This is not a poem.
This is not a diatribe.
This is not a manifesto.
This is not much of anything at all,
Except one man accepting his
Legacy from another.
He carried burdensome feelings of
inadequacy, imperfection,
insensitivity, all of them
tamped down hard,
buried deeply, like
a stone in his heart. He
layered it with each failure,
consoled himself with
"At least I am providing for my family."
"At least I do good work,
support my co-workers with grace,
with fairness." And mostly with
"At least I fear God." Though
whether fearing God came
from his true heart or from
his boyhood he never knew.
Each new layer of failure or
consternation or losing
control to anger resonated
all of the other layers. Each
new layer seemed heavier
than the last.
Eventually
his heart-weight became
too much. One failure
too many. He said to himself,
"I am perfect enough that never,
never should that have happened."
He said it again. And again. And every
day again. He repeated it,
haunted himself with it,
layering and layering his heart
until it only could beat
when he didn't think--
and he only could not think by
shutting out his own voice,
stopping up his ears to his heart-stone:
taking flight in sleep,
in blessed nothingness.
Five years and five months he
stayed chained to that heart.
Then he died.
I saw that man yesterday.
I see him more frequently
these days.
I recognize his ways. It
seems I live with him more
and more. I wish I could
cradle his rounded, load-weary
shoulders, caress the thin hair
of his head. Tell him it's okay.
Then ask him,
"Could you do the same
for me?"
No, definitely not a poem.
Poems rhyme,
poems have meter.
Poems make sense.
Gnaw Orleans, population one.
Surrounded by tusked tasks, centered but not, paralyzed.
Icy tears bend old branches--will one break?
Violin music screams out its bow-stressed catgut attack.
By your aches shall ye know you're alive.
By my ass shall alligators gnaw me.
Hey, Thoreau, when the quiet desperation's gone,
Where's my motivation?
"You must sort like with like;
Unlike items may not be grouped. Please
Do not place viable problems among
Long-dead festerments of imagination which
Likely never lived in the first place. Your
Concerns must be separated into irritants,
Road-blocks, and show-stoppers.
If you need help, please use the app on
Your phone--attendants appear only to
Add worries to your concerns."
Henry David, I'm gonna need a hand here.
Give the catgut to the alligator, melt
This ice offa me, distract a few of the tuskers
With your burdensome thoughts while I
Attempt to choose which of these ass-gnawing,
Branch-breaking stressors will be coming
Home with me tonight...
Them?
Voices telling me
(in words I've never heard before):
Things I've suspected,
Never knew,
Don't want to believe...
Never believed.
Your words resonate,
Sound those harmonies,
Those sympathetic vibrations
Deep within me.
Her disparaging judgment of me
Sits numbly in my soul--
This benign tumor neither
Growing, shrinking, or leaving.
Her close (convenient) friend
Blocking refuge's door:
"She doesn't want to talk
To you." But--
"I'll talk to him," She said;
A limited engagement.
What did She say?
To Her friends?
To too many?
How could this man,
So wanting conversation,
Communication, some
Shred of mutual effort
To maintain a marriage,
Find himself wedded to
Her non-talking cold
Judgment, spitting out
Her assessment:
Verbal Abuser?
When I listen to You
I can't see Verbal Abuser.
You paint me differently:
Partner. Spouse.
I see this. I think,
Maybe,
Maybe, this Her,
Might have erred.
Fearing language, tongues
Curbed, feelings thwarted,
Shells built, lacquered,
Again, again, again…
Forever adding layers
Between heart, meaning,
Cell-fired knowledge; those
Truthful connections brought
By well-placed, -chosen
Words--to favor
Tinsel-shiny, symmetrical
Language trees grown in
Deception forests.
"I love your sweater"--
Its workmanship,
Its fuzziness, how its
Fabric truthfulness
Lets me see you; how
Its presence demands I
Explain why it's such an
Effrontery to my eyes.
"Ah, rum balls again! I
Look forward to these,
Every year!" Yes:
Looking forward similarly
To property taxes, to
Week-long rainstorms,
To dogs humping my leg.
Intellectually accepting
Privileges offered me
By these taxes. Loving
Dense greenery which thirsts
For spring rainstorms. My
Sardonic smile acknowledging
This dog's instinctual need.
"Didn't your mother ever
Tell you 'If you can't say
Anything nice, don't say
Anything at all'?"
"No.
I would like to think
My mother had more
Character than that."
(I know my father had.)
Poetry walks narrow
Precipices. One misstep
Spells doom. Meaninglessness
Assails poems, surrounding
Them, attempting to breach
Their constructs. Poets
Cannot choose their weaponry.
What comes to hand,
Comes to hand.
Yes
is the No Where
that leads to
Some Where or
Some When, but
always to an
Any-When, an
Any-Where.
Yes
whips Some Where
and Back When
into Here-Now:
No When,
No There.
No
is the Non-Where
that cannot lead,
cannot follow,
cannot do anything
but hang curtains of
illusion between us.
No
jerked out of Satan's mouth mid-plummet,
greeted Moses after Sinai,
cloaked Judas's lips
during his god-kiss,
takes little bites out of
our daily redemption.
Yes
is the Here that
pinpoints Now,
focuses our hearts like
candles mid-night,
like a scream on a
quiet summer's night.
Yes
escaped Jesus's mouth
accepting pounded nails,
danced in Stephen's blood,
dissolved barriers 'tween
mortal enemies,
plasters o'er cracks
in our good intentions.
No
was good enough in
Its Day, made us look
more intelligent, more
urbane: critics, noses tipped.
But Now,
Yes
must be given Its Due,
must claim center stage
in our heart's theatre, in
our dreams of Perfection.
Then
we'll move on to
Yes-No
and
No-Yes,
live in Then-Now
making plans for
Now-When.
We are falling from the moment we are born. Until forty, we don’t know this. We think we’re going forward, outward, “Onward!” Growing; not understanding we are Shrinking, no, crystalizing into the final Jewel we are, will be, maybe. So much Wiggle-room, so many paths, so Endowed with timelessness!
At forty, we understand, turn, Brace for the fall— Realizing we haven’t jumped up— Realizing we’ve hurtled ourselves toward our doom— Realizing falling’s inevitability: We thought we’re responsible! We acknowledge falling, but abstractly: “There’s plenty of time!”
Our sixties—a.k.a. When Our Parents Die—we See the barrier against which we all Crash. We understand: not only Didn’t we start anything, We won’t be able to End it, either.
These moments of clearer revelation, Shorn of pretense (hopefully), Our backs against the wall of our Inexcusable behavior, our Youthful ‘revelations’, our Moments we thought were heart-rending, Heart-ending, Our happiness we thought Never-ending, our Aimless or purposeful existence, regardless, Brought us here, To this place where Time is short— Dreams are ending— Fruition MUST occur or Be buried forever while we Begin to plant ourselves in the ground— Then…then…we see clearly what can be done, And what can’t, and We do it. Or we don’t. As it always was! As it can be! It’s our best/worst time, Happiness. Fear. Resignation.
Our diamond-quest involves vast pressure. Let it come, let it come. Harden, clarify, Add color, sparkle, luminescence— They mean something: To yourself, to Those who wait, to Those who follow, and again, To yourself.
First: 'There’s a problem with poetry,' He said. 'Today all poets Want to compress meaning into Too few words. This squeezing of Words, accordion-like, Displays the poet’s desire To be obscure, To force the reader To find the meaning, Giving away nothing, Hiding mediocrity by claiming My meaning is clear to those Who know.’
Second: Poetry today problems itself: Compressing fruitful meaning until Pulp disappears, leaving it Compressed to star-dense Proportions, a light-sucking Mass. Makes me Sick Reading stuff like that.
Third: Poetry today Suffering from Minimalism, Obscurism, Densification. Searching for meaning, This reader finds only Sickness.
Fourth: Consider today’s poem— Dense with meaning— Makes me sick!
all the voices in my head 