(what follows)

Okay! That's wraps up the second volume of a year-long poem-a-day project (remember Terror of Knowing as the first). I'm going to be switching gears next, attempting a new novel, Yes I Am Falling, in the same vein (as well as the NaNos that eventually produced The Cloak of Shrouded Men), and it will be posted at Monk in Exile on myspace. Whatever readers I had here, I hope I don't disappoint!

The Clintonians

Before you go on,
watch the films
JFK and
Thirteen Days,
which would serve
as an excellent
platform to
remember what
kind of man
the last great
president was,
beyond the scandals
a different era
might have ruined
him over.

The first one
revolves around
the day everything
changed, and that's
what history
is going to have
to remember. It
wasn't just a matter
of the Cold War
entering its
last phase, but
the political
future of the nation
forming, readying
for Nixon's final bow,
preparing for the old
lines to be redrawn.

It took a while.
Reagan got to sit
through the remainder
of the idealism, and
to some extent, H.W.
as well, but it wasn't
until Clinton emerged,
the heir apparent,
that the whole thrust
was put into motion,
a worthy challenge
everyone accepted.
He played every hand,
weathered every storm,
all to affirm what
should have already
been obvious, that
something had broken,
and that only his
successor could signal
the way back, a man
who stepped into
the coliseum ill-prepared
for the wolves. He
had already proclaimed
himself an outsider,
why were we surprised?
He was eaten alive,
sacrificed for his religion.

The Clintonians were
out for revenge. Revenge
for the events of the
second film, all the potential
lost and mired by an
untenable war. Me, I'd
rather be a Clay than a Calhoun,
a Nixon than an LBJ, but
it didn't end up being that easy,
just ask Lieberman. All we
have left are splinters,
waiting to be put back together,
to be taken out of our fingers.

I wish above all
that I could always remember:
my voice should not be heard.
It's better that way,
the way such voices go,
the way the public likes it.
Who am I to give them
what they need?
I am not a code,
I am not a knight;
they've already heard,
they just don't want to.
The truth is always
murdered, the truth
is always free.

Things were lost.
Things will be found.

I know that this is not goodbye.

Running to the Cemetary

Well, it's a lovely day
to appreciate the work
of a couple rock bands
bent on exploring the raw
material of experience,
led by Bono and Martin,
who can sometimes be
confused if you're not
paying close attention.
If Dylan is our modern poet,
then they are our philosophers,
delving inward and outward
into modern life, the questions
that plague us, the relationships
that slay us, as they always do.

One looks at the canvas
so irritatingly broadly
they capture a wicked sense
of the order that can emerge
from chaos, the other measuring
so methodically they can
sometimes get carried away.
Both exist in their own
dream worlds, and that's
to their benefit and for
anyone who appreciates them,
but for those who don't,
they miss the poignant message.

I wish I could get everyone
to hear what they do, but
most people can hardly bother
with what's around them, such as,
yes, me, because Sadie makes
me wish she weren't here and
that she would never leave,
never, not even to go home
where she lives now. If you
listen to these bands, you
would understand, because
they're saying what we
already know, but better.

Christopher Hitchens

Hey,
you won't
believe
this.

I found
someone
else
who may
actually
see things
as they
actually
are.

This dude
Chris Hitchens,
best known
to me
previously
as a book-
writing
atheist,
also spent
some time
explaining
all the
reasons
why it
wasn't
stupid
for Bush
to declare
war
on Saddam
Hussein.

It was
weird,
it was
surreal,
to find
this guy
espousing
everything
I'd believed
for five
years, all
the things
everyone
seemed
to think
weren't
important,
but were
there
all the
same.

I've
just
got to
thank you,
Chris,
for being
there.

Yellow

Yellow's the color of love
Yellow's the color of love
since I left you

Yellow's the color of love
Yellow's the color of love
since I left you

And since you went away
and I followed
but apart from you

Yellow's the color of love
Yellow's the color of love
since I left you

11

It's that number
Sadie seems to favor,
don't know why,
it's just something
I noticed, at least
from those she could
choose from with
the radios. I started
picking it, too,
when she wasn't
working. I guess
she had to notice.

Now that things
are winding down,
I am forced to
realize I should
have been happy to
see her happy,
because even before
I came around, she was,
even when I said
"I hate Steve"
without knowing him,
or her, at the time.

She seemed to become
happy to be around me,
and I let that play
with my other thoughts,
and I really shouldn't
have, because it was
just work, not her
real life, she never
really needed me, right?
I was just a clown,
and I think she
was amused, so she
humored me.

Two weeks to go,
it seems, and things
must end like this.
I'm happy that she's
happy, and am now
willing to leave it
like that. She seems
like she definitely
deserves that sort
of thing, and she
never needed me to
start mucking around
with it, and here it
took me all this time
to realize that.

I suppose I'm sorry
for that, too. Today,
I took the eleventh radio
again, and it might be
for the last time, just so
she knows. Sadie,
that was your number,
for whatever reason,
and it will be one
more thing you take
with you.

I can live with that.

Damn You, Zodiac!!!

I was reading through
another of those
astrology guides,
this one geared toward
romantic interests,
when it struck me
for the first time
you can either waste
your time reading
these poems, or just
sort of review
the topic of Virgos.
One's quicker than
the other. I'm so
glad I read that book!

We Find Ourselves In Circles

We find ourselves in circles
because we like to define
ourselves by them, in every
possible way. Go ahead,
think about it. I saw a bad
movie and that's what got
me thinking about it, and
everywhere I looked, I saw
people walking in circles,
inside, outside, within them,
defining the world that way,
every facet, just having a ball.

Hope of the States/The Living End/Death and All His Friends

I should know to feel despair,
I should know there is no hope,
I should know what they all say,
but I still feel different.

Into Me I See

Cynical calculation
which negates an
authentic voice
is among the worst
and most common
evils to be found,
and I am constantly
butting up against it.

No matter. I have
distractions, I am
able to reason for
myself, and find
worth where others
wag their dogs.

And I can create
my own trouble as
well, when I find
things that only
exaggerate my
suffering, music,
television, film,
these expressions
that connect me
to the outside
world, and further
delude me to think
I have some chance.

I am sorry, Sadie,
for the things I
have put you through,
whether you quite
realized them or not,
because I have always
known what the result
must be. I experience
these entertainments
and they convince me
that I could have some
part, but I know my role
and you, Sadie, were
cast for something else.
You were, if it must
sound inelegant, the latest
confirmation, is all.

This book, too, must close,
as must always be its fate,
and I for one believe
in happy endings.

James Patterson...!!!

Working at a bookstore
will help you appreciate
a great many things
you never thought of
before, but one of them
has got to be all those
shitty writers people
read and populate bookshelves,
um, for no real reason
except that's what's
easy to do when you
want to pretend you're
literate but still shudder
from the memories of
those teachers forcing
you through three hundred
or so pages in a few weeks
when you had other things
you had to read and try
to replicate, not just...
what was the goal?
intepret or whatver,
listen to what they had
to say and pretend you got
that or at least that you
didn't have something else
you might have thought.
It was easier to just
pretend you read it, because
they were going to tell
you anyway, right? And then
expect you to know the
boring details for tests.

No wonder you now
read Patterson!

Lonely Planet

Stop ridiculing
persecuting
shaming
me for approaching
the world from a
different perspective.
There is no shell,
at least not any
your narrow perceptions
would notice.
So, fuck you.

***

It was a betrayal, Sadie,
plain as can be.
I trusted you to be
different from the others,
but you couldn't, you
finally confessed that
you're the same, and for
that, I can honestly say
I won't miss you when
you're gone.

***

It's so hard for me to breath
when the world is bearing down,
expecting me to feel like
I should just belong, when
I know from every angle
that I can never fit,
only wobble my way through,
get a laugh, share a joke,
shout in that quiet tone.

***

It's the end of a chapter,
then, isn't it, Sadie?
I am only trying to make
you understand, in the only
way I know how, and if I
hurt your feelings, know
you broke mine first.
I was looking back the other
day, and discovered I made
that note only in last May,
that I have made no progress
except a slip along the slide.
I'm Sisyphus, a metaphor,
no totem on a pole.
Don't say you know
when it won't count,
don't count on me
when you can't relate.

I sing a tune of one.

I Fail Because I Am

The thing I take
most solace from
is the knowledge
that I know I am
the agent of my
own failures.

These are calculated
necessities, my
own machinations,
lamented but not
regretted, because
they represent
who and what I am,
and I cannot conceive
anything else, for
it would not be me.
Perhaps I could be
happy if only I did
not insist on my own
devices, but they are
what I know and what
I am; without them
I would be nothing,
not even a thought.
Thoughts are not
a thing, but rather
the manifestation of it,
even if they can drive
one mad. I know I am,
but what are you?
I strive to build on
my failures, my
weaknesses, because
I don't want them to
define me, because
their existence proves
the rule of mine, and
if I let them win, then
I will have accomplished
nothing, and that's exactly
wha I hope to avoid,
even as I fail because I am
a person who either succeeds
greatly or fails the same way,
with the middle ground hard
won but enjoyed bitterly.

The Trouble with Poetry

The trouble with poetry
is that everyone knows
what it is, Billy,
they've made a commotion,
lost all the motion,
and it's no longer
just what it is, but
what people see.
If we could just find
a way, to combine it
all back, then maybe
once again there would be
no trouble with poetry.

I Blame Amanda Peet

I blame Amanda Peet
for making it obvious.

You know how if you
get to a movie early
that the theater tries
to occupy your time
with a bunch of random
entertainment-related
trivia? Apparently,
Amanda Peet thinks
you need to fall in love
a little bit with your
co-stars.

Well, thank you Amanda Peet.
Because that's the card
I've been playing at work,
too, not so much because
I want to fall in love
with every girl I see,
but that it seems to make
things easier, if that makes
any sense, a sense of security,
of a bond I can count on
to build from, if they let me.
Then again, I usually screw it
up, they catch on, or I settle
on the one I think I'm most
compatible with, fall in love
for real, and they aren't at all
available, because shoot, you're
at work, dick head, some place
people go to earn money, not
to fall in love. It's the only
place I know of where people
will find out a sliver of
what I can be.

Thank you, Amanda Peet!
It's a game I can't help
playing, even though it always
fucks me over. And you had to
go and say it first. Thanks!

To the Fourth

It's one of those holidays
that has sort of become
almost as much about
celebrating some event
as whatever we've managed
to represent as celebration,
but it's still a decent time
to remember what that date
meant more than two hundred
thirty years ago, when
a bunch of colonists
gathered to declare themselves
a unified front, not just
a nation, or a land aggrieved.
If it was about any of those
other things, we haven't done
much fighting or celebrating
about them, those were either
self-evident or self-proclaimed.
But we did have a Civil War
over those who no longer
believed in the Fourth of July,
who decided independence was
little more than an excuse
to do whatever they wanted,
as long as they could justify it,
just as once again, in the suits
of politics, where partisans now
claim we don't need two parties,
just the one they support, because
all we have seen for years
is bickering, all those parties
seem to have been interested in.
But on this day, I see things
differently, that these problems
are an affirmation of what was
decided and signed on that day,
and that it's worth celebrating still.

We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things

What an odd turn of events, Sadie.
Here I've been thinking that we've
become a terrific set of friends,
even with all those unfortunate
roadblocks around us, that you
might have started to come around,
maybe see all the horrible mistakes
those roadblocks are (cue laughter,
because if I were saying it,
that would be more clear, really!),
but I discovered something today.
In the past, I have been able to
turn such relationships around by
sayingto myself, I'm just happy
to make her happy! if she can't
end up with me, but I've been
thinking, and today may have made
it more clear, that even as great
as we are, I'm not sure it could
go any further, even if it could,
even if we could tease it along
to find out, because there's something
fundamentally in the way, Sadie,
and it's a funny thing to find out,
like it's not supposed to be, no
matter how much we try. I wish
it weren't so, but maybe those
roadblocks were there for a reason.
But yeah, Sadie, I wish it weren't so.

The other thing I found out recently
was that Colorado, unlike every other
state I've lived in, is a battleground
political field, at least this year.
Barack Obama came to speak here
the other day, and I think I saw
his police motorcade pass by.

What thrilling times!

The Vogon Guide to Poetry

First, give a deep
emphasis on classic
forms.

Second, give a deeper
emphasis on classic
subjects.

Third, give still more
emphasis on classic
works.

Fourth, try and write
something that covers
all that.

You may find it
excruciating...

Personally,
I find it
pretty funny.

Ozymandius Exhumed

I came across
a traveler
from a distant
land
who had chanced
upon a statue,
which read
"Look upon my
work, and tremble."
I was a native
of that land,
and knew
just what it meant.
The statue was
in ruins, but
its impact still
I felt,
all over
the level sands,
on whose land
I dwelt.