faith in nothing: a reason
early afternoon in
the land of murdered cheerleaders
and the hills without pity
the streets like rivers of dust and
filled with the shadows of whatever i hold
between myself and the sun
and i am not trying to define
a moment in time here
i am waging some misguided war of one
against impermanence
i'm giving the finger to anyone
who expected
even the smallest of revelations
listen
the man wore yellow gloves
while he butchered the bodies and
no one was sorry when he hung himself
and five years later i am still caught
between the ideas of growing up
and growing old
i am still receiving letters from
people offended by the use of the
lower case i
but at least the planes
have begun flying again
at least the children have turned
away from their own petty hatreds for
a minute to see how bleak the
future can really be
five thousand dead in the name of
someone's fucked-up god and then
nowhere to go but down
¤ ¤ ¤
soliloquy from a man watching the clock move soundlessly past midnight
and sixteen years later
i am still thinking of the boy
who told me i was diseased
who said that anyone not willing
to fight for america should be shot
and i have watched
my father die since then
and all of my grandparents
and i have sat through abortions
and the two a.m. phone calls
from women beaten by
their latest boyfriends
i have become angry and bitter
and disillusioned
but i love my son which should count
for more than it does
and i spend too many hours
alone in quiet rooms
ripping the past apart and
rearranging it
i drive south on 38 through
the land of murdered cheerleaders
where no one knows my name
or wants to
there have been rumors of snow
and of famine in the east
two thousand are
suddenly dead in the time it
takes me to move from
one end of this poem to the other
and all i've brought with me
are my beliefs
