both that it will stop or that it won't

Several times the question is asked

“is da levy dead if he’s here

with us?” but a book is not a heart

even in shaking addicted hands.

Sleep is coming to the cloud castle in droves,
with its knives. We thought

We might escape with love

a sense of purpose but while I was dreaming

every plate in the house cracked and

paul was naked out by the stuffed bear

trying to pick a fight with the bard,

the only one of us friends with sleep.

These games are more to the players.

While a john might go home empty

Handed one night and fill his hands

With his own cock, if one of my friends

At the airport loses, I think a gun

Is more likely. And I am beginning to

Feel scared the way men in the dark

caves are scared-- it is not about tomorrow

Or who might save or fight

for us, but the yawning wild

power of what is not me.

The power that closes mouths

And skitters your heart and sneaks

Into the lovers’ bed to tear them.

Heat is eternal

Hence why the bard’s primal fear is chemical

And lends its real self to the story self

In a confusing ink puddle which goes to show

Both are just damn ink.

It's a damn shame.

Where there is dust in these cluttered coves,

There is the possibility of mud, with a little rain.

And there, perhaps, a place where something might stick.

And the cliffs have begun to be covered in art,

The way up north on 5^th the blocks of vacants bear

The burden of a hundred names. But—

I try to surround myself with poetry

Though I know I am nothing

of the sort. I want my father to shake me

and say “there is no reason to do that

or the other, and it’s all games the poor

and the rich and reaching for anything

is as much an attempt to get it

as it is sell it. And that’s true of the union, and walmart,

the police, hillary rodham,

and you and i. so snap out of it and get a better job,”

so I could slap him and find some fire but,

I am still not waking up. And while sleeping,

I can’t write, but if I only write,

To everyone on cobbs creek in the flooding,

And to the little jewish kid getting his face pushed

Against the chain link and learning to forgive his mother,

There’s no fight. And without the fight we all die in dust.

da died and I don’t know what he might

Feel about the ivy crawling

through the room he lost his head in in east Cleveland

Or the mattresses being dragged through streets

By bareback men in the summer heat but I know

That I ain’t dead and it feels better to hold a heart in my hands

Than a damn book. I’m not happy with dreams—

Redemption, salvation, paradise.

I’ll know we’ve got it when I smell petrichor.[1]

---

[1] “Readiness is all”