... And Such

This language is to battle with. Burn the words and watch

the heat creep, decay like this claw that sometimes

takes hold of my heart. I have not lost my dark now I wish I had. Because he was big

and they knew he was slow. A silhouette of forgiveness; put it

on your résumé like any other kid. The pieces of us scatter and I hate

everything in myself that reminds me of her. A bag or maybe a bird, caught

in the branches. Those centers. So many centers. So many of you.

Burn the forgiveness, a shallow grave for so many words. I have not lost

my dark that reminds me, like any other kid, I hate

this claw that sometimes takes hold of my heart.

Smartypants Ambivalence Decree

             (for Truck)

I am hardly possibility. A separate manufacture long only half heard

I said let's start with the birds. I could return to that sweater and not asking

mute resistance I could dissolve. A feeling so sharp it goes right through

the palms of our hands as we gesture—surrender. I give in to that exact blue.

Several miles east of exit 0, a conversation we did not have. I am sort of

culpability. I depend on the direction of the class struggle. Stumbling artifact it seemed

as good a place as any. In a quaint reversal I forgot to tell you

sometimes the bus turns into a different bus. Sometimes when night falls it

takes us with it. Sometimes it might never end.

Be ruthless when the time comes to take your turn. Be brilliant. Fall repeatedly. I too

sometimes "breathe." After the fact or after a fashion, I sometimes sigh. Sometimes simply decay.

How To Get Almost Everything Wrong

or, Who wants to join me for Not Enough Sleep: the Sequel?

I don't understand the glibness

with which people fling their otherwise lives about. I don't want to understand

the angle at which I attempt to fail. Again

            The essence of fear is rancid. That's

A flock of swallows diverges, veers, converges, lands. I wish I could tell you

            Confidence and power stink too, a foetid pull

How blue how pale how blue, and underneath

            Your participation is, in the long run, irrelevant to

Your infinite self is tangled. Oh ouch

   How misguided. How truculent. How blasé. Yes,

"distinguished." Insert—don't drink the candle      or, if you must

            The essence, the sharpness is not the point. Neither is circulation. Neither is fairness

The point is this:  We all want to be the good guy. None of us

 

            This perilous decree (is that your shoulder that is so cold?

None of us can anticipate (or

   Still, I like to pretend to be as mean as I really am

(Still, I like to pretend

Do UR Civic Duty

This is the popcorn speaking. Perhaps

it was just the version your sister (substitute other comparable sibling)

made up. What you remember: a sense

            of  space. Perhaps

trembling. You dare speak of it: yes, yes, yes. You dare

            abstain. The contents of this package

mystify you. The entanglement

drives it home. Still not enough.

 Still

   not

      enough.