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.

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.

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.