A persistent geography draws near a bloody tear
in the momentary blindness of a sunshine daydream;
of all that life could’ve been.
Instead we have the normal crucifixions
the splatters of human brains
all over underground trains.
In my beginning is my end, my friend,
the starting point for music and poetry and art.
The gulags and the camps, the massacres, the genocide
stretch from Constantinople to Manchester from Lahore to Orlando
we pass through these terrible travesties,
the suras of the Qu’ran and the Jewish bible, 
from place to bloody place
from time to bloody time
until we all fall in line.
We need old words, older connections, the oldest ways
to pass thrpugh this time of thoughtless day;
to solve the sad geographies
of unresolved philosophies.
Marcus Aurelius taught us, O! so-long ago,
not to feel exasperated or defeated or despondent
because our days aren’t packed with wise and moral actions.
But to struggle back up when we fall or are pushed
and learn to celebrate behaving like the merely humans
we truly are
capable of a courage and an honesty
so far beyond the world’s measly expectations.

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