this battered pitch

this is your burning realism

here on this battered pitch

with wavering goals, with stuck trucks

with worms under skin

here is where boys become men

and men do what men do

and die

this is where you can’t forget

screams happen for many reasons

there is dancing and falling on the ground

in ecstasy

there is giving up to being held down

while it is cut out

and children are childlike

and die

and dying is your realism

drying up like wheat

spread out in the sun

packed up in beds

hands are holding

tracing peace we are told

truth from some angles

in language not grasped

at the border a cinder wall

you hide your neck

stick to noonday shade

when there is time

what is real radiates from your skin like heat

Revised: A long way

written 12-3-2004
a long way

i imagined the city falling down
there isn't a word for what we do
sometimes they call it sleepwalking
my dog sniffs at things that aren't there
i imagine my life is a movie


today i thought about adventure
like a search for the happiest man
what would he say when i met him
i hope he would make me smile 

revised 11-12-2011
falling down



i hoped he would make me smile
the man who imagined the city falling down
i imagined the city falling down
there isn't a word for what we do
sometimes they call it sleepwalking
sometimes they call it
sometimes they call it a masquerade
what do they call it these days?
these days of hope
i call my dog an old man
he hoped
my dog sniffs after things that aren't there
i sniff after men that aren’t there
i imagine my life as a movement
silhouetted
do they call it falling down?

i thought about adventure
like the search for the happiest man
what would he say when i met him ?
i hope he would make me smile

home assessment

"for a moment there,
i thought we were in trouble"


i corrected him
it’s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
i said, looking over my shoulder
seeing cowboys loading guns on the tv
an army, the State, takes aim

i went back to questions

was that before he accused me
of trying to trap him in a lie?

i am sure it must have felt
less like an assessment
more like home interrogation
no matter how much i care
or push the role from my heart

i was tasked
to carry out
termination of services
if it was my determination
(operating guidelines fixing outcomes)
(holding like guylines)
under a banner of faceless legislation
i wear
like a mask
a bandit

they await my determination
the poor, disabled, mentally ill
as they are known

I wanted to point out
the movie was near the end
rushing out, firing, the last stand