IF YOU LIVED HERE, YOU'D BE HOME

Outside:

the construction workers

powershift

their bulldozers 

into drive and 

decimate the view across the street.

From inside my classroom

I hear them

making mincemeat

of the hills

that have been there

since I was a child.

A year or so from now

the on-line journalists

will call the new

traffic progress

and will laud

the new families

taking root in the

master planned development

of a hundred or so new houses.

And each morning after

the kids

will cross the street to the school

and once again, my desks

will fill as they have every

september 

for the last two decades.

But the only thing left

of the west hills

where my cousins

used to ride their

dirt bikes and hide
at night

with their cigarettes

and their homies

will be a bit of green

and brown dirt

and a few lonely trails

that live in my mind's eye

like a eulogy of

my forgotten childhood.

COULD BE ANY CITY, BUT IT'S NOT

Maybe next week I'll look up
and see a building
in that thriving metropolis

see a skyscraper
made from chrome and steel and glass
with windows like mirrors

and I'll almost miss the cubicle worker
whose hands are flat
against the glass

who stares down at me through the pane
like that last lemming
waiting to jump

he's just one step, I'll think, 
before becoming
another falling man

ON READING PRESENT OVER PERFECT

and so I close the book
set it on the stand
say that's where I'll
pick it up
in the morning
maybe two chapters
till the end
but now with lids
heavy
I step out of my
clothes and
stave the worry off
with three deep breaths
and sink to the bed
words still swimming
in my mind
a good day behind me
but still unsure
how many I have left.

DO NOT BE ASHAMED

of the sunrise that makes you cry

or of the warmth you feel

in your blood when the clouds divide

themselves into sunlight over the lake.

Do not be ashamed of your heart

and the way it grieves

when you see the carnage

we cause in other countries.

Do not be ashamed of the joy

you feel at the skipping child's glee

or of the tantrums you throw

when life leaves you tired or afraid.

No, these are not things

to bring you shame.  Rather, these are

the vital signs of the living,

the green and brown and gold leaves of your life,

the nails in the door of your days

that make you human. These are

the stops and starts that ensure

that you are still feeling in a world

that scoffs at love

or exultation of any kind.

EMPATHY FOR MICHAEL

there are fires

thousands of miles
from here, and
crowds
who have run wild
in the
angry streets.
there are
upturned cars,
shattered glass,
ordinary hands
lifting up staffs
against The Machine.
What do I know
of this hatred
that makes
average men
turn to the staff
and the stone?
Nothing. But if
I ask myself
tonight to feel
for them
to feel LIKE them
(even for a moment)
then maybe
there'll be one
less fire
started,
one
less broken 
window, one
less boy down
in the street.