Values

Values
just stood
on the street corner
no cigarette in his mouth
no love in his pocket. He
knew not the grief of the sun
rising on an exhausted man
of the bar or factory. He
did not know the setting
sun of a Mainz Jew or Bill
Gates' noon. He enumerates.
He casts verses to the air
as rocks cast randomly
on sun-wracked days
that never end.

standardization

there are always
more papers to be
had. & soldiers
embryos of future

massing. & sunrises
grown equally meaningless

by the count of them
all measured by dollars

in both aggression &
defense which are

confounded in a currency
of meaningless proliferation.

It Is 5:30

It is 5:30 & all over
the country people
are watching the news

& they are entertained.
I on the other hand
am reading Marcus Aurelius
every night. I want

to know what¹s going on.
I want to know what
should be going on.

here at Ur

that here at Ur we cannot
pile the mud any higher
around the river
that strangely remains
the same

or in Peru cannot bear
away the garbage
from the profound vein
of this only river

or cannot but yield
to this new
mosquito cannot
stop the ritual slaughter
with these stone knives

cannot stop the heat
cannot stop the heat
& all that causes it
these canals
river city road
this religious
ritual (only
value)

or the engines
that burn the blood
of animals
their vessels hulk
& brains
bulk of ancient forests
enormous biota
that darken the brow
of the sky.