Gasoline

I should not be surprised

That none of my hurry yields progress.

That working late leads to tossing in bed,

No reprieve after pushing too hard

In the first place.

It was not always like this.

I am the one who watched birds

From the bushes, who was so quiet

The creatures ventured out. I was the one

Who wrote longhand, and put the child to sleep.

Where is all that peace?

I call this eagerness for intimacy, “gasoline” -

But what are fossil fuels? An immediacy 

made over millennia, the cream of everything slow

And lived at life’s pace. Everything dead

And unwasted. I can burn up in seconds.

I can rebuild with a terrible patience. 

Now begins the long re-training, the painful 

Recovery of limbs; determined mobility

After every damning prognosis.

Someone knows I will not be purchased

As an ornament. Here is a lightning rod:

Never struck, never lied to. A nun in wolf’s 

Clothing.

--

Sin

I think what we are trying 

to say is, Tell Me I'm Wrong. 

The word you are looking for

has already been excised. 

Your vocabulary does not

contain it. The word, in fact, exists. 

Only it is

devoid of meaning. Now it is spoken

as a joke. As code for, 

"what those hypocrites

preach in their tent meetings; what the tight-lipped

whisper over tea."       It feels so far  

from genocide, from death row. Somewhere someone 

commits atrocities on purpose. Meanwhile, 

we amuse ourselves. 

We wear slippers, imagining

how we compare. 

                       Until, some night

a splinter in the mind

tells us we too

carry the seed. 

              Until we feel a menace

                        rising in the throat, enough 

to throttle the offender. 

I am the devil. 

We cannot call it like it is. We do not want to be rescued.

Only, some small

part of us is just,                         and wants to be damned. 

So we wander

hungry

for someone bold

enough 

to name it. 

--