I’m not some
red apple man
for you to factor in
to whatever you’ve planned

Don’t imagine
I can be held
in one hand
for your consumption

Don’t imagine 
that after you snap through
my skin it will be
sweetness and juice within

No red souvenir
for your shelf
No red badge of honor
with which to brand your self

I’m no
red apple man
I’ve got something else in here
that won’t be easy for you

to fit into the simple pie
you’d love to make of me
I’ve got turquoise guts
to break your teeth

and old worms some alive and twisting
More that are sliced and cold
You don’t have the stomach
for what you could make of me

after a few days
place my rotten corpse
somewhere in the edifice
of whatever institution
brought me 
to my end — 
a church,
town hall,
police station, 
august tower of 
industry, or similar
palace of rule
and regulation;

let it be
somehow inconvenient 
to remove it right away —
lock it down with chains
or put it somewhere
obvious but
inaccessible;

make a phone call
with my demand
that someone from within 
the building remove it — not
a custodian or contractor
but a bishop or CEO, captain
or mayor; make sure
they do not send a flunky
to do the stinking work 
of handling death.

When they come forward —
gagging and tentative,
gingerly reaching
for my softened limbs —
offer them a slow clap
for finally getting
their hands sticky
with what they caused.

It will be good for all of us
living and dead to see 
how they move through 
this world in the days
that follow. 

no one
wants to dig
into the closet

where we keep the box
full of the directions once used
for installing this society

that explain that 
when you no longer
have roaming bands

of the native population 
to massacre
you will have to find

something else for those among you 
inclined to mass killing
to work with

some will go the solo route
leaving behind signatures
and ritual wounds

some will take a different tack
and “band of brothers” themselves
into what they’re told is the public good

and some
will turn themselves into heroes 
at gun shows

where they can
pick up the newest tools
of blood patriotism

since the Gatling guns 
once used at Wounded Knee
are so hard to carry 

It has stopped now.
No going forward.
It’s going to end right here
where it has stalled.

Gently, gently,
we call to it. If you’re
going to fail, do it
gently; fade, don’t explode.

Each day it sits there
we can hear a fuse
burning within, crisp sizzle
suggesting that 

it’s not listening or
can’t hear over 
that sound. It’s stopped
and going no further.

Its weight is sinking it.
Its rust is hindering it. 
It’s too close and too vast
for us to escape from

how this will end. Gently,
gently, we implore it.
It’s not listening. Shouting
gently, gently? Nothing. 

If history holds true,
we should be running 
now. Far away, as fast as
we can. But here we stay

praying for fadeaway, a getaway,
good closure or improbable escape
after all: but here it is, stopped,
right where we are.

When those bodies
hit the floor, falling
insensitively into
our lives via our
screens, poking 
once again at
our entitled sense
of safety (how dare
these children die
before we have a chance
to sit down from 
last week’s funerals)
we take barely
the customary moment
to stop and smell
the rancid smoke
of pyre thoughts
and cremation prayers
pouring from the ears
of those who might in fact
have the power
to stop this shit
before we let them 
kick the bullet-full can
down the blood-full road
while saying to ourselves
this time will be surely be
different as we keep one eye
of our fatted calf’s view
on the horizon
and wait.

It’s not like we’re unaware.
We all sense where it’s going
but the safest way for some to thrive
is to pretend that there’s no knowing.

It’s been this way for quite some time.
Obvious where we’re at.
No more hiding the longed-for crown
under a tri-corner hat.

No more fife, no more drum,
no more ragged flag.
Only the industrial song
of ghouls in fashionable drag.

No more dancing, no more gray,
no more letting be.
Only the chains of a fascist’s god
pretending it’s liberty. 

It’s not like we’re unaware.
We all know what is coming
but the safest way, some of us claim,
is simply to stop running.

They’ll surrender to the horde behind,
roll over on their backs,
and die by reason and in trust
that they’ll succeed with facts.

It’s been this way for quite some time.
Doesn’t matter what we desire.
We only get ahead of it
by turning toward their fire

and offering our best offense
in the war we’re already in;
we fight because the fight is here,
no matter if we win. 

I don’t believe in this lyric Muse
everyone talks about

Swear we’ve never
had a conversation

I’ve listened for her voice
in the corn by the river

Always ended those nights
running home frightened and alone

If believed in the Muse
I might have heard her

chattering in my ear
at some point

second hand news
of a second hand band

Instead I had to 
run from the silence

and here I am again
on that river bank 

panting and hungry
Full of nothing

but my voice wondering out loud
why this endlessly feels 

like I am built to be
alone — a poor boy bereft

surrounded by tall dead corn
and thoughts of plunging in

to this river that could take me
to hear what I do not believe exists

here or anywhere
but I’m willing to be convinced

I’m ready to listen
to any mythology now

having had the practice of decades
straining in silence

to hear my country 
speak to me

as if I were worthy
of nodding along to its voice

that instead sounds like nothing
as much as a snapping flag on the wind

that rattles through this dry dead corn
whenever I stop running away

whatever you do
don’t stumble

they’re listening
for that

if they sense
weakness — oh

shhh
none of it makes sense

in any human way
unless you think

predator in place of 
human 

whatever you do
don’t be you out loud

messy you tripping 
exuberantly through

what should be safe
except they are there

listening and claiming
you — shhhhhhhh

don’t even breathe
they sit there gills out

in shallow water or
perched in crooked trees

with ears open
with claws for the likes of you

SHHHHH
you know better — don’t have to do

a damned thing to be prey
except exist out loud and 

maybe stumble or not but
it’s what they do

the men in the water or trees
that’s what they do

Don’t ask how it happened 
that they were raiders by birth 
or education — it’s not worth
the effort to understand it now,
this late in the game. Enough to say
they were raised and whipped
to be descendants of such people
and such ancient habits, once ingrained, 
are the hardest to kill. Somehow 
their homes are still castles
in their eyes, no matter how flimsy;
to them their big windows up front
are still the mouths of cave shelters, 
no matter how shallow they’ve made
the space behind them, the rooms 
where they live.

Most of us out here in the fields below
are targets, serfs, or lackeys; no exceptions.
It’s been folly to bet against them for so long
we fall in as rigidly as they do to our roles —
or we have for generations now. Sometimes
we stir and wonder about how this all happened
but once again, what matters more is how swiftly 
today can become tomorrow, how they seem now
to quiver for real at last as they look out upon us
from the caves they cannot help but call home:
the aging holes, the sagging walls, the coming
of a storm or a war they will not admit
is theirs to forestall.