Shoot

 

Shoot the starving as they run for flour

Shoot the doctors as they treat the patients

Shoot the teacher sleeping in the school

Shoot the mother saying evening prayers

Shoot the child hiding in the tree

Shoot the driver picking up the wounded

Shoot the wounded waiting in the car

Shoot the poet writing one more line

Shoot the singer singing one more verse

Shoot the dancer doing one more step

Shoot the dog looking around the yard

Shoot the cat shoot the sheep

Shoot the donkey pulling the death cart

Should the reporter taking one more note

Shoot the undertaker writing one more writ

Shoot the caretaker digging one more grave

Poem of Despair & Longing

 

All will be sacrificed

22 veterans a day

Will kill themselves

Winter will vanish

Whole peoples are disappeared

Their languages dance song

Remembered only by the trees

The trees are cut down

And will be remembered

By stones

Silent

In the great absence

All is reduced

Men douse themselves

In gasoline

And erupt into flames

Forests reduce to tinder

And blaze on the far horizon

Ocean currents stall or reverse

Golden algae blossoms

And chokes the warming waters

Animals in laboratories

Die of boredom

Or loneliness

Sacrificed

Wealth is accumulated

Celebrities dwell

In parallel dimensions

And shimmer in the distance

Like fata morgana

It is not for gods

Or goddesses

Or spirits found

In landscapes

In waters

That the sacrifice occurs

But for urges

That renew eternally

As each destruction finishes

Or maybe it's all just

Due to of bad ideas

But that's kind of

Anti-climactic

Narratively disappointing

Probably it's for both

And battles that are lost

Are as important

As those that are won

Permitting survival

Within chaos & great stupidity

Permitting memory

To persist

And meaning

note: I think the poem below is written in a similar spirit to which WB Yeats wrote "The Second Coming." He sensed something malevolent descending upon Europe between the wars and sought words to express this. By writing this, I too am trying to articulate the dark, destructive thing quite active in the world today. I am for realism, creativity, imagination, community, emotional resilience and vulnerability, but against despair. Despair is too painful and should be avoided. But witness and resistance in any and all of its forms is to be pursued and despair may be encountered in this process. Nonetheless, I believe and my experience shows me goodness, even happiness is still possible even under these conditions.

A Child In Gaza Speaks of His Friends

 

there's one I can't find

one with one leg

one with no mother

one underground

one under rubble

one with one eye

one with no hands

there's one I can't find

one who can't hear

one who can't laugh

one in the north

without any food

one in the south

without any roof

there's one I can't find

one who played soccer

one who played chess

one who liked cats

one who liked birds

one who liked math

one who liked verses

there's one I can't find

one in my dreams

when I have dreams

when I can sleep

which is not very often

she tells me something

that I cannot hear

there's one I can't find

one by a wall

one by the roadside

one by the shore

searching the tide

one in the moonlight

one in the sun

there's one I can't find

one I remember

one that I can't

one day we sang songs

in the bright afternoon

there was the scent of fresh bread

that's what I recall

there's one I can't find

Mother Courage

 

Earlier in the day

I noticed pink flowers blooming

On the illinois lawns

In february

Children playing in t-shirts and shorts

In the alley

And I was reading a book about

The various ends of the world

The one we are on would be

End #6

Maybe life he said

Is just a way for the planet

To distribute its various elements

We die and certain chemical

Processes initiate

We live & we catalyze others

The planet needs

Its lifeforms to do that

For it to remain

Earth

He said I think

At night I went to a play

The actors were on stage

Dressed as soldiers

Marching and singing

Trapped in an infinite chain

Of european wars

And there were people on the margins

Hustling dodging bullets

Hiding their livestock

There was a wagon that didn't roll

And a magical gun

That poured wine

From its muzzle

We went across the street

To talk about it

Over beer cider cbd soda

I didn't know the man

Across from me

I learned he was a theater director

Who'd begun

As a poor renegade

But was now renowned

We've been traveling he said

India for a wedding

Rome for thanksgiving

(Though the guy who invited us

Wasn't there when we arrived!)

We saw the colosseum & the taj mahal

And we flew to london

And saw different plays

Some bad some good

I didn't really understand this

It seemed a little late in the game

For all of it

We were in the middle

Of End #6 after all

And I thought of an idea I'd had

For a science fiction story

An alien species

Wants to live on earth

Regardless of its condition

So it hoodwinks humans

Into transferring underground

Carbon into the skies

Viscous black bubbling

In 1859 Pennsylvania

Seemed like a stroke of luck

It was not

We weren't moving around

The right chemicals anymore

The aliens had tricked us

We were flying to Paris

To see an opera

And I was driving 10 miles home

Instead of walking or biking

Or taking a horse

This was a mistake

Jed

I worked in a Kinko's with

A 6'4 mountain man

Looking guy named Jed

Jed took a tent and went

Into the woods

In Wisconsin to live

For two weeks

I asked him about it

When he got back

He said it was OK

Kind of boring

The days were

Mostly thinking about

Plotting organizing preparing

The next meal on the gas stove

And Jed would lumber

Down to the creek

For water twice a day

The surroundings were calm

Trees bending in the breeze

Sunlight chipmunks

Garter snakes insects

A tetherball set-up

At an abandoned campsite

Encountered on a walk

At sunrise

Now back in Milwaukee

Jed kept a stillness

We did not have as we

Swooned under clouds

Of dried copier ink

And supervisor panic

The buzz of the machines

Not the cricket orchestra

The bullfrog choir

That Jed heard

In the Wisconsin woods

As he thought about

What would be his next meal

And how to make it

(bird caw)

Bad People

There's bad people

Well temporarily bad

At least

For some it becomes

A vocation

They depart into a wood

In a blank state

And decide to take

The fork in the path

Which extends into gradually

Dimming darkness

To be bad

First one must be lonely

Feel rejected

One reaches for cruelty

Like reaching for a cookie

From a jar

On the upper shelf

Maybe it will bring relief

It does not

But the habit forms

The meanness

The misery

Like falling rain

Forming gullies

Within the person

One becomes the man

Disliked or feared

He of whom others

Dream of attacking violently

Perhaps he knows this

And the rain falls harder

Digging deeper gullies

The Gospel According to Mark: a Folk Tale among Lakes, Mountains, Deserts & Stone Cities

Miracle

Tells folks not to tell anyone about it

Exorcism

Tells folks not to tell anyone about it

Flock of people follows JC

Semi-cryptic parable

JC tells apostles they can know the story

Behind the story

Not just the semi-cryptic parable

JC & apostles exit to under the eaves

So he can tell them the real story

(We don't get to hear the real story)

Pharisees, King Herod or his supporters

Condemn & are scandalized by JC

JC delivers a witty rejoinder

JC berates his apostles as dumbasses

Miracle

Tells folks not to tell anyone about it

Exorcism

Tells folks not to tell anyone about it

Etc.

A Band Whose Name I Don't Know

A performance art troop

From Australia

Was installed in the display windows

Facing State Street

For the opening

Of the downtown Sears

They were to live

In the environment

For one week

Their days & nights visible

To the public

And you could go there

And watch them

Like a live movie

Of people living their lives

In comfortable clothes

The space had plastic tunnels

Was dual level

Had a space to eat

And prepare food

And swinging hammocks

Four agile & wiry men

Like the Blue Man group

But they were not blue

Speakers were hung

Outside the building

To broadcast music they played

On their boombox inside

When I got there

In the late afternoon

They were dancing

The singing & the guitars

I heard were perfect

The inhabitants showed a joy

That is particular

To Australia it seems

The energy of a continent

In the Pacific sun

Animating their limbs

They couldn't hear you

So I wrote on a scrap of paper

And held it up to the glass

"What's the name of the band?"

A gangly guy wrote back on his tablet

A name I can't remember

And maybe my life

Would be different

If I could

Gaza

 

Real people are killed

When people are real

They can be killed

If they are not real

They are not people

And cannot to be killed

But if they are killed

Their artery sliced

By a white hot

Metal shard flying

Their femur crushed

By something whistling oddly

Too swiftly through the air

If they fall and bleed

When they receive a bullet

Between two ribs

Then they are people

Pleasant or unpleasant

Curious or dull

Friendly or grouchy

Not figures sketched by words

Cut out propped up and

Put on a carousel spinning

In the mind

Forms that may flash

Into crackling flames

Ephemeral things

Of no consequence

Curiosities

High quantity non-events

If they stumble

Hurrying down the road

Away from their home

And misunderstand

A loudspeaker command

And stop 8 seconds too late

And take a baton to the brain

And stop moving

If they leave bread in the oven

Because of a dread feeling

In the seventh house

Where they have slept

In 17 days

And trundle down the road

Pushing a stroller

With a jewelry box

Velvet pillows

And a toddler on top

And they become

Hungry and very thirsty

And they learn that

Their destination is also

Receiving missiles

Then they are people

Real people

Less (Fewer)

 

We live among less Than ever before

What was abundance

Now shimmers empty

In shadows

Or stares blankly at us

In the sun

Each year each month

Each week each day

There is less

The radio transmission

Crackles faintly

The man says Evanston

When he grew up

The beaches were full

Of seabirds

Pools swam with crawdads

The yards had insects

So many buzzing

Burrowing swooping

A snail a snail

When was the last time

Anyone saw a snail

In their garden

He asks

(A friend told me he saw

Some slugs at least)

His radio voice fading

You looked into the lake

It was clear

There were trout

Hooked snout salmon

Passing each other

All of this he said

And I heard

On the college radio station

Driving back from Ben's

After hours in a room

With modular synths

And repeating guitar figures

I read from a book

Into the microphone

Of a journey to India

Travelers seeking ecstasy

Through the DMT

Toad serum bufo

A man had brought

They arrived at caves

In the side of a mountain Before taking the medicine

They immersed

In a clear pool

The song ended

I stopped reading

What happened when

They took the medicine

I do not know

For David Goldstein