Good and Bad People of the Past

As soon as you feel
Like you know them, know
Them from their remains,

Texts or artifacts,
You start taking sides,
Playing favorites.

The rest of the lost
You don’t care about,
Don’t care how they lived.

It’s just those remains
Seduce your social
Identity soul.

Any sense at all
Of a real person
Among revenants,

Whether words, paint, bones,
Sarcophagi, or
All of the above,

And you contemplate
The values by which
They lived out their lives.

What the never-known
Did with their lives stays
Lost and valueless.

Bookshelf with Aphasia

Could you entertain yourself
With nothing to read, nothing
To watch, nothing much to do?

One cat sprawls in window sun.
The book of poems won’t open.
None of the books will open.

The other cat licks its fur.
The war is getting closer,
But you’d never know from here.

Wind blows through the junipers.
This present tense deceives you.
This happened long before you.