Red Exit Door

I am lost
in a market place
and I am the only one
who looks human,
everyone else is humanoid.

Someone-in-charge
mutters something
and I am taken away
to a stone cell.

No English spoken
and I can’t read this situation
or remember how
I got here.

Hours pass.

I am in a crowd
and we are whipped
worse than chattel
or Auschwitz Jews.

They all seem to know
something I don’t
and they all seem to
belong.

I panic and am lost
in a world where
I cannot find the
red exit door.

Walking through
a dark and humid tunnel
I hear screams,
desperate and frantic.

I look down and see
I am walking on tightrope
over a snake pit
littered with
half-eaten corpses.

I shift and lose my balance
and my heart erupts,
I scream out

which awakens Anita
who tells me

“you were having
a bad dream.”

I exhale
thankfulness,
I am found.

Thankfully

I wish I knew
what brings her
rotting, pathetic soul
to my door.

She is sick, ravaged
and promises nothing
good.

She is a bony hag,
splotched skin,
mottled hair,
decaying smile
offering me
a blow job
for a hit.

Still, in the right light
or a bored moment,
I recall

her empty company.
insincere embrace,
loving facade.

I hear
her voice,
a coo stifling
mocking
laughter,

and,
thankfully,
I close
the door on her.

The Mutant Messiah Speaks

“I hate that it’s come to this,
but this world just doesn’t unite
voluntarily.

We need tragedy.
We need chaos.
We need an attack.

Only then is the world
unified,
set in the same direction.

Only then is there
cooperation,
brotherhood,
a shared recognition
of life’s preciousness.

A plane flying into a skyscraper.
A twisted warrior in a kindergarten class.
Unidentified white powder in an envelope.

These are the things
that unite us.

Fear binds us
and perhaps
in our vulnerability,
we will learn trust,
and find love.

If you’re no longer
afraid of God,
then be afraid of me:
I’ve strapped on my explosives
said my prayers,
and am coming for you.

I am not trying to be
some mutant messiah,
but please remember,

I am
sacrificing my life
for you."

Every Year at the End of August

Every year
at the end of August,
I try to remember
what life was like
in those weeks
before
that September 11.

I search newspaper archives
for what was happening,
listen to the music
of the day,
I reconstruct
my own recollection,
trying to understand
where we were,
where I was,
to somehow
quantify,
to measure
the effect,
from then
to now.

Every year,
I try but
ultimately decide
it’s pointless,
because no matter
how much my mind
can understand
such historical
artifacts,

my heart,
my soul
only knows the horror,
the division
of life
into segments of
“before 9/11”and
“after 9/11”.

The bumper sticker says
“Never Forget,”
as if I had
a choice in the matter.

[Alicia Keys, from "America: A Tribute to Heroes" 2001]

Necessary Evil

Thank God for the sinners,
the child-rapists.
the wife-beaters.
the small animal torturers.

God lets them all exist
because deep down
God is fair
and I know God
loves me too,

because I was put here to
create misery and panic
and heartache.

to mow down daisies
and set loose
the flamethrower
on the innocent brown victims.

If I weren't here
(or for that matter
everywhere)
then there'd be
no need for
Heaven,
Holy Grace,
no Christmas presents,
no Easter eggs,

because there would be
no need for God.

God created me
as a form of job security
because if I weren't here
causing a catastrophic illness,
or helping a battered wife
set fire to her sleeping husband,
everything would be
peaceful
tranquil,
at one,

and no one would ever seek out
His holiness,
that sense of purpose
that transcendent Being.

So, the more I keep
stirring the pot,
the more you all
keep praying to your God
and the more He is happy.

Let’s face it,
without me,
God’s nothing.

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