Let us start by saying
that it may not be true

that a famous poet
once committed
psychological torture
upon a graduate student
in order to observe her behavior
and derive content
for a book of poems;

and it may not be true
that he was not alone in his effort,
having enlisted other graduate students
to assist him and observe and report
on their comrade.

But it is is true
that as an undergrad
I once sat in a dorm room
hearing this story
from the woman who had been abused
or claimed to have been abused,
and I believed it,

and in outrage
I told this story
to many people
for many years
as if it were certainly true.

At first, I named names.

When the book in question
was published
to no acclaim
and general bewilderment
(what had
happened? where
had the famous poet’s talent gone?)

I kept telling the story.

The famous poet
later redeemed himself
with better books,
and I began to choose my listeners
and hedge the details
and withhold names,
and soon I stopped telling the story altogether.

What I tell you now is also true:

I have read the work of the famous poet
and wondered,
and thought about it,
and looked for clues,
and I have written a lot of my own poems since then
and wondered, and looked for clues,
and thought about truth
and redemption through poems.

Nothing disguises the facts:
I am no famous poet.
I believe in poetry,
I believe in fame, and am often
amazed and ashamed of what poets will do
in the pursuit of of both —

I wrote
this.

Tags: poems, poetry, meditations

The last note?
Still ringing.  The last voice?
Still singing.  It’s likely
the last time
we will all be here together,
and somehow,
no matter how we try,
the moment will not
end, dammit…

But it’s so pretty,
so perfect, so exactly
what we want,

someone says,  

why shouldn’t it
go on as long
as it can?

Because
for a thing
to be complete
and perfect
it ought to have 
a beginning, 
a middle,
an end.  When 
it will not end
beauty cloys
and perfection
rusts and
exactly what we want
ends up being
what we most yearn
to change.

I like it, sort of.
It’s a way of owning
your space, crowding it
with things. A way of
embracing chaos, depending on
how much order you impose
upon it.  

Comes a day, though,
when a pile of papers
avalanches or a stack
of random items
built by convenience
collapses to the floor,
perhaps pushed by
a frustrated cat.

I like it, sort of;
it replicates untidiness
I see outside, makes it easier
to pretend that I am 
OK like this, to pretend I am
living in the wild
by living like this.  

From the place I buried it, uncovered now but still a deep hole,
I shall pull up the cocaine and the late night breakfasts
that never stayed with me for longer than it took
to get in the car and get moving, drunk and wired,
toward whatever couch was that morning’s home;

pull up the little empty gun I got in trade
for all that acid, pull up the skinny tie
and the hospital scrubs, the songs I wrote
when bored, my awful awesome poetry I believed in
so hard I sprained my ego on it, even when there was

no evidence for its quality, no reason for it to exist at all.
Pull up the arrogant, the know it all, the callous junior playboy
up to screw whoever was up for it, and pull up as well
any scrap any of those partners left behind, that I might kiss
those remnants and recall a time when I was at least superficially

loveable. What’s left in there when all that’s come up to the light?
A boy, still a skinny boy though tending toward heft.  A stupid young man
with a bad car and a jammed tapedeck and damaged visions
of a swift escape from this earth.  A boiled, burned, wasted chump
of the suburbs…I pull them up, pull it all up, the way you’d yank a weed

that won’t die, frantically hoping I’ve got it all this time:
every bit of what keeps sprouting in my life
when I least desire it, now that it’s inconvenient
and no one thinks it’s cute or charming
or melancholy-artist-appropriate anymore.

I want it poisoned.  I want it gone.
I will pull it up and burn it all from the leftovers
to the memories to the new shoots that tell it all —
that what I was is what I am,
that no matter how I pull, I fail.

I don’t know if I can say this with full certainty
but I believe there are crows taking cautious steps
across my rear threshhold into my house.

I could get up and look, of course,
but then they might step back just as cautiously
upon hearing me stir, and then I’d be forever unsure.

If they are there, there are certainly three of them.
If they are there, they are surely bright eyed
and have a specific mission to accomplish.

No one knows who sends crows on their missions
or why they enter houses silently on foot.
Few notice they’ve been there

except when a shiny
thing, a needed thing, a thing
worth living for has disappeared.

Even then, few blame the crows —
put it down as being the fruit of a bad memory
or just the way things go — but eventually,

after it’s happened more than once,
after we’ve awakened more than once
to their talons on the linoleum,

we understand
that it’s crows
that take such things away.

When we see them on the street
we try to stare them down and see
if they’ll admit to the thefts.

Have you ever looked into their eyes?
You know how hard it is to see past that blackness.
But facing them down is our job and worth doing;

that’s how we win, how we learn
that what we thought was stolen
was taken as a down payment

for a journey we had forgotten
we had booked.  And then, gently,
they lift us, and we fly.

So I’ll sit here and listen.  There’s a step now.
And another, or is there? I’m staying put.
That seems,  for now, to be the best strategy.

We have exhausted all leads
as the clock runs out.

People died. Who and what
we should blame is not clear.

If there’s a connecting thread
or line to explain what led to…this,

it remains unseen. It’s not a conspiracy thing;
shit’s just complicated.  Maybe some of it

is about malice, but mostly
it’s about acceptance

of unintended consequences
and ignorance of how to stop

thinking we are so damn omniscient.
We’re not, of course; that’s obvious.

We’re blind little beggars or huge deaf kings.
No one is paying attention,

or paying for us to pay attention.
We’re broke and we’re out of time.

If we want to know who did what,
if we are ever to learn that,

we are going to have to start time again.
Build a world differently — more windows and doors,

fewer walls.  And most of all
we’re going to have to build a better clock.

Something with longer hours, days, years.
Something based on the Mayan model, perhaps,

with lots
of resets.

— NOTE:  this is the 1400th poem posted here since 1/1/2010.   While I will likely continue to keep count for myself, I won’t be pursuing this kind of feat publicly again.

The climactic moment
of Roger Towers and the HighSprays’ set
at Pigdoctor’s last night
had to be “Enthusiasm Rocket,”

which included a transcendent
glockenspiel and eight-string guitar twin lead
behind the chanted, Shinto-inspired vocalization
of Sandy Towers,

looking and sounding for all the world
like a reborn version of his brother
who founded the band
and for whom it is named.

Thunderous drumming from Sally Armrest
proved to be barely sufficient to carry the rhythm
in the first few numbers as it was drowned
by a four-piece tuba section added just for last night’s show,

but when the band eventually lurched into
thier classic medley of
“Revolution Of Panko / Nostril’s Demise”
it appeared that balance had been restored.

It was something of a comeback gig for the HighSprays
who have been in seclusion since the unfortunate death of
Roger Towers at the hands of persons unknown
who slew him, somewhat Biblically, with a slingshot

at the Damn Nation Festival in May of last year.
With Sandy Towers only joining the lineup  this past September ,
it’s too early to say if there will be any change of direction
or indeed new music from the band anytime soon.

Opening for the HighSprays last night were
the somewhat awkwardly named local favorites
Vanilla Slingshots, who played
a short spirited set

from their garage/klezmer/metal
back catalog, but who finished strongly
with a samba cut from their soon to be released album,
“Slang For The Sloths.”  Between the sets,

celebrity DJ Holy Fatha Holla
on the 1s and 2s
rocked the capacity Pigdoctor’s crowd
of scenesters, the morbidly curious,

suburban rebels,
inner city hard youth,
and five people who were apparently
there for the music.

For love, anything —
burn my old letters, sleep
alone, eat candles.
For love, allow myself
nothing and call it a luxury.

For freedom, anything —
bleed bleach, piss angry tears,
lose my shit on crowded streets.
blow up who I am for freedom
or take a bullet to share the wealth.

For class, for dignity, for proper burial, anything —
for this, for that, anything;
let my story be reworded
for any number of high-concept reasons
as long as it pushes us all forward.

But for myself?  Ah, who’s that?
I don’t know who I am,
so why ask what I’d give up
for myself?  I can barely spell that.
I can barely tell you my name.

I acknowledge

my masks and disguises 
and most of all 
those unknown unknowns
that make up the bulk of me

I acknowledge the illness
that makes me happy to dissemble
and hide thus in plain sight

But let me assure you
that no matter how much fun it may seem
to be a spy in the house of average
a ghost in a skin machine

my greatest wish and mantra
remains and will forever remain

may no one else
ever be here again

New Year’s Day!  
Nemesis, advisor,
my saber-tooth,
my cave bear;
  
my always-brutal lover offering once again
to hug me home, whispering,  “Hurry!  
I can’t clean up the wreckage
you’ve left behind, but I will take you in.”  

I break loose and try to run —
old bear, long estranged,
how did you find me?
How long has it been?

New Year’s Day!  I have dreaded you
as I might dread seeing
signs of an end-stage cancer
bound to kill me.

Now I see how empty
your mean hands truly are.
Embrace me, I will embrace you
for a day;  I’ll give you

twenty four hours of honor,
let you bite me, let you open
all your favorite wounds; then,
I will break your hold

and snake my way past you
toward whatever is beyond you.
New Year’s Day!  Do your worst.
You’re just one day of chastisement 

in a life of interchangeable
blessings and curses, drawing blood
once a year, reminding me of how far
I haven’t come from the last time we kissed. 

That hawk
you are determined to fetishize

has no interest in carrying
your symbolism or the past life biography

your plastic shaman
of the moment gave you.  

All she wants is a fat mouse in her fist,
a quick meal, and after that

the cold,
welcoming sky.  You

can do whatever you want
as long as you keep your distance.