We’ve become
so angular
in America
The Beautiful,

lurching along with no grace,
our bones somehow stark
in grim faces in spite of our
slack obesity.

In the street,
in factory or office,
in church or temple,
we have to stare at each other

a long time to see
anything transcendent
there, and then
we turn suspicious;

we wonder what source of joy
they’re hiding that should be ours
as our faces get leaner,
and meaner, and more and more cruel.

How far we’ve come
from the Good Old Days.
We don’t remember them,
but there are those who do

or say they do and they
are the itch on the side
that won’t stop pinching,
the ones who goad us to claim

Good Old Days
that never were,
Good Old Days
that for others

were the Dark Times.
Maybe that’s why we’re
all so glum, so mad,
so tuned to the key of war.

We all have heard by now
that the myth’s a myth
and America the Beautiful
is bait on a trip wire.

The Good Old Days
some of us had were built
on broken backs, stolen earth,
raped minds, and bounty scalps.

Some of us
are angry
because we trust karma
and know what’s coming.

Others clench
their fists
because they miss ignorance
and the peace that comes with it.

No matter what the cause,
we’re a nation of angular, sharp-faced
soldiers these days, all of us,
no matter how soft we seem.

One of these days
we’re going to cut loose
and start to cut our losses
in a wild stab

at finding our visionary
birthrights, our Good Old Days
in our Beautiful Americas.
It will not be pretty.

1.
Soundtrack: surf music remixed by The Bomb Squad. 

A rope swing hangs from a fragile branch
over a quarry pool.

Two who from this angle
appear to be man and woman
or boy and girl
but could be otherwise
obviously feel safe enough
to be tearing now
at each other’s clothing
and falling together
to the patch of soft ground
at the base of the granite wall.

2.
Soundtrack: mbira, kora, pans, a dictionary being beaten.

When there were still laws,
when there were still boundaries,
when there were so many people elsewhere
who wanted to be here —

when this was an active quarry
they pulled the stones for the pedestal
of the Statue of Liberty
from that curve in the far wall —
there, to the left of the loving couple,
there, where the kids are jumping
from the top and somehow not dying.

See them huddled up there before they leap.
See them — yearning?  Not certain.
They might already be satisfied.

3.
Soundtrack: electric revolver, blue cement slammed by a hammer.

Under the thick black quarry water
are cars resting where they fell —
some holding, perhaps,
the bones of lost drivers.

Too far down to reach without gear:
we see them when we dive in,
just before our lungs blow up
and compel us to rise to safety.

Crimes in the cold cold pools!  We’re
shuddering with delight
at the proximity.

4.
Soundtrack: a clatter of unimportance, uneasily played on massed fiddles.

We’ve learned
that if you come to the quarry alone, silently,
it will swallow you.

We always approach in groups
making a lot of noise.  It soothes the ghosts,
if you want to call them ghosts.  

They move like ghosts
but might never
have been alive long enough
to be unquiet spirits.  

We’re unquiet spirits.
Maybe we are ghosts?

ah, who cares; the important thing
is not to be silent
and never be alone.

5.
Soundtrack: blues and police whistles.

Once they built a pedestal for a Great Lady
using stone from this old delinquent hole.
Can’t they do it again?  
Can’t we, if we skip
the brass band and the various evils?  Or
does quarrying a home like ours
require evil of us?

I see, suddenly, that the rope’s
got a body on it.
Something’s stirring
in the water and
I can’t hear music any more.

Shabby mansion —
we’re so tired we are
starting to shake
more than usual;

afraid
of icecaps and ice tea,
we fear
children of various kinds

whether they’re on
magazine covers
or on our streets
after dark.  We justify

anything from Listeners
to Watchers to
Robot Killers based on
our need to be

Absolutely Safe.  Of that
we sing, reiterating
that the banner 
continues to wave

through it all: 
our very theme song
derives from
a siege mentality.

But the view
from the windows,
the view
from the porch:  

still a prayer worth
raising, a waning
wilderness but still
worthy of awe —

what say we burn
the old house down,
camp here, build something
more modest?  

Maybe this time
we can treat
our neighbors better,
give up our fear of Dark?

Maybe there’s something
to be said for dancing
around a fire?
Perhaps its light will validate

the ash left when we burn open 
gates and walls.
Think of what faces we see
within the word

“us” — how many
do we let in?  The children we kill 
by gun and by drone
are children we ought
to call our own, no matter

who bore them or where 
we find them — they
are in our hands,
in our yards,

waiting 
to enter the light
from the cleansing fire,
and they’ll come

whether we invite them
or not, whether or not
we keep the shabby mansion
intact or burn it down.

A ball
of rage
streaking to earth,
searing 
clouds as it comes;

do you think 
it’s going to bounce
or crash right through?
Do you feel safe
either way? 

Be honest —
you do.  
You figure
it’ll pull a Tunguska
and hit elsewhere,
elsewhere as
they always do,

but if I tell you
it’s a ball made of 
mass rage at masses of
clueless people, 
that it’s full of voices, reminders,
old grudges, justifications
for anger, that it seems pretty
solid and focused and 
well aimed,

will you worry then?
Worry about a direct hit,
or even fear a little the bounce?

Nah, not you.
You aren’t clueless
and are certain no one’s got a reason
to be enraged with you.

That is why
I’m not going to tell you
anything else
about the ball
or its trajectory
or who lit it
before they fired it:

this
is going to be
interesting.  I almost
said “fun,”

but it’s not going to be
fun.

“Let it go, stupid.
You don’t need to hang a label on it. 
You don’t need to rage about it.
You don’t need to fight.”

“Let it go, stupid.”
You have a shiny bleachface.
You have a cute bubble there.
You live in Bleachface Nation.

Let it go, you say? NO.
I hang a label on it.
I rage about it.
I need to fight.

“Tired of hyperbole…”
NO.  Not exaggeration.
Must say it.  Must be said.
My friends walk around terrified, mad, tired,

and I’m terrified mad tired with them.
Bleachface Nation demands terror
of them.  How can Bleachface
shine without that?  

And yes I look a little Bleachface myself.
I look just like the Big Fat Old Baddest Bleachface.
I am none of that — instead, my dark dad’s son.
But you’ll never know if I don’t prove it.

If I don’t prove it, state it,
call it out, fight, rage, battle, 
hang a label if it needs hanging,
I become Big Bad.  I become

the Lie.  I might as well
knock on Bleachface Nation’s
pastel door.  Might as well 
stride on in.  Lock out 

what’s hanging on my heels.
Lock out my dad, grandfolks, 
cousins.  Lock up a bit of me —
shit, I might have to share a cell

with YOU.

Do you know me?
Of course you don’t.
I’m the one you never even see —
the tollbooth hand, the help desk voice,
the picker, the sorter, the sweeper,
and someone’s best chance for survival

because they always come for the left behind,
for the overlooked irritations,
for the almost forgotten and the rarely-noticed,

but they never come for the invisible,

which makes me a good choice
to carry your last hope, a place
to put your faith
if you don’t want it crushed.
Bring me into the world you’re
trying to save and
see who I am and what I can do:
in so many ways I already
run your world.

On the other hand
I could
anchor my despair
and rage elsewhere
and carry
bombs from them
to you —

that’s up to you.

Let me in,
lock me out —
one way or another
you’ll see me soon:
my knowing eyes,
my brimming mouth,
my chest afire.