Originally posted 12/31/2009.
Watching a show
on terraforming Mars
and can’t help but think
of Crazy Horse
when an astrobiologist says,
“To me, Mars is the lot next door.
The lot is vacant,
so why not plant a garden?”
Crazy Horse,
if you’re listening,
please accept my apologies
for us all.
All that blank red dust,
all the things we’ve learned,
yet we still think we know best.
New poem.
The most elegant part
of being in a privileged body
is the ease and grace permitted to one
when avoiding difficulty. This is not to say
one never feels pain or trauma; such a body
does not entirely prevent harsh moments
of injustice or regrettable instances
of sanction and unlawful control. What it means
is that one can, with less fuss, slip on white gloves
and reveal to those who can offer redress
for such inconveniences the small dirt and flecks of blood
which have adhered to one as a result
of the aforementioned distresses, and
(one would surmise) thus compel those redresses
along with appropriate apologies
from the offenders. One must see this privilege
as a deserved elegance, as fine as china
on the long table, as clean
as the drawn out whistling
of those bombs and bullets used to secure it,
or one risks it being taken away.
The price of having such elegance
in the air you breathe, in the water you drink,
in the ground below your well-shod feet
is to accept it even if you recognize
how others must bleed and die and fight and sob
for their losses in order for you
to gain. If you cannot or will not accept that,
if you find yourself gnawed open
by this wisdom, know that the air
will still be there for you, perhaps colder
and more bracing; the water will still be there for you,
sweeter if scarcer; once you’ve given
the right to such privilege away, the ground below your feet
will still hold you no matter how clumsy you may become,
no matter if you fall while walking the new path.
New poem.
Cooks a hearty breakfast with privilege for fuel. Finds it
smoky and filling with a subtle iron tang under the cheesy
notes of the primary flavors.
Showers then for work under hot, hot water thanks to
privilege burning in the basement furnace. Then, warm clothes
to wear, thick carpets underfoot, fine shoes and doors
that open both ways, a solid car,
a road, a job, a team of coworkers, a good dinner out and
a drink later with that iron tang on the tongue
present the whole time, insistence
upon reminder upon demand.
It once was interesting, now is at once maddening
and integral. Comes up empty trying to name it. Thinks,
it’s not the privilege. It’s not. It’s not. Turns on the television,
then turns it off at the sight of streets of blood. Promises
to puzzle it out
tomorrow
on a full stomach.
New poem.
Someone near me says,
I did that like a boss.
I say to him, wake up. Don’t say that —
who wants to be the boss? He says,
fool, I do. I say, wake up. Who is our secret
enemy? Who is our tight lipped
antagonist? Who is our uneasy
must-go-to? Who sits on the shoulder
of the road counting our steps
as we slog our heavy loads unwillingly
from one sad place to another?
He says, but not all bosses are bad. I say, yes,
not all bosses are bad but there’s a bad creature
alive in the center of that word.
It likes the taste of obedience. It says,
please don’t be inconvenient. It says,
stay on the sidewalk with your heavy load,
stay out of the big wide road with your freedoms
and you will be allowed to exercise them
as much as you like. It was the creature
that lives in the center of the word “boss”
who coined the phrases
go along to get along,
not all men, and
all lives matter.
He turns his back on me
while shaking his head
and I say to myself,
wake up, fool,
talking like a boss to him —
clearly you have some boss venom
in you and do you want the poison
of feeling and doing anything
like a boss? Wake up, I tell myself,
and say it:
no, boss. No.
I’m shutting up.
I’m sitting down,
I prefer not to.
I prefer not to.
Originally posted 1/30/2004; revised, 6/9/2014.
Originally titled “Songs Against Police Shootings.”
Once again, a brown teenage boy
crumples leaking
onto the floor of a stairwell.
Once again, a cop states
that he thought he saw
a gun.
Do you remember them? Do you remember
her, lying in the street
with her eggshell nails and skinny legs?
Remember him,
whose house smelled of wine
and buzzed like a glove full of bees?
When they banged down his door
they thought a host of tiny troubles
might fly out of its ramshackle fingers
so they shot him down as he stumbled out,
shot him down as if he were
a queen, a danger queen.
Remember
all the dead salty-throated
boys and girls
who were in the wrong places
at the wrong time — the places where
mothers’ magic stops working?
Here you are again,
too familiar with this, too familiar
to second guess — yet you do, saying
the roof
was just a short cut
to the next building,
it was never meant to be
his final destination;
how does this happen?
You know how it happens.
You know that
is the wrong question.
You know he should have been able
to go anywhere
without this happening.
You tell this
to anyone who will listen, although
you cannot say any of their names aloud.
You try to remember them all —
so many names in one story.
You tremble as you count them.
They are safe and sleeping,
and you will not be the one
to wake them from sleep; instead
you choose to stand watch,
to sound the alarm,
to fight the urge for going —
the urge to turn away, to be safe,
to second guess, to hide,
to ignore, to pretend.
New poem.
You
chose the colors of the flag
and the money.
You
bought whatever
you couldn’t steal.
You
did dirt, then
made doing dirt the default.
You
won and won
and won.
You
reached across the table
to take us as forfeit
thinking
we had nothing left
but wasted lives to bet
because everything else
we’d ever had
was going up in smoke.
You
were close to right,
except
you
forgot about
this matchbook.
New poem.
Something’s stirring, straining,
coming up from underneath
where it’s been held.
You claim
you want to help free it but
first you have to consider
and then choose
the perfect tool for the job.
Is it the screwdriver? The hammer?
The blowtorch? Is there really something to be said for simply
blowing it up and starting over? What loosens best
that which has been bound so tightly for so long
the whole house groans when it twitches? It’s all
so complicated,
or so you say.
Originally posted 9/18/2012.
we are waiting for a table
in this restaurant
watching an ant
on the wall
watching an ant
watching an ant
watching an ant
on the wall
waiting for the ant
to walk the whole wall
betting on the ant
who is walking the wall
if the ant walks the whole wall before we are called
we will take that ant to our table
we will take that ant to the table
we swear we will take that ant to the table
for how much could an ant possibly eat
a crumb or two maybe that falls from our plates
a crumb or two maybe
a crumb
how perfectly privileged we are
that we get a table to wait for
in this town where people might not have a table
a table to be filled with food
so let’s feed the ant
who is walking the wall
walking the whole length of the long wall
how much could one ant eat
that ant is inspiring
I’m going to buy a ukulele
and once I know how to play
or maybe a little before that
I will write a song with a ukulele
sing it at an open mike
singsong a song for the struggle of ants
fight hunger with a ukulele
that ant is going to owe us
for the crumbs we offer
for the ukulele fight song
for not crushing her this time
if she is not grateful enough
you know she can forget the crumbs
damned if we write another song about her
you watch how swiftly the thumb will come down
New poem.
there are people in the streets.
some are dead. some are deadly.
some are on their feet for the first time,
awakening in a time of mirror shards
to revolution in a time of plastic,
a war in the time of ukulele music —
this is what democracy looks like.
there are people lighting candles.
there are people lighting candles the size of buildings
and cars. there are people holding circles
and vigils and ciphers, people running
from murk toward dawn then turning back
to face the murk and stand and never crack —
this is what democracy looks like.
there are people rising and people falling
and some of the people rising don’t yet know
they rise, just as some of those falling
won’t know it till they hit the killing floor.
some who rise will rise from sight. some who fall
will shatter to dust and sift away on the wind —
this is what democracy looks like.
there are people voicing what was once voiceless,
building safety for those once unsafe, draping justice
like a bulletproof cloak on the shoulders of those
who have been judged unjustly
and serving justice to those unjust who have never tasted it,
making it new and now and near —
this is what democracy looks like.
there are people who say it is best to make it plain:
hands up, don’t shoot. black lives matter.
someone stands with a megaphone in a circle of fire,
asks: what do we do now? and the circle says,
we march. we go. we do what needs doing
and when that’s done, we do more —
this is what democracy looks like.
Originally posted 11/4/2010.
They’re coming for us.
Again, the sound of death-bees in the air.
Again, batons and the hiss of tear gas.
Right back
to the bright red world of vigilance
we should have been shed of
dozens of, hundreds of,
thousands of years ago.
Hunters are coming
with traps and guns and laws.
Our ears are to the ground,
listening for the tumbling of their wheels.
There be giants coming for us —
god-henchmen, blue hungry curs;
every one wolf-eyed,
expert and patient.
They’re coming in new hides,
new weapons, new uniforms,
but they have the same old saber teeth,
they’re the same old giant bears
who thought we were made
for their survival needs, they think
we’re the same old prey that got away,
and they’re thinking, “Not this time.”
We thought to outrun the past,
but it got faster.
We’ve got to get smart
the way we got smart
the last time this happened.
We learned fire and song then,
learned to shout directions to each other
on the run,
learned when to turn
and make a stand.
Time to pick our hands up
off the hoods of our cars.
Time to talk to the neighbors,
talk to each other,
talk ourselves to the battle.
They’re coming,
but it’s nothing new
and nothing we haven’t defeated
a thousand times
a thousand times.
Inside every last soft one of us
is still the Hard One
who long ago
got up off all fours,
looked the Hunters
in the eyes and made
the first ever Political Statement:
“No.
Not this time.”
Originally posted 2/26/2011.
Which graves we choose
to tarantelle upon
is less relevant
than realizing we all
have the deep longing
to dance on the grave
of some dead someone
whose movement once
made us hate and rage.
We love to sin that light fantastic.
Can’t sit still — red, blue,
left, right — love that happy dance.
How soft the ground, how haughty
our heels. How good it feels to swing
on top of them; they can’t do a thing
about it.
A beautiful American word,
revenge; it names
a toe dance of righteousness.
Everyone’s tapping. Some on top,
some impatiently waiting
their long delayed turn,
every smoldering one of us
wanting the last dance.
People aren’t small enough yet
for us to pocket them all
so we will need to break them apart
if we are to steal away with them.
People are too loud
for us to get away clean with them
squalling in our pockets and hench-bags
so we’ll just scream along and drown them out
or amplify everything so much
that their protests become pop music. Keep them
yelling about everything all the time
and no one will hear calls for help.
People aren’t small enough
so we’re going to have to break them down
and press them between the bills
in our wallets. When we buy anything
they’ll slip out and fall like leaves
to the ground. They’ll be underfoot
and loud to the crunch. We won’t notice
after a while. It’ll be winter,
just us
and the money
and the nuisance memory
of those minute screams.
Originally posted 1/4/2012.
Bees dying, trees
dying, tundra melting, oceans
filling, skies falling;
no one’s yet saying
war,
war,
war.
Pockets broken open, children
made ignorant by choice, homes
emptying while we sing of sex and shallow water,
never of truth, never of pain, most of all never of
war,
war,
war.
They’ve made up a war to hide real war.
In the face of it we do our best
to laugh like mad, surf the dead waves,
devil our care in the teeth of
war,
war,
war.
A little sleight of hand,
a lot of sleight of tongue and our good sense
disappears into the creamy light from object thighs
till we forget there’s
war,
war,
war.
Targets have been painted
on the skins of others.
Can you see the red sniper dot
fixed upon on your own?
Look down at your feet —
you stand upon the stairs to the chopping block.
Can you admit at last that you can smell the bloody air?
Will you at last call this what it is —
war,
war,
war?
Originally posted 1/29/2013.
Coming down the stairs
to my sweet revolutionary friends’
upturned faces and bubbling voices
as they rise to the morning.
I love and hate them all at once
as I stumble into their cloud of hope
from my dreadful sleep.
I want to demand of the Powers That Be
that they turn from their affairs to see
those smiles pregnant with new holidays,
the street fairs waiting to break out when they sing.
Every movement of every arm
and every hair
is a banner
for a yet-unfounded nation,
a nation
for the living, the joyful,
the loyal opposition;
patience,
once a virtue,
has no place
here today.
Coming down the stairs
I see smiles, I hear laughter,
I can feel the walls shake.
Their song and breath and wonder
draw me into
a world they are making new.
Give them a short track to the Powers That Be:
they will open up every door
that hasn’t been opened
in far too long.
He cries with his gun
and she weeps with her cleaver.
If I am mistaken in this,
burn me with money for my kindling.
What a sad hole
of formerly shaded secrets.
What a barn full of slaughterhouse
cows seeking escape.
The roses we planted
and fed with convenient blood and sweat
are blooming long after the hard frosts
have set in, and we have no more
to give unless we source it
from each other, from the ones we thought
were like us. The message goes out:
find a reason to stick them and drain them.
He cries on his gun, she
tear-stains her cleaver. But
that doesn’t stop them from working,
and the roses earn a temporary reprieve.
It’s cold, though. So cold
tears and sweat and blood are hardening.
So cold we can see now that those cows
aren’t breathing. Our sustenance:
nothing but ghosts. So cold the roses
break off the stems and shatter.
Our easing: nothing but scraps.
We look at each other weeping,
and realize how hungry we are.
Dark Matter 