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servitude

It’s the age, yes, and it’s the war.
The naming of the enemy, the gift of
destruction, and this man I know, his
son, a soldier, a child, burned alive
inside his metal fortress, and so we
speak of revenge, we speak of God, of
victory, of the need to win this thing
that cannot be won, and the mother
cries in the boy’s room. The women
in the villages are raped and then
murdered. Are gutted, then left for
the dogs. What their flesh tastes like,
i’m told, is freedom.

AS GRUMPY AS I WANNA BE

Interview w/ me at THICK WITH CONVICTION.

Could I be more entertaining?

miro, dreaming

with thousands of birds
singing or screaming

fields of mud and snow

10,000,000 miles of road
between susan and maria and
one of them to love and one
of them to fuck

are you anywhere
that can be mapped?

have you been mouthing these
same words for too long now?

look

the plane goes down in flames

accusations are made
and victories declared

the churches
are set on fire

what this accomplishes
isn’t immediately clear

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

a new e-chap, SMALL CHILDREN BLEEDING POOLS OF SUNLIGHT, will be available for one day on May 1st at Poetry Superhighway. get the skinny HERE

prophetstown, before and after

everything turned
suddenly to desert

the women raped and
the children missing

tenskwatawa
pulled from the fire

brings a vision
back with him

not the death of
everyone and everything
he loves, but this is
what happens anyway

this is the
birth of america

newwwwwwwwwww work

THE WHISTLING FIRE

2:23 a.m.

and you write about death,
of course,
because it’s what you fear, and you
write about despair because
it’s what you know

the truth isn’t always a fist,
but it’s best to be prepared

america, big and small

a box filled with smaller worlds
in a room heavy with dust

old man in a chair at the window

city buried in
its own mindless filth

freedom was never a gift
intended
for the poor or the weak

subtle ascension

wake up to rain on the
morning after the massacre,
and to the knowledge that
it will all happen again

stand naked on the sidewalk
among the dying flowers,
the burnt-out candles,
the prayers that have all
washed away

this is not your home

these children with their
tear-stained faces will
never love you

you have always
been a coward

5 new poems at Lit Up

LIT UP MAGAZINE

a shroud

but don’t be america

don’t be the old man sitting
next to his filthy window

the trigger is pulled
and the hero has no name

all wounds are greater
than they appear

hold the child above your head
and view the sky through
the hole in its chest

remember the kingdom of god

remember the island of skulls

stand in the spot where
opposites meet and feel the
wings start to grow from
your shoulder blades

this is beyond magic and the
dull grimy walls of religion

we are worth more than
the prices
placed on oil and on fear

it’s easy to forget this
with a foot pressed
hard against your throat

the ocean, at night

it was the year picasso began
painting monsters

it was the year he died

small objects in silent rooms,
always moving, smell of dust,
taste of rain against
dirty windows

you were asked to believe
in god

you were told

stood by the window waiting
for yr husband to come home,
but he never did,
and the children were crying
and then they were grown

maps were drawn,
plans of attack diagrammed

we would kill the killers
before they were even born

we would burn their fathers’
eyes with holy light, would
turn their mothers into
shadows of contorted pain

we would win the war by
refusing to fight it

we would
bomb only civilians, only
mud hut villages, only straw
and bamboo churches, and
it was the year my
sister was born

it was the year i kissed you
for the first time

made all of those promises
that sounded just like lies

BLAH BLAH BLAH

words, new and old

cage of thorns

yellow flowers pasted onto
pale blue construction paper and
all of these complicated ideas
about love & suicide

lying to myself is easy

lying to others is necessary

wake up too early to the
ringing of my phone, to the voice
of my youngest son

snow at the end of march,
then it fades to rain

this will be the
day i drink the faucets dry

this will be the moment
of my ascension

streets lined with houses,
but no people

endless fields of dead grass
and splintered bones

stand there next to my oldest boy
and he says he’s not sorry for
any of the pain he’s caused
and his voice sounds
like my own

his presence might or
might not be imagined

all acts of grace
are torn apart so easily

in amber

walls of rooms filled w/ dust,
on floors, on hands and knees and blinded

sing w/ your heart

grow scars

this is the place, you see, this house
where the dying man lives, and
there is nothing any of us can do

no blood on the carpet, but a sense
that it could happen at any time

a window

a back yard filled w/ fireflies and twilight

stand there, barefoot, wide-eyed, emotions
carved from dark, sticky wood

speak names softly

breathe in the warmth of
overwhelming joy

stand as still as you can
until all laughter has stopped

fanfare, with trumpets

man in the purple shadows,
crucified, yellow skin, yellow sky,
and the taste of sugar on yr breasts

don’t talk about starvation

don’t worry about the math

lock the church doors and
set the bibles on fire

chop off the hands
and then the feet

let laughter swarm like puke up
out of yr mouth, out of yr nostrils

sing the song you know i love

faultline

my youngest son sick without warning
and so fuck all of your ideas about
benevolence & generosity

accept the fact that
anger is a generous gift

that fear has the texture of
splintered bones soaked in oil

of crows landing on your lover’s pale breasts

we are none of us on this page dead yet,
but listen

god is not the lie that will save you

sunday’s dust cannot be eaten

it’s the age of moths, you see

it’s the pale grey light of a dying sun
that we uselessly flutter around

give me the cure for cancer,
or leave me alone

give me mindless entertainment in 3D

read me the stories of my childhood

i couldn’t be the cripple i
am today without them

BECAUSE I SAID SO, DAMMIT

an interview w/ me at

WHAT TO WEAR DURING AN ORANGE ALERT

helix of compassion

spray paint your small hatred
on dirty walls

substitute anger for belief

blood is the gift
with or without war but
no one really cares about pain if it
isn’t their own

no one really cares about
poverty
if they have money in the bank

it’s simple

the word will always be less
than the thing it represents

the thing itself will always be
more useful if it can be
used as a weapon

what you need to do is
consider poetry a sign of
weakness

consider poets
the enemies of action

kill them like you would
any other coward