[internautica]

I have always known that writing fiction had little effect on the world; that if it did, young men would not have gone to war after The Iliad. Only the privileged - those with homes and food and the luxury of time in a home - are touched, moved, sometimes changed by literature. For the twenty million Americans who are hungry tonight, for the homeless freezing tonight, literature is as useless as a knowledge of astronomy. What do stars look like on a clear cold winter night, when your children are hungry, are daily losing their very health; or when, alone, you look up from a heat grate? Of course in cities at night you can’t even see the stars.

What if over tea, what if on our walks, what if
in the long yawn of the fog, what if in the long middle
of the wait, what if in the passage, in the what if
that carries us each day into seasons, what if
in the renewed resilience, what if in the endlessness,
what if in a lifetime of conversations,
what if in the clarity of consciousness, what if nothing changes?

They call us now, before they drop the bombs. The phone rings and someone who knows my first name calls and says in perfect Arabic “This is David.” And in my stupor of sonic booms and glass-shattering symphonies still smashing around in my head I think, Do I know any Davids in Gaza? They call us now to say Run. You have 58 seconds from the end of this message. Your house is next. They think of it as some kind of war-time courtesy. It doesn’t matter that there is nowhere to run to. It means nothing that the borders are closed and your papers are worthless and mark you only for a life sentence in this prison by the sea and the alleyways are narrow and there are more human lives packed one against the other more than any other place on earth Just run. We aren’t trying to kill you. It doesn’t matter that you can’t call us back to tell us the people we claim to want aren’t in your house that there’s no one here except you and your children who were cheering for Argentina sharing the last loaf of bread for this week counting candles left in case the power goes out. It doesn’t matter that you have children. You live in the wrong place and now is your chance to run to nowhere. It doesn’t matter that 58 seconds isn’t long enough to find your wedding album or your son’s favorite blanket or your daughter’s almost completed college application or your shoes or to gather everyone in the house. It doesn’t matter what you had planned. It doesn’t matter who you are. Prove you’re human. Prove you stand on two legs. Run.

'DOES THE END
JUSTIFY THE MEANS?' this is
process, there is no end, there are only
means, each one
had better justify itself.
To whom?

The first time I saw two men kissing, I was six,
Living in 1970s L.A. My mom took care
Of an elderly woman who found herself in a fix
And moved into a complex of all men, bare
Chested men, with cutoff jeans and tinted glasses.
My mother's friend gave me chocolate that matched
Her skin - this must be heaven. These sons' asses
Peeked out beneath their shorts, but watched
Over her better than mom. Took donations for heat,
A sofa and a new wig - all changed her mood.
They even did her laundry. They did sweet
Better than honey. Did family better than blood.
And between duties, two men always off alone
So desire, like the dishes, could also get done.

Bring me a drink.
I need to think a little.
Paper. Pen.
And I could use the stink
of a good cigar–even
though the sun’s out.
The grackles in the trees.
The grackles inside my heart.
Broken feathers and stiff wings.

I could jump.
But I don’t.
You could kill me.
But you won’t.

The grackles
calling to each other.
The long hours.
The long hours.
The long hours.

The end justifies the means. But what if there never is an end? All we have is means.