There is a man
living in my bathroom
and I dare not ask
his name,
or why he sits
and watches
while I brush my teeth
in the mornings.
And I know he is there
as I leave
and turn off the light
for he laughs–
his laughter the sound
of my footsteps.
the poem starts
abruptly
something like
[i]but they came back
for him[/i]
[i]dragged him out
to the sidewalk and
beat him into a coma then
walked away[/i]
and what more do
you need?
this is the event
spelled out as
simply as possible
it happens
not for
the sake of art
and not to reveal some
deeper truth but
because violence is
as effortless as
breathing
because it needs
no reason
imagine a
rusted spike driven
through the eye
of god
a man buried
beneath a faded
stretch of sidewalk
another man
shot to death
by a pay phone
this is the wasteland
i’ve been looking for
crows in empty fields
and deer mangled
by the highway
your sister raped by all
of her friends
her fingers
pulled off like
flowers petals
if i were
a better person
i’d hold you
if i had the guts i’d
make you smile
twenty nine years in
the nation of addicts
and all i’ve planted
are my father’s bones
i never expected
anything to grow
i am defining
nothing but myself here
beneath this cold white sun
i am placing my right hand
over the eyes
of a child i never had and
only one of us casts
a shadow
it’s not an
admission of guilt
it’s an act of salvation
look at this land
a grey stretch of valley between
defeated hills
and all of these burning houses
that people call home
all of the pain stored away
but never forgotten
more than enough to bring
de chirico to his knees
and still none of us leave
i know these roads
i understand
that they all go somewhere
but i have been losing my way
for the past twenty years
i have outlived
the burning girl and the
drowning boy and any number
of anonymous women
beaten to death by the
fists of love
and there are those who
tell me that every action holds
the potential for beauty
and i give them the memory
of my father digging his
own grave with a coffee spoon
and a broken bottle
i give them
the minister’s wife raped
and thrown naked
from a bridge
and the weight isn’t in
the words
but in the events they
describe
it’s in the color of the sky
as it hangs
like a brilliant shroud
nothing is so beautiful
that it can never be
destroyed
[i]for Nicole[/i]
she plays the piano
but tells me not to listen
and I write her poetry
which I tell her
she can’t read
this is all we are
two individual souls
in a mundane world
where we watch TV
from different chairs
and we are both
unexplainable
but understand
one another
just the same
this normalcy
of our interactions
balancing out our lives
but when she plays
all I hear is Mozart
and when she looks
at my words
all she sees is…
