TRAGEDY

you get gunned
down in bad
movies: people

mistake bullets
for being
part of the show.

you get groped
in school showers
by teachers and coaches

everybody knows.
you wake up
broken if you're lucky

or your lover's body
covers you for safety.
and everybody asks why

we wear masks
and tell lies.
life is tragedy.

CAREER

what do i care for
my career, its ridiculous

trajectory –

none of this
matters to me.

at my most desperate
i grasp poems out

of thin air and memory,
each defying the absence

of relevance and creating
solid ground

beneath me.
from now on

i work for poetry.