Five

sure, I know that you are tired of hearing about it, but
most repeat the same theme over and over again, it's
as if they were trying to refine what seems so strange
and off and important to them, it's done by everybody
because each must work out what is before them
over and over again because
that is their personal tiny miracle

like now as like before and before I have been listening to symphony after
symphony from this radio

makes me realize that certain people now long dead were able to
transgress graveyards

and traps and cages and bones and limbs

in tiny rented rooms I was struck by miracles

the flesh covers the bone
and they put a mind
in there and
sometimes a soul,
and the women break
vases against the walls
and the men (they) drink too
much
and nobody finds the
one
but keep
looking
crawling in and out
of beds.
flesh covers
the bone and the
flesh searches
for more than
flesh.

there is a loneliness in this world so great
that you can see it in the slow movement of
the hands of a clock

people so tired
mutilated
either by love or no love.

people just are not good to each other

we are afraid.

our educational system tells us
that we can all be
big winners

it hasn't told us
about the gutters
or the suicides.

or the terror of one person
aching in one place
alone

untouched
unspoken to

people are not good to each other.
people are not good to each other.

I suppose they never will be.
I don't ask them to be.

but sometimes I think about
it.

there must be a way.

surely there must be a way that we have not yet
thought of.

there's no chance
at all:
we are all trapped
by a singular
fate.

nobody ever finds
the one.

who put this brain inside of me?

it cries
it demands
it says that there is a chance.

it has kept the rope from my throat

maybe it will loosen
yours

the city dumps fill
the junkyards fill
the madhouses fill
the hospitals fill
the graveyards fill

nothing else
fills.