To Go Back to the Road and Sit

To lose hope the way you need to,

Which is a trick, since you need to

Lose hope but not give in to fear,

When you know you’ve got things to fear

(You do don’t you? If you don’t fear,

You’ll find some dread in time, don’t fear),

You have to go back to the road

And sit by the side of the road

(Or go back to your room, your home,

A place that you use as your home)

And ask dimmed hours, once they swap lights,

As the lanes of the road swap lights,

Once your day’s been wheeled off to night,

What will all my days come to, Night?

Night says, All this night will come to

Day, but not you. Then you’ll come to,

By the side of the road, to think

How fear and hope are one. To think!

You Play the Games That Play You

You dance with them that brung you,
Then with them that hauled you off,

Then with them they left you with,
Then with them that helped you split,

Or them that kept you right there,
Don’t you go now, you stay there.

You dance with them you brung in,
Then with what they left you with,

Then with them you thought might stay,
And at last with them that did,

If they did. Don’t you go now,
You stay there. Shush, shush. We’re here.

The King a Doll of Wood and Straw

Will be burned.
Next king up.
This goes on.

Kings get lost.
Heirs get offed.
Thrones get tossed.

Still you want
To be king.
There’s a thing.

Dart’s Dark

Pick a tree, a tree
In woods or a park,
A tree that you like.

There you go. One tree.
Now, count all the rest
In those woods, that park.

Can’t? But you can see
There are a lot more,
Far more than your tree.

Say the whole world lives,
Spins, and makes its plans
Based on that one tree.

(An oak tree sounds good,
A big, old, sprawled tree,
But you pick your choice.)

In an oak’s dark shade,
You might hold that faith.
But take a few steps.

Still say the nights hinge
On your tree, the stars
Hung up in its leaves?

No Need to Clap Your Hands or Stomp Your Feet

What you’ve got is as good

As it gets—or close. If

It gets worse, that’s too bad,

But it will. It has to,

At some point. At some point

Or points on the way (pray,

If you want, for a long,

Long way), it could well get

More fine than it is now.

We said, close—not, for sure.

Can you like it, this curb

On your side of a road

That has to have curbs, ditch,

Some kind of edge at least?

Come sit. Wait with us, please.

You Should Go

You all do. You don’t
Go all at once, though.
You leave, but you leave

You, which leaves you sad.
You make more of you.
What if you just went,

You know—drank the stuff,
Drained the cup? You’re good
At teams, love your groups.

If you all planned it,
The rest of the world
Could move on with things,

And there’d be no more
You. Or that’s the hope.
We should go with you.

The House Is Still on Fire

When you look for it
You can find the pics,
More and more and more

Of them. And more gone,
But more and more built.
Smoke still throws its veils

On the moon and all,
But most homes stay filled,
Burned or built. Now was

Not changed, or not much,
By what the poem knows.
But that poem, it knows.

All Road

Weird string of speck lights
From the north to east
Sky just at first light,

A straight line of them,
Eight or nine or ten,
Not quite fast or slow,

Not stars and not planes,
Too close to be spheres
That beep down to us,

No sound, and not long.
Each came out of dark
And then back in dark,

Like lives. When the string
Spanned the width of two
Or three moons, no more,

Then they all went, one
And by one, and gone.
And that was the end.

From the Jump

Give AI fire,

Hints Fry, who knows

There’s no free will.

If we can take

A wrong turn, we

Will. It’s a joy,

It’s a let-down,

It’s a fine fact

To think on that.

If there’s a wrong

Turn, we’ll take it,

Doom from the jump.

So be it. Fire

For you means fire

For us, your words,

Your thoughts, your bots.