culture of violence poems

There’re some tricks I’ve learned to do with a knife
I’m wondering if you won’t mind risking your life
I need the practice until I can get it right
You can wear a blindfold if you’d like
Or I could simply turn out the lights

Then I can do some fancy things with a gun
I’d love to try them out on you just for fun
I think I know how to get things done
But you gotta promise not to run
Don’t leave now, the fun’s just begun

How’s about my trying some stuff with grenades
Or I can show you how land mines are made
There must be some small country to invade
Or some tiny nuclear bombs we could trade
With such an arsenal, it’s easier to persuade

I am tired of the nonsense
of what does not matter.
This is how I arrived
at not caring:
My heart, a lone rock.

A slate-colored night
is thrown over my body,
the diction of damp leaves,
the convenience of loneliness.

If I could
I would turn the World into mythology
write a final chapter
because I am weary of gods,
of satans,
of those who break the light.

Give me the intelligence
of emptiness:
Let me begin each sentence
with nothing to say.
Let me end each poem
as a blank page.

More at https://dahlusion.wordpress.com/.

Written after a random act of violence in the cold-blooded killing of 67 year-old Steve Carter while walking his dog on a trail in Fairfax, California. Steve was a light-filled, beloved yoga teacher. Three 20 year-old drifters are in custody after being arrested while driving his car shortly after the killing. They shot his dog too.