A FREE MAN
I am the master of small theaters.
I play in venues carved
Out of the backs of convenience stores.
I hold intricate performances in places
Where the audience is only
Two rows deep. Sometimes
I have to look for hours before the show
To find the small sliver of a building
Where I will be headlining. It never
Affects my renditions, my dramatic
Readings, my plays set with only one
Actor. I’ve learned how to turn smallness
To an advantage, how to play
Off of the close walls, to incorporate
The sounds that leak in
From larger buildings doing entirely
Different tasks. I am aware
Of my audience breathing, smell what
They ate for lunch, know
Whether their deodorant works. My showcases
Are so small that the authorities
Cannot find them, or gladly
Accept that such a small space
Can be used only for storage, the keeping
Of the excess or unnecessary, things
Obsolete from there being too many, or
Things broken but still fondly remembered,
Or just useless. I tell my audience
Applaud if you must, but understand
You must matter to be censored, and look
For me in the next crack of empty space
You have the wonder to happily encounter.
And now, a brief work on observation.

RADICALIZATION
At some point the trees understand
They have become a forest. There is
No particular number of trees
Needed and reached, no specific
Geometry, no particular space between
Each individual tree. No necessary
Demographics of tree varieties. It is
All about the understanding itself. Each
Tree knows that one moment it was
A lone tree, and now it is part
Of a forest. Now it is much larger
In spirit than it ever was, it has
Extended meaning. Its own reach
Seems the reach of many melded trees.
A new, comfortable awareness.
Each tree will do whatever it has to
To remain a piece of the forest,
Will sacrifice its own rationality,
Original purpose, pollen and seeds,
Its resistance to fire and disease.
Being a member of a forest
Is an achievement in itself, a higher
Station than a tree, or a copse
Of trees, even an orchard, can
Merit. Individual trees now
Do not matter. It is the collective
That proves the individual. Each tree
Acquires a little less sun; what sun
Each gets in purpose is so much more.
All tree species flourish differently,
Flower differently, but so long as it is
Within this forest, it is tolerated.
Past the glen it is another matter.
And being now a forest
Allows it to be so.

SPACES
Normally
I would not kill flies outside.
In the house is another matter.
But Sunday afternoon,
My books piled on the
Backyard patio set, the flies
Were so pernicious that I took out
The plastic flyswatter shaped
Like a hand and began my slaughter.

Flies it seems are assigned
In specific numbers to specific spaces.
I smashed a dozen, a dozen
More filled in as replacements.

I read half as much as I wanted to.
But twelve flies learned their new
Mission, fell upon the purpose
With a vibrancy only the soon
Dead reveal.