When children by gunfire die,
when the dreamer and the warden clash,
when statues betray the sculptor, we proclaim
This is not who we are.
“Would you break the law then pay a fine
If it helped the bottom line?”
“Yes,” says the CEO, “this job is mine
So long as I grow the bottom line.”
“The breaking of so great a thing should make a greater crack.” – Shakespeare
The power of fire is not that it burns
but that it distracts:
We save what burns because it burns.
My heart has grown docile, less inclined
to thrash about, to strain at the leash.
Maybe that’s the way it goes: We come
into the world like lava, we burn and blaze
and flow, and then cool into something solid
One day she arrived
like a scab dragged across a ballad
of iodine,
a sequin of stars
stitched to a dormant volcano’s lapel
Dogs know how to live and die with grace.
I don’t.
In my hands are wet grapes fit to burst
and beyond my reach…
“When I have a terrible need of — shall I say the word — religion. Then I go out and paint the stars.” – Vincent Van Gogh
A mystery consumes me. I pass the morning in ardent search of last night and furrow my brows as though dreams would return in the grooves of my forehead. That is not enough. Nothing is enough. I never can go faster or slower than one second at a time. My enthusiasm teeters between the unbearable and the blissful. I want to scale the heights of human knowledge, to create art, kisses, love, peace…but the next moment carries the enormity of my desire, and I fall upon the ground of my being like an electric charge in a puddle of amino acids. So I continue, neither collapsed nor elevated. Every sight I see, every thought, however subtle, every word I read or write only adds to the fury: nothing is enough.
We have pitched an innocent man against the
thousand blades of grass.
Once a week the battle is waged;
each green sword glints with dew.