Can I just check myself here —
It’s OK with you if I keep calling
an acquitted killer
a killer, right?  

It’s so hard to keep track
of that kind of thing
in a nation so clumsy
with truth 

that we can learn of someone killing someone
with a shrug one evening
then giggle at a grumpy cat
by noontime the next day

but I should check myself,
I suppose
After all, this is all about
a perfectly legal evil

At least that’s what
I’m given to understand
What I’m given to accept
and lie down with and chew upon

is that someone who stalks chases
fights a boy starts to lose
and then shoots that boy dead
did it all in self defense — whew!

That must have sucked
I feel bad for him
So many people pissed at him
He’ll never again be able

to go out in public
without wearing
a hoodie
or something

I should check myself
I suppose
before I lose lunch
and self control

Grumpy cat says
looky looky here
My face is the banner
of all discontent and dissent

In these furred jowls
find expression for your anger
Create a meme of rage
and send it out across

the wired and wireless
O America
you cat box
you climbing pole

I will find a way to live here
Muttering the whole time
about killing and revenge and justice
About REALLY DOING SOMETHING

again and again
because what else can I do
except lament
if I never check enough of myself to accept

my share of the guilt
not for the act
but for living here in such a way
that the act and all its fallout

became just another
just one more example
(what were their names again?)
of exactly what we expected

Instead I check myself
for color and age
breathe a sigh of relief
wait to die in bed

like an acquitted killer
who’s still a killer
We’re big fat killers
him and me

The poem cannot strike the blow
but it can draw the sword.

It may speed the hand to seize the hilt.
It may make the case for war, but
it will not shed the blood that will lubricate
the wheels as they escape the rails.

The poem will not set the fire
but it may light the match.

It may stand with the rioter in the dark.
It may be silhouetted in the sudden light.
It will not toss the bottle at the gates
but it will sing with the timbers as they cry and pop.

The poem will never pull a trigger
but it might cock a hammer or chamber a round.

It will stop and stare into the eyes of the killers.
it will stalk backwards as it draws them on, but
it cannot do what only you can do.
It can only hand you the weapon and ask:

is this not, at last, the time?

America, why
aren’t we ashamed

to look out the window
and find the same scene
this morning
as we do every morning?

How is it that we slept
all night,
resting up for the future,
and woke up to see

driveways and homes
much as they always are — why

aren’t we ashamed
that when we look out
the window

this country’s morning 
does not resemble
a scene
from Brazil
or Turkey?

(–radically revised from an earlier version)

This is a social justice poem

about Jill, 
hanging up and staring at the yard
for so long that it breaks into pixels
and shimmers through tears.

This is a radical empowerment poem 

about how at the shop
her husband Dave, 
after hanging up,  
cries into his sleeve
as he cleans out his tiny locker 
and walks to his truck 
with a box full of 
suddenly unemployed tools.

This is an anticapitalist poem

about a perfect day  
royally screwed up;
about how the last five minutes
have become exactly like
the evening news.

This is a revolutionary poem

on how when Dave gets home
he is met by Jill in the driveway,
and they hug for a long time.

This is a social justice poem

for all those who delight in their gardens
after the world tries to kill them;

this is a war poem

for all those who go inside
and pull out paper and pencil 
to redo the budget;

this is a social justice poem

for Jill and Dave
who have never heard of 
social justice poems, revolutionary
poems, radical empowerment
poems.  For Jill and Dave
who don’t care for poems.
For Jill and Dave
who might lose
the home and garden
to the bank, and who cannot 
pay the mortgage with poems.

This is a poem for Jill and Dave
and like them,

it has no idea what to do right now.

read or watch the news
everything hurts
but you honor your tears
over the injustices of the world
as if they were
insurgents against
the power of the Crown

because they are

even so
it’s too much, isn’t it
so you give up one day
decide to turn away 
by turning off the news

no more tears —
isn’t this better?
the Crown remains dry
and you remain happy

’tis folly to be wise
I guess 
but from where I stand
it seems to me that

ignorance of the world
is bliss but it’s still
ignorance — and

if there are two things
the Crown has proven
for centuries
that it knows how to use

they are 
ignorance and bliss 

About something
not obvious we have
almost nothing to say

though it may be full of earwigs
ready to chew us up
Though it may be ravening rapidly
obliquely to the top news story
Though it may swing old lions by the tail
and stomp the young into the earth
Though it may fill itself 
with poison champagne
spilling easily for its champions 

if it ain’t easy
to see sides to it
we set it aside

though it’s work worth doing
and there are possible cathedrals and temples in it
Though people die in between its positions
as if those were jaws snapping without thought
Though it is work that has never been attempted
full of grave dirt
and torn shrouds

if it is not work someone else
will do with us
we act like it’s not to be done

though this is our watch
though this is our work
though we are the problem
though this is the most crucial thing
though we are the problem
though we stink of it undone
though we are the problem

we do not do what needs doing
unless we can hang the blame
on a banner and slogan
bearing a finger pointing off stage

O
Machiavelli,
shush, be still in death
as you never were in life. 

There is a myth nearby
I need to maintain and
I don’t want to know 
that you know it’s there.

I want to believe
this country still works
the way you said
democracy works, but

you had to write
that other book about
princes and such and
that one looks more and more

like the news every day
so shut the hell up,
Nick Machiavelli, you
prescient bastard:

I have a gut that’s always
sour and burning and
a constant headache
because of you. 

Look, a mistake —
a moth, caught
between window
and screen.

Another mistake:
from the bedroom,
faintly, a whisper
that might be sobbing.

There’s another mistake, and another;
in fact there may be evidence of
many others; but sitting here, I
don’t see much of that.

Soon enough that moth’s
going to die trapped
because I will not care
to raise the window to save it.

And whoever’s in the bedroom
crying?  Screw her. If you know her,
you come correct her. Bring
me a snack while you’re at it.

we are ashamed
of the country’s actions
but have stage fright
about confronting them — 

what about the old trick?
if we imagine
the entire country
naked

will that give us
dominance over 
our shame about
what the country
has done?

maybe it would help
if we got naked too?
after all,  
we are just as much
part of the country… 

soon enough we are standing
in parking lots
and on
official steps,
naked and demanding

and soon enough caught up
in square centimeters of exposure
and which angles make nice
with the mikestand

once again 
caught up in the phrase “will this
make the news?”  

we’re caught up
in such inclusive
jeopardy
it would be
almost sweet
if it were not for our
naivete

if it were not 
for the shameful things
which led us here
in the first place
and soured
and co-opted
the naked truth

Damn Druids
and the mysteries
of how they got over
without anyone knowing
much about them

Chanting out in the woods

Droning on and on

Apparently sacrificing people worked for them
as apparently they were
kind of know it alls and
kind of big deals

Kind of big deals
in the shadows 
getting over while
killing people

Kind of know it alls with
secret knowledge
to justify killings

No one knows who the Druids were

Maybe they are
still around and
droning
on and on