The Ithacan

 What if I alone were to hear these sirens,

and survive the impulse to plunge

while bound?

And all around me no one else

heard the sound

but could see my ravings, unhearing?

The fabled tune that makes men mad

fascinates as it destroys

but how can I resist the lure

of doing what was not done before?

I yearn despite my fearing.

Tie me to this masthead

as if I myself were a siren carved

in place,

for I who will know death

must surely face

with open ears

the language that allays my fears

and would drive me to that other

home that is not Ithaca.

Tree of Life (revised)

 The trunks smolders,

but maybe it will live.

The branches are in trouble.

The roots are in trouble.

We are

in trouble.

The fire drove living

things back

to the sea.

We can never go back to how 

it used to be.

Or even a fortunate tack.

 Life will puncture you

if you are lucky

and take the hot air out of you

sometime before you've risen

so high those around you

seem small.

Some days I see some

balloon-headed fool and think,

"Where is that cosmic arrow?"

It will come both a little too late,

and still be right on time.

Unaffirmed

 "God is in charge"

was the affirmation, "So be not afraid."

And while he wrote it

a baby was born with a tumor,

a thousand people died of preventable 

causes, flies surrounded

a starving child,

prisoners sat with faint hope

of seeing freedom,

a wife was beaten while her children

watched and

dozens of judges took

millions of dollars 

in bribes. 

If I believed in the 

first line of this poem,

what would I dare to do about the rest? 

What could I do even now?

Job once was asked where he was

while Earth and Heaven were created,

while he sat on a pile, bereft

and blighted.

We all have questions,

don't we?

Requiem for A Singer

 Truth is the gift people don't love to accept,

Shuhada, though you realized its worth.

Wide-eyed, shaven artist,

you bore witness to it

and by trying to make others see it too

there were those who rejected you,

even though your voice 

was that of an angel,

and your halo made

of righteous flame. 

But if to say what you feel

is to dig your own grave, why not then

dig one you can stand to lie in, someday? 

Is there a reward for compromise

either in heaven or--? No

no, not even here,

Not for a house in Antigua or

all the fame they can cram you with.

You did not want what 

you did not have because you had 

your whole soul, and you were right:

we need more tearing up of idols

and binding up of our broken selves. 

A Very Normal Bomb

 Nothing will ever even get around to normal anymore--

it will just be new, then new, then new. 

Things can change quicker than you were prepared for,

and your temporary comfort won't be spared.

Think of it this way: someone set a time-bomb,

and it's been ticking your whole life in the background.

You could learn to live with a time-bomb.

You could even learn to love a time-bomb.

Maybe you find the ticking a reassurance--the sound

you've always heard--but softly. A little reminder of

mortality is all. But if you love something,

wouldn't you want to hold it all together? 

If you knew it could all blow apart; throw your arms around it;

try to defuse it, get to the bottom

of what makes it tick? 

What if your beloved was about to ring an alarm?

And then.

And then. 

Nothing would ever be normal again--

it would just be nothing. 

Normal was a time-bomb in your bed.

THAT is what must be unlearned. 

Do Not Forget This

 She was

caught in a snare we would

consider too cruel

for animals,

a teenager who traveled

a long way, tired and pregnant

and she twisted there, caught on the wires

like a fawn trapped

in the shepherd's fence

meant to separate the domestic

from the wild.

And bleeding she plead with her eyes

for herself and her child.

She was bound to a fate

of captured or drowned. 

But then she found,

deeper than the razor cut,

the hope was bled

from her body,

the future she fought for

fallen from her form,

and the silver lining of the American dream

was understood to be steel

and the promise of it--stolen. 

And do not forget that, 

because your ancestor fluttered in a womb

like hers

and a golden lamp lit their way.

And say what you will:

the dream of America beckons still.