US

She remained in Joe’s Lunch Room

drinking coffee with love. Shepherds began

driving their flocks in the hope that turning inward

behind the walls of the moment,

when it seems most frightening, would bring us

the last handfuls of the harvest. I don’t understand how

I’m going to face fear with love. I don’t understand

how I’m going to balance the world. Do I wait

‘til someone says my name? Do you I let you drag me down

in the revolution while editing this vampire movie?

I went over to face the fear with a passing farmer,

and saw her and everyone as they stood silently

around the grave, thinking of the wet earth.

I’d rather fall myself than chase you

around the field, or let you drag me down

in the hope it gives us, that the world might offer us

a pipe. I’ve forgotten everything about you,

I’ve forgotten the fields all stretched out. I’ve forgotten

the road from Jerusalem to Jericho.

(November 19, 2011)

EMPTY

Our country is just a bunch of tribes, a rattle in the silence.

I’m preparing my face for the gates of hopelessness—

old man’s empty sack. He sat on the ground.

Every day a stray dog passed by on the street, he used to

pat it to remember sometimes the scholars and scribes

had no place to dream.

(November 5, 2011)

RIGHT

It wasn’t me, you’re right—

making plans to stay

in tanks of ice water, outdoors for hours

at midnight in the cold.

It wasn’t me, you’re right—we’ll

force them to change the starry water,

while the world changes us.

You were right about the river, temperatures

below freezing. It just wasn’t me

you were right about.

(November 5, 2011)

LITTLE BOY

I’m just a little boy with broken arms,

a little boy with a lump of sugar in his pocket

and machines in his hands. I will never again feel

my arms around you; they’re no good broken.

I try to remember sometimes

the way I fear the little things that keep me going.

I don’t fear the floors covered with

horse dung, but I fear the machines.

(November 2, 2011)

AMERICAN

It’s easy to move on. You’re American,

but something keeps you standing there in silence.

You’re American, but something keeps you

standing there in the whole life. You’re

American, but there are blood feuds.

(November 2, 2011)