SOCIETY.

WHAT IS SOCIETY

And this society, the one we live in, where people in wheelchairs
Are thrown into the trash;
And people named Mikel are picked on in public,
Carry picket signs down foreign-sounding streets, like Pickled Eggs;
Deviled Hands; High Street, the name rolls off your tongue.

The words are like plastic sheets put on a brown couch.
How autumn quickly changes into summer, and summer and winter
Are both entwined,
And monkeys are both riveted by words that are spoken from old vowels;
That the sounds of summer rain drift softly through the dark,
In the dark of the night, and the night

Drops like a monsoon out of Japan; and the Emperor was angry,
And the entire Atlantic Ocean was angry, and it was angry with its voice.
How people think they are not in a society, and how the society
Gets back at the smart people, and the dumb people get everything,
Especially the blondes and men interested in art.

Sometimes, the museums whisper softly at night, and the night
Calls down to the dinosaurs in the museums;
How the museums are like parts and ghosts wander around
In the dark, like softly moving shadows,
And how some people are homeless, and not breathing,
And breath comes out of me, and is me and NOT.

I don’t know what to make of this, what to speak of this,
In the words that pour from my lips, the lips that speak the poetry-how kings
And queens mock me, and think I am grand, but no one sees
Me stand in the shadows, unless I destroy entire empires…
My mother thought it was a bad idea, not a good idea, that ideas
Shouldn’t be put in society, shouldn’t be spoken of in classrooms.
Sometimes, even the walls are dim, and sometimes I can hear them.

"I'm Hungry!"

My eyes are like wildflowers wrapped in straightjackets.
Lions sleeping in cold cages; falcons walk on the tips of lakebeds.
Sometimes, when I dream, I can’t speak, I can’t see,
Anything but the blindness of my eyes staring at the back of me.

I hear about the soldiers in far off Guam, the country with the name
That sounds like twin cities;
And how we live, and the things we do, sound like list after list after
List;
Sometimes, we read magazines; sometimes, wives take cereal to their
Husbands in boxes,
And how old men named Marc and Liam think themselves better
Than others, and waste their money on the tracks, on gum, on
Whispers in the dark-

The stars, late at night, are like eyes that stare down on the world,
And watch over it, watch over it, waiting, and how Michael and Charles
Are like shadows that pour down stone walls,
And we think and we think but we can’t find the words to say.

“I’m hungry,” she said, and he brought her cheese and wine on
a gold tray,
and the bird outside wouldn’t chirp,
and the room refused to breathe.

THE MOON.

I remain, shattered, in your memory.
The eyes of a wildflower, the ears of a goat-
Lost in a field of smoky mirrors,
The eyes stare at me, reach to tomorrow.
My nose is a symmetry, and everything is gone.
The words are mine, like heaven’s remains.
In the endless dawn, the caribou sing,
And convert to the words that listen, and remain.
Ghosts are mistaken, we are lost in the void,
Spirits are broken, on the eyes of a coin.
We flip them and zombies poke out of
The dark,
And no one can see us, and shelter the pain.
Hear the cries of the sadness that comes,
The refrain, the lost voice, that echoes in the
Still silence-
There is no other word, but the sounds of our
Voice, and we are alone,
All alone in the world.
I am alone in the heel of my own thought.
I am alone with my voice.
I am truth.
Truth becomes me.
We are the flesh, that heralds the light.
The night is broken,
I am situated upon a table, the smile of a lamb
Is the heart of a lion,
I focus and things become much clearer.
We want to buy something, we want to spend
Everything we can.
Night is the man.
I am shattered, you told me I could not speak.
You are lost in yourself, you are lost without a voice.
The glumness is not the emotions we seek,
I didn’t make it-it was not mine to announce.
Everything is woken, and we are shattered.
I found you in the void of darkness,
In the island that is not who we are,
The sadness heralds the lion,
And in the place where we are,
We see like shimmering eyes, the pale glow,
The moon.

THE DOOR.

The dawn of your arrival-
Was cold, the spotted daffodils grew
On the windowsill.

Tired of reading by the window,
I got up and surveyed the mantel.
A picture of my godfather;
An old coin from England, 1928.

The books were faded and dusty.
I was alone in this harsh winter,
The summary of your years were behind you.

The light was faded and new.
Dust behind us grew softly;
The wind fluttered in the breeze.
War was a light thing,
Made of sauce and mixed with
Berries.
Nothing makes me feel better,
Not even death-
Long and faded,
Death was he.

You entered through the door.