Can we deny our basic natures?

I know that they say
animals,
raging
frothing
slicing beasts
pacing over each other
in our cars
roaring down the speeding
circuits of our anger and acquisitions

I see it too,
salivating mouths, glazed-over eyes
though accidents and crises in the
television
blood and violence medicating
our empty spaces, rapacious desecrations
churning beneath our smiles,
parking spots are war zones
text and cyber messages our bullets

So have I given feed to the ferocious
withering beast
inside,
And I see they do contain their own
destructive instincts,
though dogs content themselves on dirt
and rotting things.

I know about potential

How many lives pass within my imagination?
I do not cease my fantasies--
more like me not to breathe than stop supposing
worthy empty things like
relationships and experiences.

I am the fool, the one who makes loud declarations
to empty rooms,
rather than speak to what I know.

Each morning the sun reaches
across the blue white morning,
reddening he crests the buildings beyond
my window, and drags fingers across me
starting at my feet, going--until he
offers a tiny blessing at my forehead.
He knows how to hold a person’s splendor
without burning.