Lessons Learned from One Dying

Just be.

Birch bark peeled back at the
end of winter.

Thawing ice, in an
abandoned corner of a field,
dripping water on red clay.

The fighting dog, no longer guarding his bone,
circling and lying down in the
sun.

A glass of iced tea with mint and lemon offered in the
heat of July yard work.

A child’s fingers tracing the prickly edges of a
father’s beard.

A tender, calloused hand wiping
a tear from a child’s cheek.

Bleeding palms turned outward against
heavy splintering wood.

Gargoyle

The shortest distance between two points
is the line between the past that is
and the present that was.

I could see evil,
a crouched imp stuffed full of nothing
perched at the foot of my morning preschool bed.

I have wrestled its stories
and believed the claws
and warmth of the embrace of madness.

Inverted prayer knees
pulled to chest as it rocked with
hyena echoes.

There is a sickness there.
Eyes painted on eye lids.
Lies blood-tainting white wedding dresses.

I slept with my door cracked
so I could put the puzzles together—
what they said in the darkness of a grownup world.

The rose-colored, rain-coated window panes
shade the view,
a palette of crimson blurred.

Teachers could not hurt me
with their cuts of bleeding red
over rogue pencil etchings.

After a night of adult words spilling from wine glasses,
even though every power line slashes the throat of the sunrise sky,
and the morning sun was blistering, nothing could hurt me, and
the wings are mine.

Coping

The elephant has been here for too long.
I have thought of sending it out, but it won’t fit through the door.

I have thought of eating it, which I’m told you can do
piece by piece,
but I’m too picky to eat elephant,
and my guess is it doesn’t taste like chicken.

Maybe I can make it a pet,
train it,
cuddle up with it at night,
and stay warm.

Unaware (after listening to a great slam artist)

I know you didn’t mean it to me directly,
but in one poem (exceptionally read), you stuck a huge stick of dynamite up in me and
blasted everything I believe in,
and I don’t know how I feel about that.

Although I applaud, from a place as deep as my doubt, after everything you do,
I sat there silent, and then left the room.
I didn’t have anything to say.
I hate feeling stupid.

I felt like a fourth grader when the cool kid walks up to him
and says, “You’re stupid,”
and then punches him in the face.
That puny little guy goes away and pretends it doesn’t hurt until the swelling goes down.

I wanted to say, “Hey, I hated it like you.
I doubted it. I kicked against the wall of human suffering.
I wandered into churches at night and shook my fist at the stained glass above me.”
But it got stuck in my throat.

I have fought this fight before with
Sylvia Plath and Charles Bukowski,
and a hundred other poets—like you¬—whom I love,
but who—like you—would hate what I am if they knew me.

I don’t feel the hatred you say engulfs my beliefs. I wanted to, but
I hear your words ricocheting down the halls of my mind,
and I can see down that hall because of the sparks made by your mastery of sound.
And I love what that has done for me as an artist.

Some would say, “I feel pity for somebody that doesn’t believe in God,”
but that’s just arrogant,
and I don’t feel particularly proud of myself right now nor condescending.
I definitely don’t want to be the sole representative of a two thousand year old religion.

I don’t feel wounded
because I know you weren’t angry with me;
I’m not sure you were angry at all.
I feel a little novocained right now, and I have to come to.

Maybe I love you
because you shook the tree I sit in
and if a tree is strong enough to sit in,
it’s strong enough to shake.


I guess I did take it personally
because I have read the book cover to cover
and took it in, like a lover memorizes a face,
and I actually thought it out instead of just accepting it
in a ribboned box at Christmas.

I guess it bothers me that sooner
or later we reach this fork in the road—this diversity fork—
and we can look at each other and be tolerant just so long before separating into different paths.
I see you getting smaller in the distance.

I guess I wonder if two people
build on different foundations, that are,
to the other one, invisible,
can they ever really see the other person’s building at all?

I guess I wonder
if you knew what I actually believed,
and that I bought into what you see as lies,
if you would still respect me.


And I hate that.
Because I really shouldn’t care.

The Stress Song of J. Alfred Prufrock III

Originally published in Clockwise Cat.


Everyone knows what I should do.
My grandfather thinks I should find a new career.
My minister thinks I should come to church.
My boss thinks I should spend more time at work.

Splintering carnival lights,
blinding colors of a rotating, suffocating world,
a beam across my nostrils,
outward stretching fire.
Spindles of desire.
My wife thinks I should spend more time at home.

It’s not the major crisis that will kill you, the death or lost exception
It’s the stress of unfulfilling the endless expectations.
It’s the bouncing baby boy--
changed to the bouncing of the ball--
changed to the bouncing of the lover--
who must earn the grade.
It’s not the glass ceiling that binds my flight
as much as the glass walls.

My neighbor thinks I should paint my house.
My friend thinks I should paint the town red.

I am Stanley Kowalski ripping his shirt,
Miniver Cheevy masking the hurt.
I am every man who internally rages,
a thousand brains in a hundred cages.
Only idiot children read my pages.
I am an overdue book.

My television thinks I should eat.
My physician thinks I should lose twenty pounds.


*******
The explosion I make--
not a bang
but a whimper,
less eruption than sneeze,
the plastic collapsible dagger
aimed at the world--
scares no one but me.
In the presence of mine enemies
I lay out Chinet®.

My mother thinks I should call more.
My brother thinks I should live my own life.

And should I scuttle across the floors of silent seas?
Do you want me to scuttle?
I’ll scuttle from chatroom to chatroom,
the one night cheap hotels of an introvert world,
electric sawdust filling my nostrils,
smudges of kisses across my lonely screen.
In truth, I have no name,
just a glory in my shame.

My attorney thinks I should remove all references to other people’s poetry.

*******
Freud thinks all people want is sex.
Adler thinks all people want is to belong.
I think all people want is fame,
rocking back and forth in a darkened corner
cradling and nursing our blogs.
Maybe we all agree.

My blahblah thinks I should blahblahblah….

There is a fear we all have…
direct from Ecclesiastes…
a fear that one day we’ll wake up
and no one,
not even our shadows,
will really care.

*******
Seedlings were planted in the park today.
I wonder if they will see the sun
enough to grow.

********
May I rest my head on a multifoliate pillow.
May the ceiling fan blades cut out the sound of
their thoughts.
May I feel the hollowness of my belly
rising and falling as
a lullaby is hummed , miles away.