10/23/18

HURLING CROWBIRDS AT MOCKINGBARS - Buddy Wakefield

If we were created in God’s image
then when God was a child
he smushed fire ants with his fingertips
and avoided tough questions.

There are ways around being the go-to person.
Even for ourselves.
Even when the answer is clear
like the holy water gentiles were drinking
when they realized

“Forgiveness is the release of all hope for a better past.”

I thought those were chime shells in your pocket
so I chucked a quarter at it
hoping to hear some part of you respond on a high note.

You acted like I was hurling crowbirds at mockingbars
then you abandoned me for not making sense.
Evidently I don’t experience things as rationally as you do.

For example, I know mercy
when I have enough money to change the jukebox
at a gay bar.

You know mercy whenever
someone shoves a stick of morphine
straight up into your heart.

Goddamn it felt amazing
the days you were happy to see me.

So I smashed a beehive against the ocean
to try and make our splash last longer.
Remember all the honey
had me looking like a jellyfish ape
but you walked off the water
in a porcupine of light, strands of gold
drizzled out to the tips of your wasps.

This is an apology letter to the both of us
for how long it took me to let things go.

It was not my intention to make such a production
of the emptiness between us,
playing tuba on the tombstone of a soprano
to try and keep some dead singer’s perspective alive.

It’s just that I could have swore you sung me a love song back there
and that you meant it
but I guess some people just chew with their mouth open.

So I ate ear plugs alive with my throat, hoping they’d get lodged
deep enough inside the empty spots that I wouldn’t have to hear you
leaving, so I wouldn’t have to listen to my heart keep saying
all my eggs were in a basket of red flags, all my eyes to a bucket
of blindfolds in the cupboard with the muzzles and the gauze.

I didn’t mean to speed so far out and off, trying to drive
your nickels to a well
when you were happy to let those wishes drop.

But I still show up for gentleman practice
in the company of lead dancers
hoping their grace will get stuck in my shoes.
Is that a handsome shadow on my breath, sweet woman,
or is it a cattle call in a school of fish? Still

dance with me. Less like a waltz for panic,
more for the way we’d hoped to swing
the night we took off everything
and we were swinging for the fences.

Don’t hold it against my love. You know I wanna breathe deeper
than this. I didn’t mean to look so serious, didn’t mean
to act like a filthy floor, didn’t mean to turn us both
into some cutting board
but there were knives stuck
in the words where I came from.
Too much time in the back of my words.
I pulled knives from my back and my words.
I cut trombones from the moment you slipped away.

And I know it left me lookin’ like a knife fight, lady.
Boy I know it left me feelin’ like a shotgun shell.
You know I know I might’ve gone and lost my breath
but I wanna show you how I found my breath to death.
It was buried under all the wind instruments
hidden in your castanets. Goddamn. If you ever wanna know
how it felt when you left, if you ever wanna come inside
just knock on the spot
where I finally pressed stop

playing musical chairs with your exit signs.

I’m gonna cause you a miracle

when you see the way I kept God’s image alive.

“Forgiveness is for anyone
who needs safe passage through my mind.”

If I really was created in God’s image
then when God was a boy
he wanted to grow up to be a man.
A good man.

And when God was a man - a good man - he started
telling the truth in order to get honest responses.
He’d say,

Yeah, I know… I really should’ve worn my cross.
Again. But I don’t wanna scare the gentiles off.

That is not what I came here to do.
He said,

I’m pretty sure
I just came here to love you.

10/22/18

The Art of Disappearing - Naomi Shihab Nye

When they say Don't I know you?
say no.

When they invite you to the party
remember what parties are like
before answering.
Someone telling you in a loud voice
they once wrote a poem.
Greasy sausage balls on a paper plate.
Then reply.

If they say We should get together
say why?

It's not that you don't love them anymore.
You're trying to remember something
too important to forget.
Trees. The monastery bell at twilight.
Tell them you have a new project.
It will never be finished.

When someone recognizes you in a grocery store
nod briefly and become a cabbage.

When someone you haven't seen in ten years
appears at the door,
don't start singing him all your new songs.
You will never catch up.

Walk around feeling like a leaf.
Know you could tumble any second.
Then decide what to do with your time.

Solving the Puzzle - Stephen Dunn

I couldn’t make all the pieces fit,
so I threw one away.

No expectation of success now,
none of that worry.

The remaining pieces seemed
to seek their companions.
A design appeared.

I could see the connection
between the overgrown path
and the dark castle on the hill.

Something in the middle, though,
was missing.

It would have been important once.
I wouldn’t have been able to sleep
without it.

FLIGHT - J.E. Foerster

As a child I tossed
all my imaginary friends
out the window of a fast moving train
because I wanted to feel my fist
break open as I freed them,
as each of their bodies
whipped against the siding,
their insides: snow
dispersing into wind,
their little heads rolling
across the yellow plains.

Because I believed they would return.
But none have since.
Not even the ones I didn’t love.

10/21/18

The Unfree Man - Friedrich Nietzsche

A. He stands and harks: what does he hear?
     What sound is ringing in his ear?
     What struck him down? What mortal fear?
B. Who once wore chains, will always think
     That he is followed by their clink.

10/5/18

1988 - Andrea Gibson

It was the year your mother
put her cigarette out on your arm.
The year you forgave her so hard
you stopped crying for good.

I was on the other side of the world
watching my father shine his knives.
I was trying to get the nerve to tell him
who to kill.

But he never figured out
there was someone to kill.
Collected knives like art
and hung them on our walls.

That autumn I made a person
by stuffing a pile of dead leaves
into an old pair of clothes.
Maybe you did too. Maybe

you found a pumpkin for a head
and dug it hollow with your hands.

Friend, if memories had been seeds
we could have chosen not to plant
do you think we would have ever found each other?

Do you believe in the magnet of scars? I believe

people who have been through hell
will build their love from the still burning coals.

Our friendship is a well-heated home
where we always agree on what is art

and what is something to sharpen
and hold in our ready hands.