Of July

I had a country once, and I had faith

That what it strived for, if not did, was good.

That surety is dead; an empty wraith 

That only shrieks in tones of could and should.

I hoped my nation would do what it would

To help the sick, to free those under bond:

That what it had of burning cross and hood 

Was banished to the past. But that was fond.

It all remains. Not banished to beyond

But living, breathing in my hopes' dead shell

As if the hope itself had somehow spawned

Its revenant, and born it out of hell.

Yet looking at the thing that I abhor

It is the same as what it was before.

Gather Us In

The song that we sing will tell God to gather

The people together, and make them God's own;

But I have an inkling that God would much rather

We gather ourselves; not like seeds to be sown

But livestock to pasture, or people to freedom

More self-motivated, more ready to go

Aware of our hungers and eager to feed 'em

Not crops that the sower must gather and sow.

For God can most certainly sow as God wishes

(And make things spring up that were never before

Like the insects, the water, the land, and the fishes,

The light and the darkness, and so many more)

But the point of our lives is not passive obeying

But living the life that itself is our praying.

Nightscape

There's people here, out on the streets at night.

That is enough itself to make me glad.

They glow themselves, without the aid of light

And loosen what I hadn't noticed had

Grown tense. I'd almost say it's sad

How quickly everything falls into place:

I'm standing taller. I feel like a cad,

Cheating on the city I'd replace

That doesn't run this kind of nighttime race. 

It's not it's fault. But there are people here 

Refusing to cede night the public space:

No emptiness. No darkness. And no fear.

Even here they sleep sometimes, of course,

But by free choice, and not by night's brute force.

rara y familiar

The bones are still the same. Only the bones;

The flesh is strange and new, and stretched too wide 

But underneath the skin, still something owns

Its past, and while I cannot say "with pride"

It doesn't seem embarrassed. It is changed:

I constantly encounter something new

In my perusal, and I feel deranged

Each time I rearrange what once I knew.

Some things are subtle; some hit in the face.

And I of course have changed as well, though I

Do not believe the bones have noticed. Chase

The past, and you will only live to die.

The bones are still the same. It's a relief 

If they changed too, I might just drown in grief.

weight

Do not be shocked as I grow fat; 

Be only shocked that I was thin; 

Now being fat is not a sin 

But people will, for all of that, 

Treat weight as if it stood in pat

For health and goodness. They'll begin 

To think you worse when pounds come in

And better when they're out. A flat

Stomach is the beaux ideal; 

But why should I prefer to be

Some other body than I am?

I live the way I want to feel

And if that means obesity

I'm healthy, so who gives a damn?

undone

I write my little poems on my phone

And hope that somewhere somebody is reading.

My heart pumps blood, but feels like it is bleeding

Into my chest; my mind is overthrown 

By worries that, like monsters never shown,

Cannot be overcome. I am succeeding

At one thing only: stubbornly impeding

My own sense of connection. I'm alone.

I stare into the phone, and wish to see

Something I have not ever seen in there.

This is definable insanity:

Repeating action (stare and stare and stare)

While hoping it will end up differently.

But where else should I look? I know nowhere.

done

My fucking god, I'm just so fucking done.

What is the point? What is the goddamn point?

What can I do or say to anyone

That matters? We're going to anoint

A senile, angry madman as our priest

And while he gets his vengeance, we get hosed.

Can nobody out here see past their nose?

Hey, "Christians," "what you do unto the least"

Should mean something, and if it doesn't, then

What is the point of calling yourself that?

And worst of all, my gender: fucking men.

I wish we weren't. The gas was two bucks flat

When everyone was dying, and now we

Are going back. Fuck this. Fuck history.

Philosophical Musings

The morals of philosophy 

Are not too hard to comprehend 

Until you try to certainly 

Assert it to some certain end.

All of a sudden there arise

A thousand little arguments

Each full of tiny hows and whys

For you to pen, each in its fence.

It's like a coastline, and its length:

So easy on a map to see

But measured closely, past the strength 

Of any true cartography.

The moment that you try to claim

A certainty, you lose your aim.

Barton

The cold equations lie to you. They lie

Not in themselves (the math is right, of course)

But in their will to power. Asking why

The cold equation rules -- is it by force? --

Reveals, or can reveal, a deep design

That someone's interest calculates and sets

To make the cold equation seem a sign

Of universal meaning. But who lets

The cold equation go on being cold?

If we all know the cold equation's flaws

Who benefits from our failing to fold

Our own protections round its jagged laws?

The cold equations are still true, still cool

But people chose to let equations rule.

fishes

I wish I were not scavenging my time 

Robbing Peter to pay Paul, and making

Each little word and every single rhyme 

A muscle torn, reused and ever-aching.

Imagine that the time ahead of me

Were smooth and open, free to fill at leisure:

Impossible the possibility

And endless the end-stopped, creative pleasure.

But it has not been so, will not be either;

I cannot count on time to while away.

I am a child teething without teether

Gnawing my knuckle bloody to allay

The pain of what is rising from below

And has no patience as it strives to grow.