03/16/20 "Yahoo"

It’s like,

jumping into an old banya,

all cedar and eucalyptus,

and your father’s last beer

on his breath

before a gnarly “yahoo!”

And then

the ten feet jaunt

to the creek

where a witch woman

has cut an entry in the ice shield.

It’s like that,

on the other side of a restaurant window

where no one wanders –

back and fourth

between two insolvable conditions.

Shock and awe.

Who waged this war?

some want to know.

Maybe it was them alien elves

who some shaman saw

on the ledge of a cliff

with all their “now or never…” “can you hear me…” “breath…”

DMT dreams

and other inexplicable technology.

Or maybe it was the Russians,

building an avatar out of you and me,

while we watched Jon Snow chew his lip –

I don’t know – I’ll call them.

But do you remember when the lungs of the earth

coughed fire

during your summer vacation,

how the flames buzz-sawed lesions

in the earth?

…Maybe it was us.

Heaven – hell,

Good – bad,

Right – wrong,

The off-white of the political spectrum arguing about grammar,

God and the Devil, and all of their conscripts –

I am tired! of this eternal war

between the attendants of a bad compromise.

I don’t want to sharpen my voice, into a blade,

I don’t want to burn for cash,

I don’t want to keep fearing you,

or the future,

or the future you,

which my stolen dream tells me is far more dangerous,

when it’s returned to me

with a thousand cuts,

which I don’t ask you about

because we’re supposed to be afraid to talk.

It is time to renegotiate the contract.

No one’s at the wheel.

Real work

to be done.

Send me your thoughts

my friend

on how we live free