Somewhere in a villa
In Barcelona,
There's a Spanish guitar
And a smile that glints in moonlight.

The music is flowing like
Gabriela's flamenco skirt
While she dances and flickers
And scorches the floor.

They're cooking something up
Next door, something full of
Pepper and smelling of spice.
Smoke rises into the sky,
A refugee of fire.

A little boy pads barefoot
By stucco walls and calls
Up for a taste of flame.
(Wishing all the same

That "Flame" was his name -
Or at least his color - like his brothers'.
They are hungry too,
Hungry to spark and burn and shine
And shame the still Silent.)

Somewhere near Barcelona,
A bull bellows and breaks
A rider,
For a while. But

The smoke still rises
(Refugee of fire.)
And climbs higher than clouds can dream,
And glides out and out past stars unseen.

Gabriela's folds still swing
To a speech spoken by stinging strings
(With a smile that gleams at the dark).

There is something in the spasms
Of a raccoon, crushed on one side
By the force of a tire - bucking back
And forth on pavement:
head tail head tailheadtail
head tail head tailheadtail -
There is something in this
That will not leave me. I have
Never seen a man die,
But I think I have.

There is something in the quiet
As I watch my mother try
To run over a snake by the
House, the tires going
back and forth and
back and forth and
There is something in the moment
When it escapes. I have
Never seen an execution reprieved,
But I think I have.

There is something in a little bird
Who wraps his wings around him
To keep warm and finds no warmth;
Only the clutching cold
and silence
and stillness.
There is something terribly hollow
In his tiny song. I will
Never hear a man so broken
In my lingering life.

Somewhere in the star-brightened space -
An impossible depth away from green -
A hungry traveler ghosts between
Appetite and appetite, and place and place.

Out in the unfreezing lowest of degrees,
Some behemoth of infinite impunity
And infinitesimal size - a unity
In one point - eats, and hungers, and agrees

That, once, matter mattered more than a maw
Gaping impossibly small and wide.
(Better nature has collapsed inside,
And galaxies are cleaved as with a saw

In a Carpenter's hand.) However, simplicity
Is a muted charm in a bottomless pit.
When pressure's wake is a woodshop kit,
Survivors owe nothing to serendipity.

Hey kid,
Are you tired yet?
I want to go home.

I'm bored.

Let me know when you've finished
Working your fingers ******
With practice and promises and hope
And it still isn't coming.

We'll do lunch,
And you can tell me
How your day went.

War is too large, too big.
War is life, it is full of
Infinitesimal wiggling things
And inestimably giant
Ogres. War is not just for
Soldiers. War is for the air,
For the trees; war breathes
In the muck of the world
And purifies nothing. Why
Are we surprised? It is
Man-made, of course
We must expect some
Inefficiencies. And anyway,
War goes on despite the
Horrors of global warming
And the poor polar bears.
War thinks it cares, really,
It paves the road to Hell.

War is thirsty, but not for
Blood. It wants ambrosia;
War is a threadbare coat
In the governor's closet.
It is ugly and familiar, and
Always a little hungry. War
Only wants what it deserves:
Some cakes, some tea - a
Rest, maybe, (since it has
Labored longer years than
Any innocent human could.)
Yes, War is tired, so tired.
It yearns to ****** the yoke
Onto another's back. Like
Atlas begging someone to
Pick up the slack just to
Scratch his itching nose.
War is lonely and cold.

It does not understand
Why men make it work
And work and work, and
Still blame it for their hurt.
War would be harmless
If Death and Pain allowed,
But they are never blamed.
War is befuddled by man -
Always will be, always has
Been. It will scratch its
Aching head and wonder
Why so many ******-handed
Men will call on it with rage
And thundering voices.
It wishes for choices, but comes
To earth in the winter like
Apologetic frost. War is
Helpless, and War is lost.

Are you any closer to God?
How far have you gotten?
Last I saw, you were throwing
Ink on paper to see what stuck.
Well? Had any luck? Oh, I see.
"Not as such." But I suppose
You still want your grants, yes?

Go on sticking needles into mice,
Just be sure to try the untried
Methods. A whiff of repetition
Oozes around this situation, and
I worry for your mind. Sometimes
I think you must be close to God:
Only good friends play hide-and-seek.

Now, you've tried looking up trees,
And behind and over and under things -
Inside bridges and beneath streams.
You've forgotten Him like a perfect dream,
Hazy and clouding your bright eyes.
His silhouette strikes as sharp and
Stinging as morphine's needle.

Mice do not know Daedalus, nor
Do they fear Minotaurs. They've no
Thread to follow home, so put
Them in your Labyrinth and see
How far they get. Know this:
I will pay from pity and cry when
You leave. I see Icarus in your eyes.

I know you've always considered me
A mechanical man -
And I'll admit
I do my share of clicking and whirring
I do have my own processes -
Alien to you -

But I have all the same ones
Too, and a beating heart within my
Clank-clattering flesh.

I watch
You, like a camera, like a scanner
Searching for a price tag. Bar codes
Are simple.
I like simple, but you must
Not think me mechanical for it.

When you see me,
I adore it, but often you
See preconceived pictures and

I'm terrible at this, you know, dreadful.
I should stop, there's no way to say -
No way to show that I am more than -
You know, that I am eyes and skin
And marrow, but more too, more than
Even you -

Nevermind, nevermind.

There's no way you'd think I'm
Human: I can't even speak.
I just click quietly to myself and bend
Toward you slightly with an injured creak.