Country Of Sick Men

Originally posted 8/28/2013.

The men of that country are sick.

We don’t know why they are sick
or how long they’ve been sick.

Call it a country of sick men
erupting everywhere
there’s a crack to spurt from,
burning their surroundings
when they open their mouths.

The sick men appear mostly mindless 
from their sickness. How else to explain

comb-overs,
wars,
long nosed cars, 
long reach guns, 
filibusters,
weaponized God,
hangings,
unfortunate colognes,
blood feasts,
the casual seizing of women and children,
of other men,
willed ignorance
of lack of consent, 
leveraged buyouts,
wolf pelts,
blessing of radioactive oceans,
balls of old oil
in the bellies of seals,
blank-eyed drooling over vintage guitars and game balls,
blackout drunks,
hard-engine bikes:

all their exquisite arts of suicide and genocide? 

The men of that country are sick.
I was born there, live there mostly,
certainly will die there.

There are women in that country too.
Some of them are sick 
but mostly, I think,
they are sick of the sick men.
They have stories to tell.

If you want to hear those don’t ask me to tell them.
My tongue’s a man’s tongue and I’ve got a touch 
of the sickness myself.

Get away from me,
go to them, 
and listen.

It will seem 
like a different country.