What drives what I am
is the thrill I get when dark syllables
clink together.  You might say
I’ve got a thing for such sound aggression.
A thing for near-shattering. A thing
for hairline cracking.

Other than that I’ve got no love
for anything about this mess
less required than breathing, eating,
pissing, shitting, sleeping, fucking,
or commiserating.

I call these moments of noting
hard truth about myself
“Portland Moments”
for the first one I recall,
when I was smoking a joint
on the fourth level of a downtown garage
in Portland, Maine.  The sky was sky blue,
the air was winter cold, the ocean
as ocean as it could possibly be —
for half a second I believed the Sixties
had it right and all you needed was weed
and light, and love would make it all work.

That was not the Portland Moment, though —

that came a second later
while ducking the cops and hacking,
my lungs cough-laughing at me
crouching behind the car; I said,
gee, sorry, almost had myself fooled
into thinking I was someone else

and not the guy
who’s got a thing for aggression,
a thing for near-shattering, a thing
for hairline cracks and rough repair —

a guy much like Portland, Maine,
where even the hippies walk around
with punk rockers glaring
from the rooms behind their eyes.

We have been accumulating solace.
Make us afraid of how we were.    
~~ Rumi 

When I’m all tore up.  When I’m
pissed at being at loose ends
and how I can’t tighten them.  
When I’m heating the air
with spew and it’s not fooling
anyone, or me either:  God,

smack me.  Don’t even try to 
touch me without full-swinging
an open palm.  

Mumbling now something about
stones thrown
in the crystal house:  
whatever, I want
to be judged and found wanting.  
Looking for a finger to write
a burning on my wall, my skin.
Hold off on the embraces a while.

Mumbling, now,
about the Abuser,
the Great Abuser:  whatever,
hello,
no, not that.  Not saying

that.  But
I could bear
a judicious scar or two
if the story behind them
is worth remembering and 
keeps me from gaping,
wounded, later on.

No sense in holding
all the comfort for myself;
it’s good, I don’t need it,
give it away, somewhere it
will be appreciated.

My inner child
was a whiner.  I like him
better now that I’m all
tore up or at loose ends.
I check in on him, say:

hey buddy, now what?
And he says:  up to you,
it always is.  
Stay afraid
of your used-to-be, then
let it rip.