Contents
Boredom
A world without lions
Trains
Thought adrift
A pressure behind the eyes
The blind witness
Withering dreams
The quickening
Mud in the dark
A divine falling
“I prefer to think of peace . . .”
Choices
Boredom
A dull pain
of fluorescence
off stainless steel
the sudden violence
of a garbage disposal
the listless wandering
from room to room
in the haunting glow
of electric dreams
from screen to screen
and in between
a sofa, a magazine
a burning
cigarette and a dog
staring,
wondering
if it’s the only one
who realizes
this
isn’t life.
The crawl
of shadows
across asphalt
as one day
bleeds into another
and the only mark
of its passing
a muffled whisper
of irreversible loss.
A stirring
in the bones
that suggests manhood is something
that must be earned
And yet
no one seems capable
of saying
how
So we itch and yearn and grind
our teeth
And take up guns
and drugs
and cars.
The harassment
of cops
and fist fights
in parks
turns to lethal chases
and drive-bys
And soon
all that remains
of childhood
is
boredom.
And nothing seems to change.
A world without lions
The children
are going deaf
Without
the lion’s roar
And fear
makes a den
of every heart that submits
to a world
without wolves
And our dreams
are starved and shrunken
without knowing
a world beyond asphalt and shopping malls
And boredom
makes common cause
with those who’d rather not live
in the bounties of the world
too vast to comprehend
too dangerous to ignore
What an obvious release
when life has no meaning
Heroin in the vein
or alcohol just the same
And what else will there ever be
in a world
without lions?
There are lions
that prowl within the hearts of men
And there are those, still,
who would rather die fighting
Than slip quietly into that maw
of heroin, suicide, or worse
And in the stillness of the night
those whose hearts cannot be extinguished
hear the howl of the wolves.
Trains
I.
Blood and thunder
bound to iron
plowed through many leagues
to bury the man, tall and ugly,
that cauterized the wounds
of an eagle dying
before it could become
an Empire.
II.
More than a century
passed with hardly a notice
and the tracks lay abandoned,
reclaimed by green foliage
and greener youths
A stone fortress
that the Empire forgot
now a refuge for the orphans
the Empire begot,
a hiding place in plain sight
in which to lick our wounds
between skirmishes
with boredom and the cops.
What madness we spawned
in those cursed shadows!
III.
A boulder’s embrace,
more reliable
than any man or woman’s,
blanketed in snow
and the ardent heart
of one seeking truth
while the rest of the world slept.
Then
a sudden rumbling
like some beast from the depths
of earth, unknown —
a rapid movement that caught the eye
And there it was,
a train speeding through the stillness
of the night
stretching on and on
and it carried only
war machines
for the Empire
to beget more orphans
in blood and thunder.
IV.
The pale cowards
whisper in your ebony ear
Of a legacy that only knows
the song of clinking chains
But you know, when you listen
to your blood,
that fire has oft laid waste
To the wickedness of your captors
and as the struggle
has slipped
from slavery to genocide
This war consumes all of this society
of death
and the gunshots
that ring out, against the police
are nothing new
But know, sisters, brothers, that
you are not alone.
We meet in the streets and dance
‘round flaming cops
and shattered chains
And this insurrection, as diffuse
as our ancestry,
will not be subdued by night trains
and smiling faces.
Thought Adrift
You ask me
to judge a man’s heart
When so often
I fail to properly judge
whether I have passed
the last stair
Sending my jaw to battle
with the remnants of my skull.
You ask me
To perceive the heart of things
When so often
I fail to perceive
the distance between my lips
and the cup,
Wetting my beard.
You tell me
I am running
seeking shelter in the shadows
of dead men and wive’s tales
Yet you reduce
your well-crafted hand
to a bloody stump
in your futile attacks against the contours of your servitude
You tell me
not to get carried away
with the “God thing”
And yet the only rest you know
is won through pints of poison
and you cannot even look at your shadow
without weeping
Because you know, in your bones,
just as well as I — better no doubt —
that we are but wandering slaves
and our master is calling.
A pressure behind the eyes
A pressure
that grinds mountains into dust
Rising
through unknown millenia
Glimpsed
in the petals of a flower
the dew upon oak leaves
the ghost
of doe’s breath
To come through
rivers
pain
untold joy
culminating
in this page,
in this moment
that I put words to paper
and this moment,
that you read my veins,
or their shadows,
translated.
The blind witness
a bench
in a stream
of shuffling corpses
imposes
upon no one
offering repose
to a blind old man
and none of the passerby
or their pets
look upon his milk-
white eyes
Offering their best
lifeless smiles
to impress
upon the cold flesh
of moviegoers
He smelt her
soft approach,
a hesitant leap
And the little girl
joined him on the bench
as all around
the crowds pressed on.
His heart
bowed in awe
as he bore witness
to her smile.
Withering dreams
They folded
in on themselves
Soft as ash
yet still hot
as babies’ breath
And in that withering
a boy is killed
to become a man.
Your smiles
still haunt me
And often
I must fight back tears
from swallowing me whole
For I know
there’s no sense
in that,
and childhood is meant to end.
As the years stretch on
and I glimpse through the smoke
it is apparent
time is an illusion
And all we ever had
were withering dreams.
Please
know
that I pray to meet you
again under brighter skies
But
I can’t go on
folding in
on myself
like hot wet ash and smoke
And just maybe
on the morrow
we shall see our smiles
once again.
I don’t know
how it is
to be a woman
But I really must
leave behind
all those soft illusions
that bound us together
so gently
It’s no wonder
we came falling apart.
And when I gaze across the years
stretching on
and hear your laughter,
fading
I know, dear friend, that
really we must be knowing
many cold and fearsome nights
and with the passing
of each moon
my hands are filled
with the ashes
of withering dreams.
It’s really all right, dear friend,
bite back tears if you must
but all of this is winding
down and I lay awake at night
wondering how you’re faring
with this initiation we call life
And I pray, dear friend
that on the morrow
when we rise again
you and I will be there
sharing smiles in the garden
that never withers.
The quickening
Blood made precious
by its warmth
slows in shifting canyons
of snow
as the amethyst evening
splays a thousand
shades of majesty
valiantly heralding
the long night that swallows up
even the brilliance
of dying whispers
lost in smoke
against endless white,
a vast host marshalling forth
with ten thousand spears of gold
A child’s sobs
carried along by the rippling
of a half-frozen stream
The trees, kingdoms unto themselves
exist in stillness,
bearing blind witness,
deaf to time
and trickling streams
of red blood
turning pink in the unconquered vastness
joining the host, marching
with their golden spears
Oblivious
to sobs of a child
or the vanity of man.
Creeping slowly, the pain
gives way to a timeless moment
before that, too, passes.
Mud in the dark
Roiling
through bowels
and hauls
hearts
and throats
and minds
Turning black
and gold
Blinding
suspended
in breath
and bone
hair, whitened
between
parchment
and perfumes
Heaving
helpless,
gray upon gray
whipped
and lashed
without
recourse
Sinking
frigid
breathless
subtile
squeezed
into a single moment
giving the lie
to all the years
of vanity.
A divine falling
Every fiber of being
converges in this moment
(that stretches on…)
to overcome
to move
even a breath
closer to the One True God.
A moment’s diversion sends us tumbling
down the mountain.
Through tear-stained eyes
the lessons come to fill
(that animal emptiness of failure)
the vertigo of irreversible loss
For how else will we take heed?
“I prefer to think of peace . . .”
Streets
trees
bodies
mothers
sons
daughters,
all gnarled in the flames
and ghosts
are made of what remains
to pave the way
for new markets
in revolutionary cellphones
and subarus
And the great white father stutters,
“I prefer to think of peace . . .”
Even satan
tells the truth
when it serves evil ends
Are we trapped in a dream?
Do we think this is but a game?
As you shout and stumble
thousands die
And you see every day
the train tracks
the powerlines
the pipelines
The open veins
of atrocity.
Sometimes a devil spits
the truth in the faces
of fools, servants too craven
to resist, too stupid
to realize they are doomed.
He said:
we have a choice
to change our way of life
or to change the way they live
And the devil grinned
100,000 corpses later
as the water is poisoned
and the forests wither
and the children take flight
in heroin and suicide
What do you think their decision was?
We have a choice:
kill or be killed.
There are fates worse than death, dear friends,
and nothing quite as sweet
as vanquishing
those who take their victory for granted.
There will be no settling down:
I prefer to think of war.
Choices
Red or blue
black or white
regular or premium
sprint or verizon
Are these the choices
you are fighting for?
At work today
CNN spoke of another black boy
killed by the police
And most everyone shrugged it off
as though
it were a McDonald’s commercial.
In these moments
there are openings:
a sense of being locked onto a track
that sees me through the workday
to take the bus home
to the misery
of television and beer and
the fool’s gold of the internet
Or,
to shatter this complacency
And a thought flickers behind my eyes:
How to cause the most damage?
In these moments
there are moments
so great, so clear,
to realize our power to choose.