First
I was a moody child
and they said I’d grow out of it
Next
I was a moody teen
and they said it was normal
Then
I was a troubled young adult
and they said it might be a problem
Truth was
I felt from birth that I’d swallowed a dragon
and all they said was that I needed to buckle down
Later on
I could feel the dragon growing huge in me
and they said I needed to “man up” somehow
Of course
I began to sample all their pills to kill the dragon
and they said prescribing was an art not a science
In addition
I talked about it incessantly in offices to chase it out
and they said it was a slow process
All the time
I kept bouncing from dragon love to dragon rage within
and they said don’t worry it smooths out after you hit 40
As 40 approached
I felt the hollow of the cavern the dragon had gnawed out of me
and they said there are some cases that are just stubborn
As 40 passed
I felt now and again pure flame spouting through my pores
and they said there’s a chance you are one of the unlucky ones
As 45 passed
I had a moment where I thought the dragon was gone
and they said you seem happy
As happy passed
I pulled and tugged on the dragon to make it go
and they said oh come on grow up this again
Now is the moment
I assume I am mostly dragon now
and they shrugged and said we’ve got nothing
and they said you’re a shell full of monster
and they said if only there were still swords and heroes
and they said are you even listening
and they said
and they said
and they said
And They Said
Plain/Ornate
To begin
make a study
of plain and ornate
Of how the former
becomes the latter
and of how the former
houses the clean
and the latter
invites the filth
Then
see how his words
emerge from his gut
how his face
shifts in their rhythm
how he begins
to turn from one lie to another
how he ends
all thought at the utterance of each
See his ornate fumble
through language
filthy with syllables
and grime
See his disdain
of plain
Once
there was a child here
and a parent and
perhaps a lover
but plain speaking
says no more
This is no more
In rococo twists
of tongue and style
something wicked now hides
in less than plain sight
just as the crannies of
gilded rooms with
their deep carved cornices
and intricate curls of decor
may conceal
long-dormant plagues
Listen long enough
and become
infected
Look long enough
and become
desperate
Sit with it long enough
and become
resigned or
enraged enough
to tear this
all the way back
to plain
What It Will Take
1.
Not words, as they know what to do with those: no listening, no answers, no acknowledgment that anything of value has been said; when you own the definitions you do with words whatever you want and they’ve spent culture and treasure on gobbling them up.
Not marches as they simply set a frame around them, a proscenium, a monumental arch; they’ll call them theater, showpieces, paid spectacles of acting out; in extraordinary cases they will call them war and blow them down as soon as they look like they might catch on.
Not votes as they see every last one as an impending joke with the punchlines in waiting years away in the desert of the future where they’re already been paid for on the installment plan.
It won’t take words or marches or votes. It won’t take shame or mockery or public scrutiny.
2.
It will take pain.
A willingness
to bring pain that they have never felt,
an ability
to offer and then provide pain,
mercy
to pull back once an aim is achieved.
3.
Afterwards
we can wash up and then
lie awake and imagine ourselves
pure again, sweet as Spring,
generous and forgiving as
any river ever
that broke its banks
when overfull, raging
with the runoff from
a winter’s worth
of cruel snow
and then returned
to its bed to roll on,
steady and calm
in its knowledge
of its power,
to the peace of the sea.
Our Own Light
When they take us
in the night, when they
slip into our beds with us
and rob us of our right
to our desires, when
they carve our beings
from us and leave us
as husks, as remains,
we will have to be our own light.
When they sniff at the sick
and smell what they call
justified pain, when they
seize our bodies to pay the debt
for their own satisfaction,
when they buy bullets with
what could have bought
our own healthy returns to
our own healthy lives,
we will have to be our own light.
When they come in killer walls
of camo and blue to take our water
and foul it for the joy of cash heaps,
when they step in grand cadence
to darken our streets with metal and fear
while we cower in homes they long to burn,
when they raze the schools overseas with bombs
and raze the schools in our towns with illogic and lies,
then drag our children from everywhere
into prison,
into servitude,
into battle,
into death,
into worldwide shadow,
we will have to be our own light.
We will have to remember
who we are,
what we can do,
who we refuse to become,
what we refuse to do.
We will have to be
in their eyes
ungovernable,
will have to be our own light,
illuminating each other’s way, even
if need be learning to start
fires, with each torch igniting another
until their darkness either
fails before us
or is left behind
for all time.
Bloodroot
Tragedy
from my lineage;
recovery
from there too.
What made me
deflated me.
What made me
blew me back up.
I awake in a room
built of frowns and guilt
where I still lay myself down
to sleep and heal.
It damned me,
or rather, it taught me
to damn myself.
It also taught me
how to fight
with and for
the tooth and nail
I was born with. So
when you tell me
it shouldn’t matter
as if your lineage
doesn’t matter to you,
you who wants so badly
for me to hand you
the prettiest parts of mine
to dress up your own
while pressing me to be
a little more like you
in order to wash all I am
into a great lukewarm bath
of beige you call
civility, society,
normal — when you tell me
that
I look back at
what made me
the mess I am,
the bite and blow
of day to day,
and then I look
at you. Your lineage
betrays you
even as mine,
for all its stabby
hold on me, stays faithful.
Stands behind me.
Tragedy is my bloodroot.
Recovery is too.
You cannot hurt me more
than I have hurt myself
in trying to heal myself.
In my poison is my safety.
In your eyes I see
no understanding
of how that can be.
Someone in your lineage
may have known that once
but you have forgotten.
That is how I win.
Speaking Of Horror
Speaking of horror
there’s a
huge Dodge truck
parked at the donut shop
I’m about to go into
and it’s flying both
an American flag and
a Confederate flag
each one the size of
a comforter or
opened body bag and
it’s Spring
Speaking of
horror that is as
a way of saying
something moving
in the dispassionate moment
of how matter of factly
those flags fly together
Speaking of horror
my body is hollering
stay out of there
Horror is how easily I lose
my usual donut appetite
In fact I don’t even
want a coffee
I know I could likely walk in
with impunity
and buy my usual
with impunity
and recognize the person
who owns that truck
and stare at them
with impunity in fact
they might nod to me if
we passed through the glass doors
at the same time in
opposite directions
I don’t want to park
where horror lives
so I drive around the block to
another donut shop
but it’s Spring and
in keeping with Spring
and speaking of horror
I really have lost all desire
for the usual
Small Desire
All you really want
is to be touched.
Listening to someone;
feeling the air move
when they move;
not enough.
Let the familiar, the unexpected but
welcome hand come
to rest on your shoulder;
it’s enough.
Let yourself
be spooned, even for
a moment, while half-
asleep and half-weeping,
face turned to the wall
in a dark room;
it’s enough.
You would like
more of course:
someone listening; someone
to stir your skin,
to be present
in all your spaces;
but a hand on your hair,
unheralded, asking for nothing
other than to offer itself?
Enough.
After A Defeat
after losing a thick-armed struggle
with others gleefully unlike me
I am overthrown and then
as I am laid out by blows
upon dirt and scrub lawn
I stare up at sky of bruise-hue
in early dusk and imagine
I will rise at first slit of sun
on horizon
this view is called hope and
is a bane of those
with whom I struggle
their thick arms no match
for that sliver of sun
which prompted a belief
of potential resurgence
in a beaten skull
and soul
A Theological Debate
You manage to wring
a mystical message
out of mishearing
the lyrics of a Kid Rock song
and then expect me
to nod in agreement when
you present the mistake
as evidence of God’s finger
in all things. I point out
that all it shows is that somehow
we make things work
even when they don’t because
we long for there to be an Order
to this mess so we cobble one up
from any weak leather and scrap nails
we are given. “Isn’t that
the same thing, really?” you ask,
and while it’s hard, perhaps
impossible, to entirely reject
your defense of such
accidental revelations? Dude.
In the name of all
that’s potentially holy,
try to remember:
we’re talking about Kid Rock.
How To Be An Aging Poet
This voice is getting old
as are the lungs that drive it.
I want it to come alive with roses
firing from my tongue and
seem to spit nothing
but autumn leaves.
Do you feel any softness
or new growth
in anything I say?
In fact, I’m likely reaching a point
of speaking nothing but stone talk.
I don’t know yet
if these will be sling stones shaped
to fly at Goliath, or gravestones seeking
a hole to mark, newly-turned earth
in which to settle.
I’m resigned to how little
those who follow
may be able to do with what
I am beginning to say. Not like
I’ll be offering obvious
building blocks,
nothing shaped like
a foundation. I feel already
they’ll sit there in front of you
and look like obstacles or
late-life mistakes.
Maybe that’s all I’ll be
soon:
object lesson on overstaying
time. Ossified while longing
to still be fluid.
Monumental.
Waiting to crumble.
About those other projects…
Hi, Dark Matter readers!
I’ve been quite busy of late on a variety of writing projects as well as some things related to my band, The Duende Project. The most recent post on the Website for that side of what I do gives out a whole bunch of info, including some recent publications and other musical activities of the band.
You can see that post at:
I hope you might take a moment to check it out. Thanks!
Onward,
Tony
How To Live
Four Facts To Use In An Obituary
1.
He was never as fond of ocean
as he was of desert, perhaps because
he was born near the former
and didn’t see the latter until
he’d already learned what it meant
to long for escape. After that,
he imagined joy as a dry place
that bloomed seldom but riotously.
2.
He frequently had a certain look —
a barely downturned face,
sharply raised eyes and brows,
neutralized mouth — a look that said
he was judging you; not necessarily
in a moral way; more like assessing
the level of concern
he should allow for you
should your contact continue.
3.
When he loved someone
as fiercely as he could,
he could not love himself
equally fiercely
at the same time.
He did not love many that way
but neither did his self-love
ever rise to such a level
that he loved himself much
at all in the times
between those strong loves.
4.
Upon his death,
a white bird rose from
the peak of his roof and
flew to the nearest ocean
to apologize. A brown bird
rose from a bush in the backyard
and flew to the closest desert
to apologize. A red bird
rose from pavement outside
and flew to each lover in turn
to apologize. A black bird
landed on an oak in the front yard,
turned its head down, raised its eyes,
and began the hard judging
of the life that had just ended.
For The Sound
You think of this work I do
(when you think of it at all)
as the opening
of petals, or veins.
No matter how many times
I tell you otherwise.
No matter how many years
I’ve been at it.
If it were the opening
of petals,
I’d have long ago
turned to fruit,
fallen to the ground,
rooted as seed,
regrown.
If it were the opening
of veins? How red
would your hands be if
every time you touched one
of these you then
chose to just wait
for the next one?
This isn’t as easy
as simply blooming
or bleeding —
it’s opening, sure,
but more like cracking
a safe or picking
a lock and then pulling
a door until it swings wide.
Inside,
maybe flowers, maybe
buckets of brimful red;
you can have those
as I live
for the cracking, the picking;
for the sound (my God, the sound!)
of moving doors.
Surviving
I’m supposed to be
among these massacre bones:
that’s where I was born,
after all, nestled
in a bleached nest of
what was once alive, and though
I got up and moved on,
I was not whole. Part of me
stayed back, remained
with these dead
who’d unwittingly cradled me
and lent me a certain air
of loss that I can always feel
even if others cannot tell.
I measure every day
against that sense. Sometimes
it surges within
and I can’t take a breath
without the scent of old bones
filling me, choking me. Other times
I can get by with only a whiff
or two here and there. Either way
those dead held me when young
and still hold
all the essence I grew from:
the knowledge that I live always
among those who, if they’d seen me
in another day, would have laid
a sword against my infant neck,
a rifle’s barrel against my child’s skull,
and not held back. I live
always knowing how little it takes
to unleash that urge,
how easily they could send me
back into that massacre pile
if given permission and
a flimsy rationale. Every day
I do not run screaming
to lock myself away
is a marvel; understand as well
that every day I convince myself
from dawn to dark
that you only look like them
and are not like them
is a miracle — not one
of trust, but of magical thinking
and provisional hope. I make
no apology for that. You should
expect none. You
should do more
than wring your hands
when there are
so many of these bones
still to be laid to rest.
Dark Matter 