stolen histories
YES to 
the end of this
the end of this 
the end of this 
NO
this negation 
this denial
this not now
this not yet
this not that 
this not this so
YES
to YES
to YES
to going through NO with YES
like a bulldozer to grand wizardry
like a blowdown missile to bad bunkers
like a softbomb to dim corners of hiding 
like a mistake multiplied enough times to come correct
when called
to YES through NO
take YES
BE
YES
be YES
YES
YES

A nation of plague doctors
in plague doctor masks,

walking untroubled
by the smell of bodies.

What long beaks full of flowers. 
What dark cloaks they don 

to walk among the sick insisting
they have the cure: social unity, false kindness, 

willed blindness to what ails
those who stand before them.

A reliance on unseen Someones
in the sky.

A certain ruthless innocence
upon hearing corrupted narratives.  

What short memories.
What a short time since

they were themselves
the sick, the subjects of pain and lies.

What pity they would feel for themselves
if they were to be unmasked.

What panic would ensue, what
screaming, what fever would spread

if they realized how little
lavender and rue can do.

If a gun woke up
aimed at something it liked
or had no business killing
would it bow
to the desire of the shooter
or misfire

If a club woke up
mid-fall upon a skull
would it twist in the hand
to miss or glance off or
would it follow through

if all nooses woke up
and unraveled at once
in executioners’ hands
would the executioners
attempt to retie them
or simply turn
to old school manual methods
and do their jobs that way
having become certain
(as the nooses were not)
of the inevitability
if not the rightness
of their duties

what would the nooses do then

considering the racket
we are living
it is hard to understand 
why everything
is not
wide awake
insomniac
desperate for rest

With acknowledgments and respect to Bob Marley, whose words inspired this piece…

Dictionaries
tell you what authority demands
of words

defined
to do work
on behalf of Authority

Never do they mention 
when primary meaning is 
in dispute

or when primary meaning
is a cornerstone
of prison or when

that cornerstone
rests firmly on negated
backs and necks

If they do tell you a meaning
came from a definition
written repeatedly in blood

with pens
made from bones
plucked from slain infants

they wink it off with
a bandage label such as
“colloquial” or “obsolete” —

trying to chase
unquiet ghosts of struggle into 
forgotten fields of rubble

left over from 
construction of
their order

While they own these dictionaries right now
their dictionaries have no words
to sing of those who

having come up from under boulders
having come up free of rejections and crush
having come up from understanding

to overstanding
this ism schism game
sing new words 

of how stones refused
by builders become soon enough
cornerstones and

keystones of
aqueducts to carry fresh water
to those who still thirst

and of how they do so
by any definition
necessary

How hard is it to be
this, to be me?
Very easy on days
when there’s enough
lemon sunlight
or clean-scented rain
to keep things fresh
and moving; other days,
it’s a chore moving one lung,
let alone two,
let alone keeping up
with my cardiac rhythm,
and when it is like that
weather has no bearing
on how long I lie in bed
after waking up
only to have my head
convince the rest of me
I have not slept at all.
Take this morning, 
for example — I haven’t looked
out the window to see
what is going on and
I likely won’t — so take this morning
and run. Take the whole day —
I won’t miss it.

Tell me if I have this right — 

if I stand before you and
you choose me as your enemy
it is a righteous choice;
if your weapon is drawn,
it is righteously drawn; 
if your weapon speaks,
it is righteous speech;
if I fall after it has spoken,
it is a righteous fall.  

Your enemy 
may not have been
properly identified for you,
may not be clear to you,
but you hunt anyway,
armed and wary, 
assuming that
bullets, once fired,
will exact perfect justice 
by way of having come from 
an unerring (by definition) gun.

Do I misspeak, am I 
getting all this? 
Am I even allowed
to speak about this? 
It’s getting hard 
to understand

what is allowed, what is 
a right, who has what rights,
what descends from 
such righteousness,

how far down
one may descend.