we were singers.
they knew.
they sat us on two chairs,
facing one another.
we sang, at first in fear.
then, with spirit.
two came from behind
and poured gallons of paint on our heads.
First green, then grey.
we sang more strongly,
making a burbling sound
and getting used to the taste.

making deals, making deals.
I have to keep making deals.
I have looked through a dimensional glass
and I have been shown the Something.
it is All.
the antithesis of The Nothing.
but, I have to keep paying these prices,
making these deals,
shelling out these petty chunks of self
to the barbarous ones
what do they want with me
and why must I pay so much
to be assimilated, to be etherealized
through the conduit of that looking glass?

my son and I awoke one winter morning
to find the landscape covered in thick icy glare.
we looked at one another and smiled,
because the shallow ditch across the road from us
had become a bobsleigh run.
we dressed hurriedly and got out our skeleton sleds,
slapped them down in the ice trough, he in the lead.
we knew not to push off.
the ground was level anyway.  and now,
the world, the globe, the earth began to move
underneath us.
we moved not, but all of the places in creation did.
such a ride.  such a ride.

there was a crooked man
who had a crooked house
full of so much detritus
you couldn’t fit a mouse

freezers packed up to the doors
they almost wouldn’t close
but make no comments, see no wrong
or you’ll step on someone’s toes

rooms are full of random clothes
dresser’s used for knitting
boxes stacked up to the roof-
someone needs babysitting

the child that left five years ago
forgot her bedroom closet
was almost full of bric-a-brac
a clutterbug’s deposit

the one that flew a year ago
left all in disarray
a broken CD stereo
that wouldn’t even play

his home’s become a muse-e-um
he thinks he’s had enough!
but, make a move to clean it up?
Don’t touch my effing stuff!

In high school, they used to call him maggot face
because of his ruddy cratered complexion.
As if he could help it.  Those bastards.
And that was for starters.
But some of us saw the person,
saw him withdraw.
No smile, low hesitant voice, averted eyes.
And the locker he picked, down at the hall’s end.
He was one of the few in class who paid attention,
and he quietly beat them all out, to the very top.
That is when they started
with more vitriol and gang mentality,
calling him “number one”
and bowing before him in mockery.
You know, now I am so ashamed
that we, the fence sitters,
the best we could do
was not to participate in Charlie’s spiritual flogging.
Even the teachers offered only the occasional reprimand
to the unholy clowns.
One day,  our teacher drew a logic problem on the board:
a series of buckets, each connected to the other
in some way.  About twenty of them.
There was chittering going on,
everybody wondering what she was doing.
Then she said “if I poured water into the top cup
which one of the others would fill up first?”
“Let’s have a show of hands if you have the answer.”
Nearly everyone thought it was simple,
and waved their arms excitedly.
Everyone except we few and Charlie.
Of course, none were as smart as they thought they were.
The teacher said
“there were five of you who didn’t put up their hands.  Why?”
We looked towards Charlie, told him to get up there.
He knew, and the teacher asked why he hadn’t come up before.
Charlie said   “I wanted to give everybody else a chance.”

That afternoon, Charlie didn’t make it home
before he was down and bloodied.
And we wonder why things “happen”.  Happen.