On the rooftops of Kyiv we master
the circle dance, the feel of wood
that can still support our weight.
In times like these
I clean the gutters monthly
and the lint trap every day;
buy a time-share in the
Ojai Public Library, invest my life
savings in the Ventura Arboretum;
This is a time for bravery.
Not the human-cannonball kind.
Not the free-diver nor the free-soloist.
Keys, wallet, phone.
The Collected Works of Federico García Lorca.
Moleskin journal and ballpoint pen.
Mahogany chess board, Rubik’s Cub,…
I am awakened too early. I cannot be awake.
The growl of my neighbor’s leaf-blower is what prehistoric man,
cowering in his cave, cowered from.
How do you forgive your neighbor?
Remember when bumper stickers read
Free Tibet or End Apartheid, and we agreed?
Remember when there was just one war on TV,
like a movie whose plot you knew by heart?
Last night I caught a dole of doves
robbing me of sleep with their yapping.
They accused me of such terrible
things—an oppressor of birds…
For once, I throw my lot in with the rest.
At the bleak store that sells tobacco and liquor,
two bucks buys me this slip that feels sinful and
foolish in my hands…
I abhor the grass, the leaves that turn to blades
under the whetstone of heat, the worms, blind
and desperate and slippery, that wriggle forth
in the wet, the sucking of mud on bare feet…
Write a poem that drops me to my knees.
Strike me square in the face with a fist of birdsong.
Torture me to orgasm with silk.