Enough—I tried—but split, kept branching

bailed off dreams—just to let that bark

peel me. I’ll be hardwood—a splinter caught

off a roadside thicket.

—excise me, man—

I can’t, but I feel you. Fuck the force

in nature. I had mine refused—to stop,

to take it—break this whole world

then stump what’s left—off

its bloody feet. Go higher—I’ll say,

take me deeper. I’ve seen it—read

survival tuned-out, in sad-eyed sanctuary

libraries—turned upside down, non-visible

cuts from textbooks—used

bookstore paperbacks, decades beneath

fluffed blue veils of dust, filled

with rough old words, like grit

in Vaseline—smut, tucked in magazines—

the whole way up, to wedge the back

shelf—to call that connivence. Until

it’s pain. Until I’m sure. Better to take in 

the lungful—impressions, in deep-leaf smoke—

rye in cabins and unstained planks—to tramp

those needles of Redpine now—balance

rocked on soles, aimed from between wish-

boned thighs, into blots of night. But try

to stamp out a world that burns this cheap.

Every night I feel a new forest go down

on the radio—where tocsins parcel the streets,

cross dopplers to bail their long, stiff lines—

flare static, in tempers of light, off displays

where winsome bodies crawl out, on their paws

from behind  occult faces of screens—softly

buzzing—with each wagging their tail.

There's more news to lay-out; touch down;

detonate. Concussions are issuing worlds—

preaching devastation, daily. As concrete

mixes in life, on the corner—hearing voices

in the open air, speaking about this unnatural

time. Once all was lost, and now comes pity—

in the headlines, wild—what's bawling out

from a vaunted majority—now saying, next

is extinction. So tell me—

do you fear the end of it?

Please, gore my splinter out with your thumb—

bite where I went in.