and it’s not that
i want to see you bleed
it’s that i want to be the one
who makes the wound
do you see how power
differs from action?
do you believe in addictions
other than your own?
we are all
so fucking desperate
this man who writes
to tell me what
he’s sacrificed for his art
these children
who weren’t even born when
the land mines were planted
their missing limbs and
ruined faces
and small painful deaths
all of the reasons i
hate what i’ve become
or these animals in
their tiny cages
and the way they go insane
the way money
exchanges hands
twenty bucks he says
as his girlfriend walks into the room
and i think i might know her
i think i may have
been here before
was promised nothing but
came back again
again
learned finally that
hatred was
the only drug i needed
to feel alive
and sometimes
they write to talk about
discipline
and sometimes to lecture
about the need for
hope
sometimes
i send them pictures
of nuns hanging raped and
murdered from the trees
of central america
we all need to
believe in something
i.
the bleeding horsewho is everyone
and no one
who knew pollock
and picasso
who died in ’56
and again in ’63 and
again in the summer of ’97
who lives
stumbles blindly down
all of the empty streets i’ve
ever lived on
crawls crippled through
broken glass alleys
through november fields
in upstate new york with a
crucifix carved into his
soft belly and his
eyes gouged out
who is pain and
the lack of hope in
a sunlit world
things that matter
whether you
talk about them or not
ii.
the burning girlsays she loves you
as she’s dragged through
or what about this?
a man who says i have
the power
to change the world
who sees faith
not as a crutch but
a sword
and what we’ve become
is a nation of children
who cannot be saved
when the mother tells
her daughter’s killer that
he deserves no mercy
the face of god should appear
on every empty billboard
in america
the leaders of nations
should be
burned as witches
after this though
what?
