and this life and these

stories that make it up

these people who feel the need,

who take the time to write and

tell you you are not a poet

your oldest son,

who refuses to believe in

wars without victors

wakes up crying at three in

the morning, says he dreamt

his mother ran away

give him words

give him warmth

there are so few things in

this world

that actually matter

holocaust 1

so is it darkness, then,

or is it blindness?

follow the river until it

poisons the sea and

then maybe turn to me and smile

don’t answer the question

without building questions of

                                your own

ask her whether or not she’s

beautiful, whether or not

she has a name

look at the pictures and watch

the films, the bruises on her

arms, the cum drooling out of

her mouth, out of her asshole,

and look at her eyes

the color of silent rooms

the rooms with small windows

set up high in shadowy

white walls

clouds across the sun, you see,

and the baby is the backseat, end of

may, cold, green lawns growing

right up to the edges of

anonymous brick buildings

how can this not be your century?

how can the baby

not be breathing?

listen

i can’t remember a time when

god was ever anything

more than a weapon

can’t remember why we drove

to mt shasta, and of course we were

too late to stop the slaughter,

and this of course is the

story of ....america....

to come from nowhere,

bearing no gifts

to learn how empires are grown

from only blood and bone

easy enough finding work there

as a cook, fucking waitresses

in dirty bathrooms, getting blowjobs

in the parking lot, and then you

turn 25 and then 30

you spend a week at the

dying man’s house,

but he has no wisdom to impart

eats dust and smiles with grey

lips, with black teeth, say

the pills don’t do shit for the pain

says he can’t even taste the

beer anymore, can’t get it up,

can’t feel his fingertips, and i ask

him so is it blindness or is it

just darkness? and he laughs

says he never knows what

the fuck i’m talking about

you could see

it in thompson

got older and got tired

anger faded into

depression

incoherency

this is the thing –

you hit the wall

again and again until

everything tastes like blood

until every bone has

been broken,

and then you look around

you’ve changed

nothing

the sound of

falling houses is

everywhere

i want to give him a name,

this man with the head of a crow,

but he has none

i want to give him a purpose

a city, maybe, to call his own,

but he stands there at the edge of

a field, holding the bones of

someone's child

naked and smeared with dirt

with blood

understands that the

american century has finally

arrived

this freezing rain, this

obvious self-hatred, these

postcards from st maria

which one of us will

tie the other up?

how many times will the word

love be buried beneath

the word fuck?

all answers are broken glass

all children are tiny birds

waiting to be shot down

you just grab whatever

weapon you can find and

laugh with a pure &

simple joy

and it’s always the desert, always the

crucifixions of saints, always

these roads that lead back home
 

it’s the smell of

gasoline and of tar
 

the tears your sister weeps for her boyfriend
 

dead without warning, without reason,

in the middle of winter and it’s

always the part of the story where

the wrong conclusion is reached
 

it’s always summer

and there’s never any rain
 

the children can

never remember their dreams

call it mercy, then, and wait

silently for september to arrive