Something for a cold night…heh heh heh…

FIREBOY

The day I was born, the midwife said,
I yelled like kindling crying for a match,
but no one could ever figure out
what fuel I was doomed to spark. Until today.

I have a calling now,
something that’s made
my heart drop its loping drum
into a steady ruffle.

All I need to make it stop
is to get through one unbridled moment.
Right now I’m a
flint — suspended and waiting for it.

If I do it now I’m done.
I’ll never do it again.
The snapping of a lighter always made
the whisper of it go away so

the roar of a big burn ought to
deafen me enough to shut it down
for good so I can get out
and leave the heat behind;

one can of gasoline
away from here
I’m sure there’s a world
that smells like rain all the time.

Snow and ice lead to horrible drive to dentist this AM to fix a broken tooth from which proceed to coat store for gift certificate for Mom to work where I recuperate and discover the nature of pain as Novocaine wears off while eating a sandwich on one side of my mouth then off to a meeting at a remote site which taxes my patience to a meeting with a manager that I actually enjoyed to a series of phone calls some of which I enjoyed to getting ready to sneak out early to do even more Christmas shopping tonight and I hope the Tylenol kicks in before I get to the dreaded mall where I must buy the children’s clothes I am only slightly less qualified to buy than I am my mother in law’s present.

Sometimes, I wish I had pursued my first love and become a mercenary. The routine is boring, but at least the hours are regular.

and happy.

DC rocked in its own quirky way — I’ve had the same experience there twice, that I don’t know during the feature how it’s going because the crowd is relatively quiet, but I do know immediately afterward because I get mobbed by people wanting to talk and buy books. A great time.

The set list was a mix of brand-new never read out loud before poems and some older stuff:

Meta
Getting Ahead
Where Do You Live? (aka “Yumiko’s Hands” or “that origami poem”)
Political Art
Music For Funerals
Revisiting Roses and Violets
From a Chicago Garage
Discovering Fire
Mission Statement (aka “when the hell is he gonna stop doing that one?”)

It was fun. I didn’t tell the room there were three premieres in the mix.

Thanks, DC.

Of course, being as I was in DC I missed the Worcester iWPS finals…Congrats to myainsel for kicking butt and taking names old school style….

Since I’ve been ordered to do this thing by Ms. Lia…I feel I have no choice. 😉

here I come.

Teaism tonight…come play! Probably one of my last features outside of NE/NY for a while since I start school in January.

(Texas, it’s not looking good, but I’ll keep thinking about it…will depend on the schedule.)

Got home late, ate food, did an errand, came back home…

and finished Zero Point Zero, which is now up.

It’s the next to the last column. #99.

I’m starting to feel weird about this…something I started originally as a way of stretching my writing muscles a bit became (and will remain) an important part of my life for two solid years.

I have school coming up, and manuscripts to assemble and submit. A new phase is beginning. I trust I’ll be well enough to complete it and get what I can from it.

But, as the column this week makes clear (I hope), there is a natural tendency to wistfulness that I can’t shake anymore than anyone else can.

It’s right to say good bye, but not easy.

Shame smells like
the memory of disco
on a late Eighties morning when you’re
staring at the ceiling
of an unfamiliar house
and planning the next five minutes
because you can’t think
beyond that.

Shame feels like
a wool blanket wrapped around you
to protect your ass from freezing or discovery
while you’re sitting on the oak floor
of an unfurnished three decker,
late on a Saturday night.

Shame, visible by inches,
rises just enough to draw you in
and sink again, pulling you
after.

Shame is not a silent beast —
is a fart in church, a belch in a seminar,
the death rattle in Central Park
no one hears.

But shame doesn’t taste like much
of anything. You can’t pretend you’re
sustaining yourself on it. You can savor it,
roll it around in your mouth, swallow it even,
but live on it? That’s a laugh, a clown’s
laugh — painted on, and who knows
what it cost?

Realizing you’re so much like everything you never wanted to be.

And very little like what you did want to be.

And wondering how much energy you have to make changes, and thinking that so much pain got you here, and so much more will be asked of you, and it still may never be enough to make it worthwhile.

All I can think of here is Morris’ “Clockwork.” I am that guy, I think, sometimes; and other times I’m not sure I could describe the guy I am at all; I’m too close to see myself.

I’ve got college looming, and I hope more poetry and more living to do; but there are nights like this, when it’s damn cold out and not snowing enough to be interesting, that all you can do is go to bed and hope for a warmer day tomorrow.

That day seems so far away, sometimes.

Replacing a Fuse

The first step
is always a long one, no matter how
familiar the cellar. Entering the semi-dark,
one eye on the dead swinging bulb and
recalling the wisdom of all the horror tales
ever told, you question
every shadow. Each once-safe corner
is black and new. The doors
yawn open, the windows beam weakly, and
you can almost hear Freud and Jung whispering and
taking notes.

You forgot (of course)
a flashlight. You can’t read (of course)
the paper inside the box that tells you which fuse
does what. You’re going to have to
pull them all, one by one, and try to puzzle out
which one is blown.

It’s just another day, then:
fiddling in the dark,
looking for
illumination, trying to set
the currents right
and restore your power
while myths snicker
and wait for you to fail.

I believe I ate something ugly in the last few days.

Please, for all our sakes, don’t ask me how I know.

If I owe you an email, a congratulatory phone call (myainsel), or any other consideration, I am sorry.

Just a quick note to let you know that Zero Point Zero is up now, and there are only two more columns to go.

This week’s installment is an exercise in poetic self-flagellation, and includes a slightly reworked version of “Meta,” the poem from the last post.

Carry on. See you later. Hasta la vista, baby. C-YA, for now.

is smaller than I expected, but it’s DAMN pretty.

I also got a picture of myself shaking hands with Alan “Aaron” Embree, with the trophy, in front of a replica of the Fenway scoreboard set to show the final stats of the seventh game against the Yankees. Heh heh heh.

I thanked him for helping to win the trophy. He said it felt awesome winning it.

*yawn*

Actually, he seemed pretty cool overall, considering how much of this he must be doing lately.

I did this only because I get to lord it over my brother in law the Red Sox fanatic, and to rub it into some of my Yankee-fan buddies’ faces.

HAND ANTLERS, UP! TONGUE, OUT! FORWARD, MOCK!

I Am Tired Of You

I am tired of your life of things
your oft-repaired faces
your bluebirds and chemlawns
your gazing balls and croquet
I am tired of your luxury trucks and inbred dogs
and the scent of your ionic breeze

I am tired of you gathering
in your varnished rooms of white pine
in your open floor plans and closed redemptions
for your simple compassion and complex rejections
your dropkick Sundays and backstage Saturdays
your sandbox brotherhood and clubhouse suspicions

I am tired of you smiling
in white and ivory on your wedding days
in white and ivory at your christenings
I am tired of children who will be dipped in the sacred water
yet will not be blessed with attention or ease
who will be born without learning to live

I am tired enough to rest quietly beside you
in your cities and your cafes, your steel diners
your small bars of Schlitz and Jim Beam
these are my small bars, cafes, cities too
these are the small towns I sleep in as well
these are the farms and the highways
the massage parlors, the nightclubs, the alleys full of suck
the homes where some of us look into eyes like our own
the rooms where the girl strokes her belly and worries
the doorways that lead to our churches, our manna, our god
these are the worlds I inhabit and admit to
the places you cannot believe in
the places where fatigue and joy exist in each others’ pockets
the country by and of and for
the land of tired and poor and just got here and always been here

I am tired
I am resting now
as still as
a bullet
in a chamber