'no reason to despair'

This book is called "no reason to 

despair." Look at the clouds, the 

persimmons in the corner of the 

yard. Who is this moloch casting 

eyes at faces? Who is this weath-

ered man sitting on the edge of the windowsill 

waiting for the baby to let go of her welt 

i've been born before

i shall be borne again

from here to where? 

here to wherever 

alacrity, amongst us, 

a peering boy crawling toward the rain. 

i don't have any hope for myself.

i've been in the dust too long. 

time to lick myself clean. there was a 

time when i wrote things that made it 

sound like there was a deep ferment 

inside of me and maybe there was. 

wrote about shit and puss. but there's 

a newness, a phantom, a miasma. 

i've attained a level of playing, a field

with weapons on it. grass and stuff, 

cured meats and grappling hooks. 

look out of every window in the gardenshed, 

do what you will with your money. i don't 

care where you park your raincoat. 

but i do care where 

we have today begun

insisting upon this 

task-at-hand. believe. 

what happens in the small 

yellow house by the train tracks

or what happens to the black man

walking past, 

toward me, toward the crook of this 

particular streambed, angled left 

and west, out of spoonbill territory and 

headed east, further out of the continent

where men rest in beds with sand 

in their mouths and bless, bless, bless 

themselves for these gifts, non-ordinary, 

given and granted ad hominem, forever. 

(Train from Chicago to Champaign, IL. 04 April 2015)