That You Get

A knot of twigs in the oak
Like the eye of a web—

You could think of that one soul
You know left at your age,

Just a day or two gone by.
Think and say, that was all,

Poor soul, all the sad, fine times—
That was all that you get.

Dawn turns white clouds grey and red.
The light of your next day

Is here, and the web of twigs
In the bare oak lights up

With that odd sense, what just is
And all you get to get.

Ripped

How would you write a poem
For a he-man who hates them?

Why would you care to try?
A he-man we knew died

And it seemed like a thing
To do for him, a poem.

He might have liked the thought,
But then he would have winced.

Oh god, no, not a poem.
We know in fact he cried,

He shed tears for his past,
But he’d hate to read that.

What would a he-man like?
What poem could be like him?

I fought hard all my life.
Life’s lost me now. I win.

Who We’re Not

We aren’t who we are,
And we aren’t who we
Aren’t—no, we just aren’t
At all, yet we feel
Like we are, we are.

We are who we aren’t,
All of us who aren’t,
All the names we aren’t,
All the waves from us
Who aren’t, who we’re not—

Those are who we are.
We pick up the shells
Of selves waves wash up
In their tides for us.
We cart home the stacks

Of selves the waves gave
Us, that aren’t us, but
From which we make us.
I have a small shelf
Of selves. Some have more.

Go back to the shore.
The waves will not stop.
Comb the sands. You’ll find
Selves from years and years
Past—you you can use.

Keep at It Best You Can

The real war to live

(Quirk a brow at those

Words—real, war, to live)

Is not cats and birds,

Nor you, wolves, and deer.

No, dear. The real war,

Red in tooth and claw,

Has no teeth nor claws.

The fight’s germ on germ,

Phage on phage. That’s right.

Most life you can’t see

Fight for most of life.

There’s your fog of war,

All the small fierce lives

That eat small fierce lives,

That can make you sick

The way you can make

The seas and woods sick,

Fire and waste and plague.

That’s nice. Out of sight,

Each force eats each force,

And what does not die

Will change to eat more.

All this time you sought

Gods through the wrong lens.