America

America is much misunderstood.

America is only an ideal.

America (like most things) is not real.

America is not a force for good.

America's a bombed-out neighborhood.

America's its own Achilles heel.

America has many wounds to heal;

America does little that it should.

America, my home, my native land;

America, of opportunity;

America, the settlers' demand:

America, from sea to shining sea.

America, so hard to understand;

America, harder, somehow, to be.

Humidity

The crushing air is warm and soft

And lures me down to sleep outside.

I cannot keep my head aloft;

My limbs lie low; I cannot hide

The way my eyelids droop. My skin

Feels tight, my hair all prickles,

The bugs that flit about begin

To chew on me--their eating tickles.

I hear the fireworks far out 

And wish that they were thunderous

The air is wet, the land a drought

So rainfall would be wonderous

But if I sleep and it should rain

I still believe I would complain.

Relativism

I'd rather I did not exocitize

The cultures I admire; if I could,

I'd see the world through many different eyes,

Take in the bad of it beside the good,

And know (and weigh) it all within my soul

Not by the standards of my own small part,

But as a complex, living, vital whole

Each piece of which has something to impart

But all of which lives, not to service me,

Not for the value I may see in it,

But for itself and its society.

I like to think I've worked on this a bit.

It is a process, though, and not an end,

A process I must constantly amend.

Thin Blue Line

Remember, the police should only be

A public service, for a public need

Not a disruption to society:

If we are cut, they should be first to bleed

Not cause the wound themselves. They often claim

To be the finest of us, but deny

The duty that accompanies that name:

A higher standard. Cops should never lie

And yet see them do so, every day.

They shouldn't violate what they enforce,

But ought to follow it in every way

More than the rest of us. A police force

Should be, but isn't, something to admire

Not thugs dressed up in fancy blue attire.

After Moses

If I were God (thank God I am not God)

I'm not sure how I'd feel about the power:

Having frantic mortals always cower

As they address you would be very odd.

So too would be the times that some poor sod

Rants on and on at you, hour by hour

About some minor thing, like a cold shower,

While you try to restrain your crushing rod

For power brings with it (or ought to bring)

Responsibilities that counterweigh

What might, at first, appear a pure indulgence:

Perhaps that's why God, being everything,

Does not appear to us in any way

That might reveal their terrible effulgence.

Learned

I have not visited in every land,

Nor walked all of the streets I'd love to walk;

I cannot speak the tongues I'd need to talk

To everyone I meet, on every hand,

Nor do I know the histories untaught

In universities--the margin's lives

As lived by children, workers, slaves, and wives.

I ought to be, and often am, distraught

When I recall these gaps. I wish I could

Know everything there ever was to know

And understand it truly, fully, wholely;

But I'm also unsure it would be good

To try: for down that path, if I should go,

Lies thinking I alone know all things, solely.

Transport of Delight

There have been times when I have felt

The endless moonlight call to me

As if the moon itself would melt

And merge into a distant sea.

I have seen stars that seemed to show

A path that leads where none can tread

And in their effervescent glow

The cobbles glistened overhead.

On certain nights, in certain streets,

The clouds that caught each neon sign

Have promised hidden, pure retreats

Lie just behind their distant shine.

But since moon, stars, and clouds all lie

I much prefer an empty sky.

Iowa Gothic

If someone disappears into the corn

You cannot follow. Run. Don't wait for it

To follow you. What comes out isn't born

But grown. Its clothes will never truly fit.

It has too many ears. But don't look now;

Now you should be running. It can't run

Faster than a combine. But don't try

To harvest it until you see the sun

Under the moonlight you, not it, will die.

The worst will come if you approach a cow:

Don't touch. Whatever you may do, don't touch.

I don't care how much you may want the milk.

It can make you want things far too much

And when you touch, you crumble like corn silk.

Half Year Retrospective

This has been a year of change and stress

As every year, we must admit, will be;

But most years seem, at least, to have much less

Tumult across the months. We cannot see

The future, but we have to live in hope

That something will disrupt the madness soon.

If nothing does, we may no longer cope

With all the change that swirls like a typhoon

Around us. Everything is now unsure

And what seemed certain when the year began

No longer can be trusted. There's no cure

For this disruption; we cannot now plan

Another year. And yet we have to try.

But as we plan, we know we also lie.

SPS

Delaying for a year is cowardice

At best. At worst it is a weak deception

To cover up an ingrained prejudice

For fear (again) of its present reception.

If you believe that we need cops in schools

And that that policy ought to resume

Next year, then why this year of different rules?

But if you recognize that the classroom

Should be a sacred, safe, protected space

Where every student has a chance to grow

Regardless of their class, their grade, their race,

Then I would hope by now that you would know

A cop's a hammer looking for a nail:

A schoolroom shouldn't pave the way to jail.