Holy Night

I think of my dead father,

How heartbroken he would have been.

I wonder if he knows what's going on;

I hope he doesn't.

I hope, after we pass, there is 

Only a peaceful void, and that 

All encompassing glow of love.

Though I sometimes wish for Hell 

For those who unleash it here.

But I assume She knows best,

She who is All, the Good and the Bad,

The Love and the Suffering.

I assume there is a meaning behind 

All this cruelty, all this injustice.

I think back to that night when

For a while I was Her, when 

Everything dissolved 

Into little glimmers of Love.

There was nothing else, but the breeze

And the hand of my dead grandmother 

Feeling my beard for the first time.

Useless Objects

I have my wedding ring still. 

I have the watch I gave to you on our anniversary.

Always on mind, it says; I gave it to him.

And your hand-me-downs; also gave some to him.

I have photo albums filled with people no longer there;

People I no longer talk to, people I loved once.

I have shelves full of music I no longer listen to,

Books I'll probably never read,

Films I'll likely never see.

And somewhere, I'm sure, 

There a piece of a life I'll never live.

Absolution

To My People 

I absolve myself of you.
I absolve me of the anger
dripping morbidly from turbid eyes;
of the hatred, loud and raucous,
and stupid;
of the ignorance engulfing you
like summer haze:
humid, and sticky, and slowly reeking.
I absolve me of your sins.

I absolve me of your children,
dull and arrogant,
and devoid of hope.
I absolve me of your tongue,
its beautiful words
gone blind.

I absolve me even of myself,
this guilt of being,
this exhaust of writing,
this ball of fury in your throats.
I absolve me even of this,
the need for absolution.

(Originally posted on May 22, 2007)

Exit

Of callous politicians everywhere

It’s time for us to exit
The stage and leave
The animals to shred
Their shadows

It’s time for us to exit
Without looking back
Turn off the light
Set the set on fire
And leave

It’s time for them
To cry our tears
To taste the salt
And the soles of our feet
And lick our spit
Off the floor

We shall burn in their retinas
Like the afterimage of a nightmare
We shall linger
Like the caustic aftertaste
Of regret

It shall burn
And we shall smile
They shall writhe
And we shall smirk
Through their moans

Spill me
Onto their gaping flesh
Like lemon juice
Bitter and bright
Scrape me
Off of their green skins
Like a dead dream

For we shall fester
Wherever they dare to smile
We shall bite
Like a ravenous hunger
They never knew

And we shall recur
Like a hallucination
Like loss
Like life

(Originally posted Aug. 6, 2004)

We are the clumsy passersby

When words fail me (or I fail them), sometimes the only consolation is the realization that I will never approach the greatness of what's been said:

We are the clumsy passersby, we push past each other with elbows,
with feet, with trousers, with suitcases,
we get off the train, the jet plane, the ship, we step down
in our wrinkled suits and sinister hats.
We are all guilty, we are all sinners,
we come from dead-end hotels or industrial peace,
this might be our last clean shirt,
we have misplaced our tie,
yet even so, on the edge of panic, pompous,
sons of bitches who move in the highest circles
or quiet types who don't owe anything to anybody,
we are one and the same, the same in time's eyes,
or in solitude's: we are the poor devils
who earn a living and a death working
bureautragically or in the usual ways,
sitting down or packed together in subway stations,
boats, mines, research centers, jails,
universities, breweries,
(under our clothes the same thirsty skin),
(the hair, the same hair, only in different colors).

-Pablo Neruda