She said,
"you won't believe what I'm looking right now.
The flames must be fifteen ******* feet above the roof"

And I went outside and I could see the plume of smoke like it was a block up from the house
so I ran back in and got everyone out of the house and we hopped in the car and sped off
toward
the flames
-just like a gruesome car accident-
and when we finally came within a few blocks it looked like the revolution
gone and started without us
people were running and jumping fences
to get closer to it.
So we got out and started running
through back alleys
and back yards
and suddenly, we came around a corner
and there it was.

They said the building was abandoned, that no one had been inside when it started.
It wasn't much of a building now.
It was a skeleton
and the flames were maggots picking it clean.
Inside was like the brightness of the sun
and the fire crews were giving it all the water in the world
to little avail.
Gigantic plumes of tiny embers were jetting from its open ribs into the twilight-
falling all over houses and businesses

and all I could think was
"what if it
doesn't
stop?
What if this is it? and it can't be contained?
and the whole
city
goes down with it?"
We were standing in the middle of a riot ready to happen-
it was like a backdraft-
an explosion minus one ingredient-
a single exhaled breath.
So what if this is it?
What if the end starts right here, right now?

So I began to root for the fire, not the firefighters.
I prayed for it to collapse
and eject all that hot ash over everything
to end us all.

But it didn't.
and after fifteen minutes or so the firefighters were winning.
So we turned on heel
and we hobbled home.

Live to fight another day.

Like how
babies
laugh
at
nothing
at all.

The laughter that comes
as it pleases
without invitation
without joke
without ridicule
like something floating
on the rising
and falling
of the spring wind
the trees laugh
as they
bloom
like fireworks
without audience.
and the bees laugh
at their fortune
to have such pollen
they fulfill their calling
in collecting
and retrieving
the precious powdered gold.

They do what they are made to do
and they laugh
like children laugh
buzzing sweet harmonies on that same effortless spring
breeze
everything is laughing and reproducing
and the
season is
holy
and the
laughter
is
holy.

"Why do you box?"
I asked one of the gang bangers I coached at the gym one day.
"To stay out of trouble, I guess," he replied.
And all of a sudden I got kinda mushy over this kid and realized he really was in a
Hard
Place, trying to make the best of a
Bad
Situation.
And I said,
"Listen to me. Don't ever stop boxing.
School, whatever,
Work, whatever,
But whatever you do,
Keep boxing."
He looked at me kind of funny and
He said "why do you box?"
And I said,
"I've been doing this a while now.
Boxing's fixed me up through some
Serious ****.
So above everything else, above women and money,
Whatever you do,
Do not
Stop
Boxing."

I'll probably never know if boxing
saves him
like it
saved me.

But I do hope it keeps him out of trouble.

The snow silences everything.
I walked,
nearly barefoot,
into the whited sepulchre
of my backyard this
evening.
And everything was white
and the same
and silent
like the
grave.

I hummed a low note
just to break the
silence.
Just to make
absolutely
sure I was not
in fact
already dead.

It was
almost
a perfect moment
of absolute oneness
and sameness
and purity.

And as I began to **** into the unbroken blanket of snow, I pondered
if we are not
destined
to break the silence.

I can't come back.
Sorry, pastor, I can't come back.
Sorry mom and dad.

I can't come back.

I have seen crippled men beg for pennies outside the mile-high walls that guard the glittering, gem-encrusted Vatican.
But I haven't seen Christ.
I have seen good men's funerals picketed by angry mobs all swearing to be the hands of God.
But I've never met the rest of Him.
We've seen holocausts, crusades and conquests **** millions in his name.
But I have never heard His voice.
And I think those men holding those guns missed the point as far as his commandments go.

But that's not why I can't come back.

I ducked out from under the umbrella of religion and I felt the rain
And every day since I've been learning to take the wet with the dry rather than seeking shelter in what's comfortable.
And what's more, I've gotten a clearer view of the sky than ever before
And without that umbrella
I have seen something.
Or the outermost edge of something-
Something unimaginably large
Something not only too big for words, but too big to see all at once.
Something bigger than me and you and god and everything.
And I can't unsee that.
I've surrendered to the fact that not I, my children, or their children will be able to fully comprehend the vastness of everything,
But I am willing to die incomplete before it.

So sorry mom and dad.
Sorry god.
I found my own truth.

and that’s why I can’t come back.

I don’t feel very good
She says and she looks at me with those big doleful eyes and
I say
Oh yeah? What are your symptoms?
And she says I feel far away from you even when you’re next to me
And I say me too
And I’m listening to the staticky scratch of the needle at the end of the record thinking about how far from me I’ve been
And how could I have possibly been close to her when I was so distant
From the present tense
I’m tense in the present tense
And I’m sleepy because in the conditional tense I can do what I want
I want to sleep
And dream about anywhere but the present tense and my single bed with its yellow-tan sheets
And that record’s still skipping and has yet to be flipped and I’m
flipping
but externally I’m ice water
crackling on my wobbly coffee table singing me to sleep so I can dream about something else again
something like meaningless ***
because meaningless *** feels good
in the present tense
and I’m present tense
I’m present tense and future tense and conditionally tense and
I just can’t bring myself to flip that record
Because I lost the tracklist
And I don’t know the lyrics
And what if it’s worse than the first side
So maybe I’ll just listen to it skip
Until the skipping

Puts me



To sleep





Again

Forty seven nights
Spent sleepless
Or wasted, shitfaceded
Stumbling I'm aimless

And fear
Stabs at my mind
Porcupine hides
And bee stings
Wasted passionate ambition
An ad for lost tenacity

Cruel fate
Just world
Full court
Swine and pearls

Six months
Of restless days
Assurance didn't ever run
It sat and washed away

And my hopes burn
like turpentine
In a fire-breather's lungs
Singed ****** hair
And scorch marks
On the surface of my tongue

Forty seven nights
And just as many days
Youth never tried to run
Just sat and washed away

Youthful love,
stupid love
Happy gluttony
Waste of time,
In my mind
Says hateful heartless me

A steamy trail of particulate vapor issues from her lips
tracing the outline of her silhouette and rising
up,
up,
it diffuses into nothingness

Don’t listen to what your parents or teachers tell you, kids-

smoke is very ****.

she exhales again

slithers languidly through the still air
stretching for something-
rolls across my coffee table
like dunes in fast-forward
drips off the edges-

-gone.

She puffs a thick ring at me
it crosses through the void space toward me;
I reach out to touch it- to grasp it
and it dissipates;
she grins-

such teasing.

Smoke is-
and
is not-
it traces the airflow-
the negative space
like a jungle cat pretending to be
the light between the leaves

she knows this
and she can see that I know she does

Smoke
is why I am so captivated
So fascinated
so mesmerized
so transfixed
by her
and in general-

by women.