Fall 2022

Struggling to rise again from a fall. Winded. Sick of an old grief,
scolded by regrets of such long standing that they qualify for pensions (go ahead,
retire, please!) and the long low bank of dirty cloud carries particulates 
from sweet mossy forests that were never meant to burn, but are burning now.

What I have to ask myself is, do I feel lucky? And I do not. Lucky all my life
but not today. Dust off the knees of my old-man jeans; straighten the last few inches
that used to come for free. The masks for the pestilence work very well
for fire smoke. Isn't that convenient! And the various stupid accomplishments

of the past decade slide away. Tired of it all, and ready to arrange my limbs,
settle my debts, confirm my suspicion that the chips I'm playing 
are actually worth nothing at the desk. 

Poor Grendel's had an accident: so may you all.

America

If I'm really done with Locke and I think I am
Renouncing my inheritance, the social contract, that government
instituted to secure these rights, then I am giddily set free,
let loose (or abandoned) to imagine other things, but then

so was that young neurotic Austrian painter of landscapes
and designer of Aryan battle flags: he imagined his people
right into hell. So soft, soft on that, please. Go slow.

Listen. Suppose there is an America, drunk and unsteady,
made of dreams and pixilated stories, lost and looking for the way home:
a person of sorts. Suppose it's our job to try to get him home to bed
without damaging himself (or others) more than can be helped.
Suppose he is us, and our every imagining blazes a path
in the flickering net of his brain. Suppose his incoherent weeping 
is ours. Suppose 
it all matters dreadfully, and we are to hang his mask on our faces
and learn to face the world.