It's the last day of the year. I didn't
expect things to turn out like this:
branded, shamed, shedding adolescence,
crossing into adulthood, seeking redemption.
This is not the desert, or a mesa, nor a mirage.
There is shelter here somewhere.
I just need to keep my eyes open.

Intersections in the sky:
Lines that loop and spread
white to grey from
horizon to horizon.
Then the rain.
Stars vanish,
moons rise & set,
& at the foot of
this mountain
we are no longer asleep.

The rope & pulley are taut;
our arms move to salute
yet our muscles flex slowly, disembodied.
Dyed cloth unfurls in the breeze,
history is carved onto black mirrors.

This is the way of perpetual war -
the flag of state will not be lowered,
nor will it climb to a zenith
to flow like a river in sunlight.

My father lost the balance of his mind
in World War II
& the rest followed from Parkinsons,
Dementia, PTSD, paranoia
& ghosts that haunted him
in the middle of the night.
What did he die for?
So politicians & generals
could manipulate us into believing
that endless war is “normal”?
So bankers could pocket billions
while children starve and sleep in the streets
in this land of so-called liberty?
So veterans can beg for money
with jars draped in red & white flags
outside the grocery store
& we all pitch in the silver?
Someone please tell me that this is not why
I was emotionally orphaned at birth
or why I can not recall his weathered hands
without seeing them tremble.

You're sixty years too late
to feel that rumble glorify
your feet & drum a rhythm
into your sole.
Even the printing press is a ghost
& Waterloo Station
-abandoned clockwork-
awaits its next passenger.

the library's closed.

He knows
that we know
that he knows
he is fooling us.