There are very few clues to find
when exploring how
he became this narrow. 

His permanent record
barely explains anything
as no one ever felt much need

to put notes in there.
His employment file
describes his mild job history,

annual satisfactory reviews,
merely adequate
bumps in pay year upon year. 

Tax returns tell nothing
and there’s nothing of note
in the newspapers of record. 

So how he got to
hollering about the “woke mob”
that’s killing him, is a puzzle

when there’s no sign of damage
from anyone in his history. 
It all looks pretty clean.

Except for the bullshit 
on his tongue, he could be anyone.
That may be the problem: perhaps

he thought he should be exalted
for being so much like 
what he’d been told he should be

that when being ordinary and 
bland and safe-pale was not enough
by itself to make him king,

he drew a sword on his face
and stepped up and out screaming 
for his kingdom.

He makes it up
as he marches along
behind the bulls, feeding. 

More than a little 
distance between 
me in a car
being pulled over
for speeding or bad light
or something or other
or nothing at all

and the ones
(you know the ones I mean)
who don’t drive away
from being pulled over
for speeding or bad light
or something or other
or nothing at all

I’ve got my head
in my hands
most days when
I sit on the couch
and think about
how the news plays
on and on the same

look at me there with
my head in my hands 
as I sit on my butt
I’m a circle a wheel
a stone in a catapult
I just can’t
launch myself

through my TV screen
into the fire around
the scenes on screen so instead
I’ll drive fast and carelessly
into the next city town village over
See what happens — aw go on
Nothing’s gonna happen most likely

Most likely the worst
that can happen is a wreck 
and I’ll just be a tragedy
of my own making
The lights will be blue and benign
The tones of the news anchors  
will be mournful resigned

In the next life
I wanna be a boulder
no one can find a use for
until I’m hurled a little distance
over the walls of a fortress
I can wait till the next life
for someone else to get justice

They long to be
elsewhere

People who are not
in their places want to be
anywhere but where they sit

seeming to be
comfortable

Happiness
and ease don’t look
the same on everyone

They long to be
elsewhere and

it feels like my duty
to assist them and help
move them along

to their next place
It’s a sacred duty

We have a right
to move the uncomfortable 
to where they belong

and these people
clearly don’t belong

here in my neighborhood
They are smiling but
they look so lost

whenever we make eye contact
They look like they’d be happier

one street over
One town over
One country over

There’s danger
in poisonous lands and water;
simply being there
and breathing
is enough to make you
sicken and die.

There’s danger
among the venomous;
if you know
where to look
and how to armor up
you may walk there but

if you
blow your cover
and your armor fails,
a single sting 
may get through
and be enough. 

There’s danger
where the infectious
roam free, spewing 
plagues and slipping germs
past your defenses when you thought
you’d done enough.

You can’t stay safe inside forever;
you are going to have to leave
the safe house one day.
Down the block, all over the country,
you see houses with trouble flags
and deadly yard signs.

Is the air around them infectious?
Are your neighbors in fact venomous?
Are these signs that the whole damned world
is poisonous and this is what 
a mass casualty event looks like as it begins?
Are you enough for whatever comes next?

is what 
we thought 
was most likely
to kill us 
when I was
a grade school kid

and why 
we believed
it was out of 
“stranger danger”
that the End and the Evil
would come

all the news
all the way
through USSR and PRC
to PLO and ISIS
initials that stood for
the Other

till one day
it became as clear to us
as blood
on a forensic slide
that MAGA could kill
without pressing a button

that without
a single ICBM launch
it had been war
against us from back
when it was called
KKK 

which I learned 
as a kid
we’d crushed or
relegated to history
with a hey nonny nonny
we shall overcome

what we learn 
out of school these days
is that nowadays and always
look next door instead of overseas 
for the End and the Evil
as your neighbor’s face

might hold
a loaded silo
a bastard flag
an LOL and a J/K
waiting to open
and let the Great Death fly

One deep inhale
in the cold and I’m thinking
I need to go back inside
and punch this guy. I’ve lashed out
in rage before, but this is not that:
this is calculation, this
strategic punching I’m contemplating.
I’m following a path I endorsed
long ago and now I’m at the point
where I have to take action
if I believe I’ve done right.

One deep inhale
of the cold and I’m ready 
to stop overthinking.
I need to go back inside
and punch this guy. I’d call him out
to the sidewalk but too many would see
the next thing and the next thing
and whatever came after that
and then where would I be: giving him
a chance to prepare, a chance to get armed,
a chance to win? I need to just do
for once what the body tells me:
punch him with as much cold in my hand
as I have in my lungs (after of course

one long exhale)
and then say yes.
that was right. All fear
will fall off me
like broken scales.
Punch him, punch them.
The consequences
are so much gentler
than the consequences 
of self-betrayal.

I turn to
the monstrous, 
fearing monsters.

I’ve become
Animal. Humans
pledge not to,

but too often fail
in their promises.
Betrayal of trust

is endemic among us.
Memory and
documentation

be damned; reaction
is truth. Fear is
health. Who are

those in the wood
or alley that are more
terrifying than I am?

Stand ready, says
the spirit
of the ravenous; Animal,

your time has come.
Take off your watch.
There’s only now. Go.

Fire in your sleeves
when you pick up the sweatshirt — 
how are you supposed to wear this?

It’s as if
this entire blazing society
has settled in your clothing.

So hot, so uncomfortable and 
dangerous to have your home and clothes 
burning from the inside at the same time. 

All day long the mass shooting
itches you. The killing is 
next to your skin and won’t stop.

When the news announces
the inevitable fatalities 
are at a Walmart, you calculate

the distance to one from your home.
Maybe there will be a clearance sale.
God knows you need a new sweatshirt

to replace the one that’s burning you.
Regardless of the source, 
you have to wear something.

It’s not your fault this is all
society offers and anyway,
disaster is all the rage these days.

Every one of us walking around
reeking of smoke and singe.
‘Tis the season. ‘Tis the way of our flesh.