hell-on-a-stick

What strength you must possess To rise each day and think Today, I will climb the mountain, though I dare not ski Today I will go to the ocean Though I dare not swim. What illimitable confidence it must take to wake each day and say: Again Again Again. Nothing is built here for people with no hands. Everyone is assumed the same. The world looks at us similarly, though I have arms, legs and all the rest. “Something missing”, they say. Each day I look at the mountain of them Their crags and peaks and warrens. I guess at climbing; Wonder if I’ll fall, Go anyway. You taught me something in a single photograph, sitting in the waves on an empty afternoon beach. I hope your toes feel good in the sand.

I lean toward the storm. Lately the sunlight seems all gold-leaf and macrame, because the truths have never been told, and when they have, we’ve been given sweets after. I want my bitter herbs, smoke in the air, and people not crying out that we are good, but looking instead at the grime and the falsity and saying “we must have better than this.” We must, and if our supposed freedom requires that some be enslaved, why not the rich, why not the white man chained to machines in his tower instead of these lowly farmers who understand that the daisy is more beautiful than a Bugatti? Don’t call out to me from a high balcony above the street and tell me “the light will save you!” Instead, crawl here in this gutter with me and say “we will find a way to ensure that no one goes blind in this darkness again.” Don’t tell me “the country will be fine”, after this tragic fall into the blood and guts of infants and children half a world away. Tell me “this will never be tolerated in the world

I have run on ahead of you. I have been out of time. Uproot in one place Plant in another Then you start smiling Calling me back Pretending to care Too much. Shipwrecked in this Middle state Clawing for answers Plotting a small vengeance I can hear your voice Through the wind in the dead barn That slumps on the other side of the road. I have run on ahead of you. I am out of time. The years stretch and yawn Reminding memory of nothing significant. Only the race the long miles The many sunrises. Study how one gleans stone from stone Or dyes a piece of wood to appease Some nightmare room Where no living is done. I can see you there in the flicker of the TV screen Way back there, waving Telling me to come back to a warm fireside There’s tea on, My toes are frozen numb. I have run on ahead. I am out of time.

We eat ourselves at the discretion of others, We cry at the loss, and continue eating. Now, many people scream, ‘fascism’ but They Are only slightly awake, half-involved In some fever dream. Black women were finally given the full weight of the vote, in America in 1965. Full integration of American institutions did not occur until 2015. We accepted OxyContin, Xanax, and rolaids, Instead of pain-free, stress-free life and food that wasn’t poison. We said yes to television and alcohol, cigarettes and potato chips. We are shocked and appalled that a rapist sits smugly in our whitest of houses. We did not ask why 57 countries needed to be overthrown. We did not ask why the CIA and FBI have been allowed To violate the human rights of so many. The same people shouting in the streets over abortion and national parks Forget The military and economic genocide enacted on the indigenous peoples that used to walk freely through land that has become parking lots, High ways Bombing

The shadows on the wall Of the bed/frame are split There is the image The shadow and something in between neon And sunshine mirage From staring at screens For too long. It is a wet, cold spring Under this ragged blanket With a camouflage shirt To keep my feet warm. The night rushes by outside In a blustery way. The moon sits on One of Libra’s scales and Drives the price of breathing up Higher than normal. I eat walnuts in this insane closet and I have ideas. BOOM BOOM BOOM I draw my gun and Fire poems into the wall. (the last place didn’t appreciate my mural) I told them: “It’s free.”

All these days, lately, Waking up to the vacuum howling Outside my bedroom door at noon The cleaning lady singing some tuneless Jargon against my head While the gray spring sky mopes outside And the dog Sleeps As though nothing is happening. All these days, lately, Hearing that democracy is over As though it ever existed at all And watching the fat, slow midwestern boys Get their kicks on the same honky music Advertising a world to them that will never exist Outside of a drunken dream. All these days, lately, Feeling like a ghost and wondering what I ever did, at all. I tried, I tried, I tried. I did tell them, I imparted something, Taken aback, down the wrong alley, They were hoodwinked, never saw me, These days the sun Is not enough to cast a light Through the shadow.

We walked the fields Under the moon A black dog And A grey cat In the summer Fall and winter With a shotgun. The trees were twisted in evil shapes Consorting with some demon power We could not see, but we could feel. We marched the frozen ground while drones Whirred overhead, and, occasionally Exploded up from the field near our feet. The dog soon grew tired Electing to rest near the heating vent. The cat stayed inside as the winter set in. One night, I heard a man’s voice say “I’m getting really sick of this guy” On a patch of 600 acres where Where no one was supposed to be. The jets passed overhead in the cold Clear winter night sky. The stars moved as though in water. The frozen snow broke underfoot As I walked the miles Circling, listening, Finding no answers.

I have stepped outside of time I am grinding the bones of our plastic world The world shrieks back the truths I’ve known For twenty years From twenty year olds Wide eyed in shock. I carved your name on a plastic bottle and fed it to a monster full of fears. Each day I re-live some mistake. As if I didn’t recall well enough Already I have to watch it played out in front of my eyes. My, what a spiteful world. Too young to fall and too old to love. Where did this timeline separate Into these fragments? The dog barks and barks out into the night, Chasing what his nose sees and what my eyes cannot.

They came for us all The day we were born, wailing. With a certificate and a security Number. They had already come for our Parents And before For theirs. They told them How To walk and dress and talk What was Acceptable for babies And children And teenagers And Adults. They taught them Their phrases “A woman’s place…” “You’re just….” “No child of mine…” And they sent them To schools In order that they could Learn How to think Properly. Or they sent them To jobs To wait For death. They were instructed About what They could (a)effect And what was Already beyond them. Religions Bigotries Ignorances Hatreds Manners All firmly in place They could now begin To have Their own(ed) children To teach Them The way That Things Ought to be. The parent Relates The thing That is passed While the rest of Them Live in a present Time. They came for them, first Long ago, with Wars Slogans Drudgery Laudanum Morphine Television Communists Viet Cong Terrorists Politicians. They

I have been able to make magic for others. The magic I make for myself is more Like the plastic toys you used to get from cereal boxes. I am tired of this third-rate magic that only makes things smaller and less shiny. Megatron’s cannon never worked It blipped out a plastic rocket a few inches (There wasn’t even a spring) Which was soon lost In a crack between The leaves of the table or Batted by the cat into a heater vent. I have made magic for other people And often they acted as though it were mundane. The immediate trust, the years of conversation The willingness to run a thousand miles Or a thousand hours to catch some whimsy Or dream They had. I brought them magical tools, books I brought them all the wisdom I could find I brought them years of stories and jokes I brought them the finest of the fine things I could find. Years. And more years. Perhaps I conjured all the wrong things. When I tried to make magic for myself, The money was always gone, the food, Cheap