Raven is making // his New Year’s resolutions.
In what looks to be // one of the worst years ever,
prioritize his efforts

means more than resolve: // he needs imagination,
the vein he hasn’t // bothered mining since he came
to this tropical hideout.

He resolves to be // creative, stop scavenging
phrases and give up // found poetry completely;
no more combing the beach for

discarded lyrics, // nor accepting whatever
images the waves // break open for him like eggs.
He put the sun in the sky

epochs ago, and // can do better than spew out
political pap // (my fellow creatures, hope blooms
in the darkness of moonrise,

etcetera—no.) He resolves to fight against
slothful warfare // with images that etch glass
in their rationality,

and coax dreams out of // their banishment in batshit-
ridden caves; release // sensitivity from the
stone clutches of avarice;

pry loose the paving // stones of good intentions,
and use them for new walls // to preserve fragile cultures.
A good year is possible?

(Raven and I will take a couple of days off to meditate on what Mandela labeled a
"holocaust".)