The hottest places? No.
Even Dante knew better —
he never said this.  

The cold places — the ones
where a candle
in the crisis wind freezes
into a red icicle of pointless pose —
that’s where they belong. Can’t you
hear them sniffling about,
wriggling on the fence?

Those of us
who cannot cease raging
and roaring —

we may be wrong,
may ultimately burn in the fiery levels
for what we believe or rise 
toward the glorious sun — in fact
we may not believe
in heaven or hell but
we believe in heat; maybe
because we were born to it,
maybe because we were
schooled in it, maybe because
it found us and we survived —

however it happened,
burning

is all we know.

Flowers and trees and love and such 
are ours to freely discuss, 
are what is
allocated to us.
When we add a note

of concern or rage
at how each
is polluted or policed
or killed, they call us 
out of line. Sometimes

they call us onto
a firing line of our very own — 
enough, the Powers say,
enough, troublemakers;
you should have stuck to

writing of flowers and trees
and love and such
as they are and no more,
should never have sought or
assumed then proclaimed

connections to wider agonies 
and grander ecstasies — 
damn all you poets.  Stick to
pretty wordcraft; leave
the statecraft to the State.

For us to be of
soothing voice and
half-sound mind
is all they ever ask
of us; anything we choose

to carry or inhabit or disrupt
beyond that,
any words for the choices 
we fight for or against, anything
we choose the words to nurture, 

is ours alone, and we are
too frequently alone
with language — the machine
that makes truth happen.
We can’t turn it off, even if we die

by its churning. We can’t do otherwise;
seasons, rain, flowers and trees
and love and such ask us to speak for them.
We can’t do other than we are asked.
Even if we die. Even if it kills us.

Welcome to
our homeland 
where all roads
lead to shops
that sell tinctures
of mist and mistake
in flint glass bottles,
formulas made
to be sipped
from silver spoons
long tarnished
with foreboding;
where every house
has a cute front door, 
sweet curb appeal,
and a back door 
to an alley, 
a one way street,
or a dead end; that door
is the only exit
once you’re inside;
to be certain of which
you are stepping onto,
read the signs —
how foot-beaten
does the pavement
appear to be, 
how far does it extend 
among these close built,
dim windowed fortresses; 
you’ll have to
walk it regardless
but good to know,
good to be forewarned; welcome
to our country
full of schooling
for jobs and careers,
shootings and padlocks,
schooling
for debts and 
mad sorcery
over the checkbook
once a month,
schooling for
holding patterns,
crossed fingers,
sweaty sheets,
the fevered terror 
of the wolf at the door,
the hijab in the coffeehouse,
the ghost bonfires
of noose and cross
still throwing heat;  welcome
to the place where, 
if you have to go there,
you go there —
they want you
to call it home
whether or not they
take you in; stay — 
you can always
be decorative
somewhere
at the right time of
the year.

In your living room
is a star-covered
couch cushion
that is currently serving
as throne for 
your rangy, yellow-eyed cat
who will not stir from it,
no matter
how much
you playfully threaten
to sit upon her;
you are hovering 
above her 
and she stares up
into your face 
with a deep-gene memory
of having been
worshipped in Egypt
showing through 
her jaundiced disdain.
How is it that you 
are not ashamed 
at having the nerve
to offer such disrespect
to another being — 
how do you explain
the casual attitude
that suggests
that one may sit
on any thing or being
one is big enough
to commandeer — 
how do you explain
your disregard,
your protestations
that it’s all in fun,
that it’s only for play,
that you would
never hurt her — 
how do you explain away
this moment that is
a microcosm of
the entire span
of history 
of the modern world?

Mad old mad wrong
wall hanger of a man;

mighty weary worry wart,
soldier in a dogged war;

finding himself forgotten by
digger and dug alike, suspicious

of change and youth
and their glib prejudice

against his wealth
and his jowls and his fatigue

regardless of how’d earned them;
mad weary, worried, back to

a wall he’d raised, put his own
back, his own back against

his own wall, mad at all who
he thinks backed him up to it;

mad and worried and wrong,
warty with anger, his hand

on a raised shaky weapon
with only himself 

to salute and command
and target and obey.

I wake up,
see that this is Hell,
then go back
to sleep.  

I wake up, 
see that this
is Hell, then go back
to sleep. 

I wake up, see
that this is Hell, then
go back to sleep…  

I wake up,
thank my skin and my wallet 
that I am lucky enough 
to have a good enough bed 
that I can choose 
to go back to sleep 
when faced with Hell…

I wake up.

See that?
This is Hell.

I go back
to sleep
wondering
how long a person 
has to sleep
before they can be 
declared dead, before

they can go to Heaven,

before I can go.
I can’t sleep any more
than I have and this, this
is Hell, this is 
not a good look on me —

disheveled, wide-eyed 
and riled,
staring scared
out the window
at how much is on fire;
how do I extinguish Hell? And

how do I now,
how do I ever
fall back to sleep?

You lay a walnut sized stone
in a near broken sling
made mostly of hope

Praying you get
a chance to launch it 
into the eye of
the Brute Approaching

(who in this case is cousin
Blood is thick between you
There has been 
so much of it)

Pray by taking aim
Pray by letting fly

He falls
You pray again
Exalt the well-answered prayer
of your well-flung missile

Burn his corpse where it lies
Weep the small obligation over family shame
Plant a nut tree in his barren outline
Savor the brain-meats grown there for decades after
Resolve to pray more 
Make a stronger sling with which
to offer future hosanna and hallelujah 
to the God Of Stones

on field 
of the usual hues

silhouette of pistol butt

rocking an angle from narrow cowboy hip

bulge in outlaw jacket
wide black leather belt badge and cuffs
khaki or camo dusty holster

or
in the hands
of patriot or rebel
villain or hero

glimpses of long guns in black hands in news photos 

feathers floating from barrels of rifles raised from horseback in western fable

shadows of men with guns feed America
feed America its young
feed this starved America

all those bullets
so little bread

–– for Ahmed Mohamed, all who came before him, and all those yet to come…

Excuse me, Mr. Chimera — won’t you 
smile for the camera?
Won’t you please smile, Mr. Chimera?
How many beasts strong are you, 
Mr. Chimera? How many beasts 
do you harbor inside?

We must deconstruct you 
like a problematic sentence,
ensure that every word
is analyzed for bullets and grudge;

is it tick, tick, tick
or tick, tock, tick, tock
we are hearing, Mr. Chimera? 
Are you bomb
or timepiece, timepiece or bomb?

Your outside makes us fear
what might be inside…
what’s inside you, Mr. Chimera,
what’s inside?

Are you angry enough 
to explode now,
or are you just growing toward fire
later on?  

Two choices, Mr. Chimera;
two choices, no in between, no 
alternative. It’s beyond our imagination
that we might not be right
and if there’s a chance we are right
we must act as if it is a certainty,

no matter how odd or angry
that seems to you. 
We’re not sorry at our lack of remorse:
the forms must be followed, Mr. Chimera,
the forms must be followed…

So won’t you smile, nod, 
dress right, Mr, Chimera;
won’t you stand with your hands
behind your back in your natural stance,
Mr. Chimera?  Why won’t you smile,
Mr. Chimera? Why don’t you smile?
Why can’t we get you to smile? 

I understand the glorious alchemy
of salting slices of just picked raw eggplant 
to draw up the bitter essence from the flesh
so that it may be rinsed away, 

and it’s not hard at all for me to delight
in the mysteries of the scent 
rising from the oven as the slices
are baked for inclusion in a dish
to be served late tonight to someone well loved.

I understand these things.
I feel the joy of service and making
when I turn to them from news of this world
that’s starving for such joy.

I don’t know how to approach those children
dead on beaches and in the streets; 

how to speak to those among us so willing 
to let freedom be wrung out of us,

can’t bear to lose the sweetness
being drawn from us daily;

I don’t know how to love a nation
so openly bent on hate and madness, 

how to love and live in that world — but

I can ladle good fresh tomato sauce
onto the layers of eggplant and lay on
thick cheese; I can bake it and wait for it
to come into its glory; I can broil it briefly 
until it bubbles, I can set it before a loved one
and say “here’s something”
with some small joy,

for here indeed is something,
something small
made from food I grew to be good
and food I sought out to make it better; 
this is a thing I can do
to make love visible 
that is too often hidden.

It’s not enough,
but tonight it will have to do
to keep away despair,

to fill us up.

They say a lot of things…

they say a rising tide lifts all boats.
They say policing quality of life issues 
(broken windows, sad panhandlers) 
will raise all boats.  
They say the eyes
are the windows of the soul;
if the soul has broken windows 
that’s the fault of the face they’re in
and we should police them
right into the big clean up… 

they say a lot of things…a lot of things…

They say the path to a man’s heart
runs through his stomach.  
They say center mass 
is the best way to aim.  
They say the surest path to the heart
is to aim for it directly
and if the heart shot misses 
then a gut shot kills too,
slowly but certainly,
especially if you can wait hours for it 
to kill…

they say a lot of things, along with so many things
they don’t say…

they say race is a social construct.  
They don’t say they built it to bind and blind and kill.

They say all lives matter.
They don’t say how they define “all.”

They say it’s best to be polite if you have to scream.
They don’t say much, politely or otherwise, when someone does…

they say so many things,
they never shut up,
they don’t say enough
when they’re talking,
they say what we should do,
they don’t say what they will do,
they don’t say they’ll stop
wringing their hands
or sitting on them
and put them to use,
they don’t say they say so much by saying so much,
by saying so little…behind it all 
a white sheet,
brown shirt, gun hand 
voice…

they hear it…no, they don’t hear it…
they hear it…no, they don’t…

then they tell us
to forget it 
and get over it
and stop
and nonsense,
it’s all in our heads, in our
bitter cores…they

hear what they want,
drown the rest 
by talking,
talking…

all that clatter
like a storm of broken windows, 
every last word
a window shard seeking
its coat of blood.

An hour from now
everything will likely be all
ironed out.

Flattened,
unwrinkled world to come,
we await you

and your generous spirit,
your lack of complication.
We shall sit here

and contemplate the 
impending grandeur of 
such perfection, brought about

by good intentions and
the sincere and rhythmic
wringing of hands

to songs we’ve heard
a million and one times;
what joy that it finally worked,

what joy
that our boundless optimism
has not been in vain.

An hour from now
we’ll surely be able to sing 
so sweetly, so unencumbered

by nagging doubts 
that there was something more
than love needed, something more

than goodwill needed
to end war, hate, injustice,
all the rest of those things,

we can barely stand to say
those names, doubtless we’ll
forget about them, forget

the words themselves 
an hour from now when
the Sixties finally kick in.