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Truth is on everyone’s side.
Simply ask anyone’s side.
They’ll tell you truth is on it.

No matter what wickedness
Anyone’s side will confess,
Everyone’s more sinned against

Than sinning, nevertheless.
Losing, peaceful, or winning,
Everyone’s side is the best,

And if anyone senses
Any other side’s better,
More or less, they’ll either switch

Sides quickly, or that’s one sense
They’ll find some way to suppress.

Half a Second

First light, blue window over
Lake and woods, and a pale hawk
Passes the window, feathers

Brighter than the background clouds,
With a spray of little birds,
Right behind it, mobbing it

In a burst of small bodies
All cheeping, silhouetted
Moment in the old drama

Of what gets to live and have
Offspring live after it, who
Gets to eat. Then they’ve shot past.

The window is blue from here,
And the view is almost still.

Knowing How It All Comes Out

The beauty of the rerun,
Rewatched, reproduced story
Is that comfort in knowing

Always how it all comes out—
Lear, Oz, or morning cartoon,
Rom-com, sitcom, or epic—

You can savor it for what
It’s got in it, not suffer
Over what comes next. The best

Position is to be free
Of authorial duties
And decisions about fate,

While certain of the outcome,
Confident about the end.
You’d think you would enjoy life.

Surge of Urges

Sometimes a body
Just does what it does,
And there’s not a thought,
Nor mantra, nor prayer,
That can shut it off.

You can rein it in,
But, inside of it,
You’ll never make it
Not to want or feel,
No more than you’ll get

Yourself not to die,
Not to bleed, never
To digest or age.
You can’t even make
Yourself accept that

There are things you can’t
Tell yourself, not well
Enough to expect
Durable results.
For a few moments,

Yes, you can accept
The body does what
You don’t want it to,
But it keeps doing,
And you do it, too.

Substitute Speakers

Here, as in every magical culture

The world over, it was never a good

Idea to stand out, writes fairy scholar

Richard Sugg of the disabled changelings

Abused by their parents, as substitutes

Left behind by fairies who stole the real,

Beautiful, healthy children still out there,

Waiting for them. What could a substitute

Up against dwindling odds of survival

And now exposed to tides or freezing ponds,

Beatings, exorcisms, exposure, do?

Survive a little longer, if you could.

You might have known what an awful burden

Children like you are to those raising you.

Who wants to be or have such a burden?

What bothers you, the rare survivor grown

To full, if reduced and cramped, adulthood,

Isn’t them wanting to be rid of you,

But the cruel way they lured and begged the world,

The nonhuman world, to come and take you,

To free them of responsibility

Within typically cruel human rules.

If you were poorly made, magic made you,

The fey, dark spirits and demons made you,

And if folks mistreated you, so you died,

It only proved such dark magic in you.

Eh, bien. The nonhuman world will reclaim

You and them and everyone on its way

To the nothing nothing much loves so much,

And spends an entire cosmos seeking,

But for now you are alive, composing

By writing or reading. So, we’re speaking.

To Begin With

It’s not the addiction, it’s the habit
Of behaving with an intent to change,

To transform as quickly as possible
By initiating action, whether

That action involves risk-taking, gaming,
Self-alteration, faith, stimulation,

Or violence on behalf of a cause,
A flag, or a name. It’s just the habit

Of reaching for whatever has changed things,
You’ve been told, or remember, in the past,

Wanting, as fast as possible, to change.
It’s not which addiction. It’s addicting,

To do anything to transform again
And again change everything, to begin.

Living Industrial Complex

Diligent, active, apt, and clever,
Wolves, raccoons, humans, ants, and spiders—
Industry for the industrious,

Living for life’s determined living.
Well-organized protesters face off
Against the state’s bused-in supporters

Or against the state’s police forces.
Forces in the state are figuring
How to prevent organized protests

From forming in the first place. The games,
They say, are cancelled. The games go on.
The severest fantasy would drop

All of it, and yet remain alive,
Neither one of the well-organized
Protesters and counter-protesters,

Nor among the shadowy forces
Clustered in the centers of the hives.
An end to all industriousness,

To heavy industry, to working
For the teammates only on your team,
To diligence and activity,

Even in one’s own territory.
The severest fantasy often
Comes true, but briefly, before the end.

You find the dehydrated spider,
The lone wolf panting, the trapped raccoon
Starving to death in the choked sewer,

The ant booted from its colony
For smelling like what invaded once,
The protester under deep cover

As a plant or a mole, anyone
Helpless under covers, forgetting
Their lives, what their industry was for.