Tim Seibles

DAWN So, I thought about death and the dying it requires and the idea of lying face-down somewhere: I thought it’s just too much—the not knowing, the anytime anyplace of it: my heart running out of gas—me: tagged by a bus—my well-meaning self clipped in the urban crossfire. Or the giving up on everything, the world a banquet of good reasons for clocking out and chomping the black sandwich. But I thought but there’s so much I want to do, so much I need to say, so much, so much, so mothafuckin’ much and Fuck Death! And it kept getting later and it was later than I thought, and I thought about thinking like this, as if my part were different, as if upon my life hung the balance of good and truth and fun on Earth: I thought Shit! I’m just a big insect, a giant moth with teeny-weeny wings! And I shut up and I looked out and the edge of the world began to glow.         VENDETTA, MAY 2006 My thoughts are to murder the State and involuntarily go plotting against her. Henry David Thoreau As if leaving it behind would have me lost in this place, as if keeping it could somehow save me from the parade of knives, I have held my rage on a short leash like a good, mad dog whose bright teeth could keep the faces of our enemies well lit. Is it wrong to hate the leaders? Am I wrong to hate their silk ties and their secret economies? Am I wrong? Am I? Look how they work the stage like cool comedians, ribbing the nations this way, then that— gaff after giggle filling the auditoriums with the empty skulls. Maybe this is the moment to abandon metaphor: shouldn’t somebody make them suffer: now that war is easy money, won’t the reasons keep coming to see how well people die?          I guess this is the world I was born into: moonlight, sunshine—kind city of my mother’s lap, my father tossing me up and catching me— I remember the first time I saw autumn outside my window: the colors came with the smell of burning leaves and starving in our basement, the crickets trying to stave off the chill, still working their little whistles after dark.          I think, even then, I knew a season would come for us: the wind tilting slowly, but suddenly everyone is under the cold still holding on to their wallets as the government quietly turns and day after day, the terrible stories cover everything.       - - - - - -

Tim Seibles, a native of Philadelphia, is the author of several collections of poetry including Hammerlock and Buffalo Head Solos. Currently, he is an associate professor of English at Old Dominion University where he teaches in the MFA in Writing Program. He believes poetry is good for you.