In a recent poem, Leonard Schwartz asks — what can drive a nonviolent person to violence? My question would be what can drive a violent person to nonviolence, since that is the only hope when there is too much righteousness on all sides. Who’s right (or who’s been more wronged), who's got the rights (or who's got the wrongs), or when you date the right (or wrong) only feeds the fire, since there are so many factors, real and imaginary, that one or the other side chooses, as a matter of principle, to discount. While I am for counting all the factors. But then it's not poetry but violence that rules.

text: from "How Empty Is My Bread Pudding" [published in No 4 (2005) and Recalculating]
image: Susan Bee, detail from Babe