heartsick

I touch walls and sweaters
and keyboards
as if they bruise easily.
I do not want to be touched
in these charred and sizzling days
when all flesh
is frangible.

Killing killing killing killing:
repeated enough it sounds
almost beautiful.

The world's most moral army
he says
the birth pangs of democracy
she says
and now titanium-
jawed parasites swarm over language;
who can restore its meaning?

* * * * * * * *

Use everything in your life to deepen your art
says Stanislavsky.
If it hurts,
write it. If it burns
voice it. If it numbs and deadens,
if you cannot hold it
in your body, if you stifle
speech for fear only screams
will rise out of your throat; move
and breathe, breathe
and move, write it,
write it, write it.

This rock I lay my spine against
is 12 million years old.
Depleted
uranium remains radioactive
for billions of years.
Cluster bombs explode
into up to 600 fragments
specifically designed
for the penetration
of human flesh.
White phosphorus content
is a pretty term
for napalm.

The earth has existed 4.6
billion years.
Listen, she says
microscopic daughter
of a tiny raging species:
in the breath before
all stories die, listen
I will tell you how it was
before the destroyers.