Mark DuCharme
Written from the Hooky Playing Meeting
Contractors shuffle— a nervous pitch.
The light in the room has lifted
A sorrow to its burnt-out avatar.
How do I know when I know myself?
How live among those who chose to go back?
If living’s a creation, why is life grim?
At any level elsewhere
Be warned. Stay heeded.
Crime doesn’t quiver. At the junction’s meaning
Hope burns— a tumorous constancy.
Manifold— through done day waning.
Guarded merchandise vigor— the way
The light hits your logo, a laying on of
Grandstands. Go home & jabber, in
The light. Where territorialists ditch abortive
Festschrifts. All eyes on sold-out tomorrows
With sycophant grifters at horrid portals.
How much will it cost? The word us
No longer seems real. The word real has been sold
For its weight in triggers. You’re next.
Look Inward, Bystander
—for Steve Carll
Look out, citizen!
Even Sirens collapse at a glimpse of
Tidy border guards, rehearsing
Maniac tangos at the proscenium—
Ugly,
Somewhat unctuous, violent even, just like
Kafkaesque snarlers who loiter in shadows &
Eat only with
Angels bleeding.
Think now. Do I have to tell you to be kind?
Emotional masturbation sets dimwits to cackle in
Xenophobic mockery, like glib, dull, young
Conquistadors. In which First World is this even
Remotely funny? Dare anyone—
Even in rare
Moments when
Everything’s
Not
Tainted.
Us
Can you bear more grief, America
Even self-inflicted? Startled
For your past, recent & deep
On this day forever will
No flowers bloom
Rose kindness effigies
Senses of betrayal (the Big
Lie itself consisting of a
Thousand little
Ones)
Little lies we tell
In order to get by. I’m done
With you, for all your grief
This icy calamity
Cold fingering decay, saying
“I despise someone” is never
Enough. What is? I dreamed
I misread “horror” as “home.” You probably don’t
Get enough fruit. We can talk about the weather
When I don’t fear coming over
Faithless & deathless like incendiary machinery
Count rabble abdicated
Thug-in-a-wig bleakly
Over & done. You had it coming, America
Don’t ask me to cry
I’ll cry for those starving or
Brutalized, not
You anymore. The ‘dream’ is
Done. You should have
Known. Becoming what you always
Were, all along
Norman Fischer
The assertion of blind will over many
The assertion of blind will over many
The smashing of things, of people, their fragile lives
In name of an idea, a slogan, a furious twist
Meant to — what? — bring about a self-defined
Utopia for whom?
Control control control
Power power and mad for power, mad in it
To do what you insist on to follow out the thread of the mad idea
To do this against all good sense and good advice
With no reference to compassion as if if no real person lived —
Who can stop the force of it
Rumbling through the corridors of government
Through the fronts of the buildings and out of them the back
Like a bullet through and through the skull
That stops when the force is shut by an obstructing object
In death, at war’s end,
And something new is forced to begin
The Catastrophic Diplomatic Event
The catastrophic diplomatic event
All the pundits in shock now interpret
In which the two great leaders, Frick and Frack,
Bully the lesser leader in his superhero outfit
Telling him the ocean is not wet, the sky not blue,
And the moon’s a slice of swiss cheese and he ought to be
Grateful to them for the delivery of such honest sober truth
And all the generous ways they’ve shored up his beleaguered nation
For which they now demand fealty and a giant pile of cash
Truly their hearts were in it as they shouted and shook
The Fracks with their bloated indignation
The superhero with a firm dismay
For the world so full of blood
And dying people who do not sit in such rooms,
Engage in such discussions,
But caught in the jaws of history authored by thugs,
Do what they must as ever they have
To survive another day if possible
As the wheels spin, the train rolls on,
And words whip all round the globe
Pronounced by stuttering tongues and trembling throats
As the spectacle unfolds
They Are Firing the Generals and the Admirals
They are firing the generals and the admirals
Who are women and who are Black
It’s the manly thing to do
They’re policing gender
Putting women in their places
Keeping categories pure
As an innocent God intended
It’s the manly thing to do
They take a cleaver to the government
Dictate, depose, dispose, detach, deplore
Without the nicety of detail
That there are people involved
It’s the manly thing to do
They eliminate opposition or ignore it
As you cut down a tree to destroy it
Though the acorns and cones have rolled away
Out of sight at some distance
And the soil remains fecund and dark
Willing to grow whatever will sprout
It’s the manly thing to do
It’s the thing men do
It’s what a man does
A man alone and muttering
What When the Government’s at War with its Citizens
What when the government’s at war with its citizens
When it pushes out mean-spirited claw-back (they call it claw-back)
Of depended-on funds for happy use
And debouches public servants from their diligent desks
Claiming fraud and waste and evil
That exists only in their ideological panting
A pall settles over the heroic landscape
Though some citizens, who either know what’s occurring or not,
Rejoice in a blast of pent-up resentment
That they have their way at last against the smug and fancy ones,
A moment of vicarious manly gloating
As after a decisive break-through touchdown
But how far does it go
And who will be hurt
And how many
Once the dust settles on the trees and on the buildings
Of the subdued cities
History does not repeat itself, no two moments are alike
But uncertainty freezes hearts…
It’s mid-winter