Unreal City

Growing up is the
day you announce to the
ghosts in your house
that you are no longer afraid of them
Dying is when the ghosts
tell you their names

When I ask myself a question
that goes like
"I wonder if it was
all of those cigarettes
that helped my father
do all the things he's done"

A firefly in clenched little hands,
That burns to keep away the
night from closing in
How cold God's anvil must be
this night
How the rust on the hammer's head
could be gone but He lets it stay
And how the coal whimpers for
the breath of the bellows.

The old house creaks and I
say "It is settling"
The old door slams on its own
And I
Say "It is the wind"

My eyes close and I say
"I am tired"
I keep no more words for this day,
and in closing offer it back to
the man between me and the moon,
for he has been aloof tonight.

.

This county is sure
to tell us
At the gates
That here are
Those worth
Forgetting about

How the Earth plans its tricks
Curving always too far
To obscure those soils which
are so much better-more whole
than my own.
I have travelled far in waking
To the drums of each night's coyote's warbling
And have trusted that the nocturnal bird-of-prey
beats its wn heart without
me there to hear it
Cuts with its eyes
Through a solemn air
I should be sleeping again,
I should be.

.

He is delicate with inanimate objects
There is old and dry dirt
under his fingernails
He lays stones and all day
Gives them tops and bottoms
Ends and ends.

It all makes sense in the end,
A shape, finally, and
He claps his hands
The dust erupts, startled
Spreads itself
And waits for him to leave
Before settling again.

.

The cross around his neck jingles as he walks

The treasures he possesses ran the savages right out of town,

A cavern appears where a mountain was, or where it should've been

And a man sits at the mouth, tearing blank paper, and playing with the cuffs of his sleeves

The sun goes down and the trees stop rustling

The lake stops rippling and the air sits and waits for me to break it

My cadences perform as patterns for the mind

Giving repetition the foreground as outliers dance forgotten, seven feet behind

Sometimes I forget myself, and think novelties like "nothing is not a word"

Then stare at a photograph and realize I'm just being absurd again

Another absurd white boy, folding blank paper into airplanes

While Japanese boys fold the same thing into origami northern snow cranes

And I start to think again about the boundaries of every mystery

Then thank God I'm not selling oranges on the medians,

And I lose all of my reasons for contemplating history.

Newton was wrong, you see, I make something out of nothing every day

I just forget where my something came from

When explanations vanish, all results are inevitable

Socioculturalpsychological amnesia, a blessing with a crown

Every jewel on the planet, as far as I know anyway, implanted on it

And now, I'm just tired, you know?

Nothing is not a word.

 I just don't want to talk about it anymore.

. .

When will we end these
nightmares of Peace?
And how many brown palms has the white man greased?

Does harmony get placed on our tongues by our priests?

One day our hearts will grow too big for the future and our
Hands will dwarf the rope that trails back to our fathers' graves
We're probably trying too hard,
anyways

I've got to stop being afraid of your death,
Maybe I'll get you some Universal Healthcare
or maybe
A big
fucking gun?

Sometimes you could get the old
turnstile machines to take wooden nickels
But that doesn't work anymore
Now you have to steal your freedom outright, sneak in behind
somebody else
This land is your land,
This land is my land and we're just not sure where it stops anymore.
And if you mention Manifest Destiny
one more time
I'm going to pick up this dirt and throw it at you,
I swear to God.

Line up, children, I want to see a straight line
You're about to see Ultimate Truth
pressed between two pieces of bulletproof glass and then we'll
eat our bag lunches out on the steps.

Ghosts live here, don't they?
Amidst vaulted ceilings, absurd obelisks, and discarded freeze-dried ice cream wrappers;
The land here vibrates like your grandparents' old farmhouse.

It's time to, finally, cultivate a few new endings.

. .