From May 9, 2020

We are all joined to each other in this pandemic, you fools.

It is not that "one death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic," as Stalin is supposed to have once said, in his infinite wisdom (a god-like wisdom that seems even more applicable today, in our current political situation, than ever before, which is better suited to Stalin, than ever before), but that every death is a tragedy implying, or rather, insisting upon one to four more tragic deaths, on an exponential level--yes, and they infected two friends, and so on, and so on, and so on....

The current administration fumblingly, bumblingly believes it can outpace this pandemic, because it believes that, statistically, "white people don't get it." The only thing that really makes sense out of that statement is that white people don't get that they can get it, the virus, and its accompanying disease, COVID-19, which, amazingly, expresses itself differently according to population, age, and preexisting condition.

Look to our brothers and sisters in Europe, you fools. Can you not see that its expression in Italy and the UK--alone!--shows its virulence among, so-called, white people? The fact that our most vulnerable people--black and brown and native and immigrant people, who, whether you like it or not, are attached to all of us as by an iron umbilicus, who are our brothers and sisters, whether you like it or not, whose every last fucking death or sickness is a tragedy to us, whether you like it or not--whose death and sickness is really the canary in the coal mine, means that this virus has spread to every last corner of our country, whether you like it or not.

We can't play this game of letting people of color, who just so happen to provide the essential work in the fields and factories of this nation, die or sicken because we both think their lives don't matter and that this virus doesn't apply to us. This is one of the things, before this most obvious time, that was meant when someone tried to tell you that Black Lives (Actually) Matter, you fool, you ignoramus, you stupid, stupid monster--yes, monster!--you lazy Nazi, who allowed Nazis to appear in our streets, with their guns and their swastika flags, and said nothing: this makes of you a Nazi, too, you, you fool, who said nothing and stood by, until they, or the virus, came for you. 

And can we tell the difference anymore between a government who does not close but opens the way for a virus to come for all of us--as it surely is already doing--and the virus itself?

I weep, daily, for my nation, and the fools whose every life is a gift and every death--each and every one--is an unbearable and preventable tragedy.

If you think this virus isn't coming for you and your family, you, or I, will be proven wrong, very soon.

You always already lost

You always already lost
for Daniel S.

You always already lost 
Beloved. I don’t have words 
To make you speak
Anymore. Nor would I 

Know how to try to. 
You always already lost
Beloved, how could I try
To corral you into 

Another space where
I could control you? I
Cannot have that 
Power. You always

Already lost beloved,
I tested you on the facts. 
I made you tell me
You still loved me, despite 

The damage and the thrill. 
I thought you were the love 
Who lasted no longer than 
The length of smoking 

A cigarette, but now I 
See, when you are dead,
That your presence lasts
For the only lifetime

I have. Goodbye, my friend.

On

 On

On a certain level,
I’m trying to die. 
It’s not exactly 
Intentional. I
Just hate living 
In this beautiful 
Murderous
World, so much. 
Ignore Dickinson,
Wollstonecraft,
Morrison, Baldwin,
Whitman, and Mill,
And all the great minds
That populate
Our Anglo-
American damage. 
God forbid, we should 
Learn something. 
Stay silent, angry,
And alone. 
What are we living
For anymore? I
Really don’t know.

Once

Once

Once , while
Trying to sleep,
Not in this
Country, but
In another 
Country, a
Scorpion 
Arrogantly
Crawled acros
My arm, before 
Arrointing 
Itself off my
Wrist at the
End. It is
The most
Exhirating 
Thing that has
Ever happened 
To me. Full 
Stop.

ON IKAROS

ON IKAROS

for Tammy

Child of a jealous,
Brilliant, arrogant,
Murderous parent,
The Leonardo of
Athens and Krete,
The inventor of
Everything important
Anywhere, ever, imprisoned 
With that famous
Father atop a tower,
Atop the Minoan 
Civilization that 
Same exiled dad
Had built with 
A wile and guile
Greater than crafty 
Odysseos would ever
Muster; his flawed
Parent made wings
Of ordinary things:
Bird feathers, bees’s
Wax, ingenuity,
Desperation, freedom,
Yearning, love;
And so they flew
Away into a kind

Of an expectation,
But the child was headstrong,
Like his parent, and
Exhilarated by flight,
As though he were a 
God, flew higher and
Higher, until you could 
No longer hear his
Father‘s horrified 
Cries to stop. Great Helios,
In his fiery chariot,
Looked down in
Disappointment, as
Waxen wings melted
Under the heat
Of his blazing gaze,
And Ikaros plummeted 
To splash into the
Wine dark Aegean,
As Bruegel foretold.