Dark Matter

Seen
from behind
and overheard
on a Boston street:

she reached into her purse
and left money in an old man’s hand.
Her friend said it was a waste because
he’d only use it to buy wine.

It’s not my place to judge what he will do,
she said, only my place to choose
how I will act. What I will do
is act as it seems I should.

Small words of one syllable
picked the lock on
my hope and it creaked open
just a crack.

This is who
we really are underneath
the pale rigor we wear
most of the time.

I pray
I am this worthy
whenever I face
an open hand.

I will learn when to speak
and when to fall silent,
for doors are closing all around me
and words can’t do everything.

I say, if there’s hunger, feed it;
if there’s war, fight it;
if there’s pain, soothe it;
if there’s hate, love it.

Seen
from behind
and overheard
on a Boston street:

I wanted
to cry, but instead
doubled back
to where the old man sat.

1: You have been, unfairly in my opinion, compared to buickpoet? How do you feel about such allegations?

Who the fuck is buickpoet? I’ll cut his ass. Unless it’s a woman, then I’ll propose.

Seriously: Buick stopped making truly poetic cars years ago. I’m untroubled by such slander.

2: Does it ever get you down when you remember that the world actually ended when solipsist Allen Ginsburg died, and we’re all just kinda being stubborn dicks about it? Or do you subscribe to the radical Fredian philosophy, which states that the world ends when solipsist Fred Willard dies? Explain?

Well, as Allen once said to me, “You paid more money, so I’ll sign your book first.” (That’s actually true.) Based strictly on that, I’m leaning toward Fredianism. He’s never been crassly commercial to me.

3: Saudade: Hi-Falootin Emotion or Tasty Mexican Sauce?

I’m a big fado fan. We’re going for the emotion, hi-fallopian or not.

4: I am drinking lemon tea. Are you? If so, why not? What, you think you’re better than me…punk…

I am not. I don’t like it. Fuck you, and your little dog, too. And that goes double for me.

5: Are you slightly scared that a young poet nicknamed after a ho-down instrument has asked the four questions that cut down to the gooey center of what you may call a ‘center’?

I actually play the banjo, though not very well. I think that really says it all.

The Where Your Mouth Is benefit gig next week with me, Regie Gibson, and Patty Keough has moved from the Sprinkler Factory (the WAG, the Abbie Hoffman Performance Space, 38 Harlow St, etc.) to the QVCC.

For more info, go see myainsel‘s blog for details.

I’ll plug it more later but I’m gettin’ lazy right now.

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Is anybody else having trouble getting into gmail? I have an account for gotpoetry.com stuff, and I can’t seem to sign onto the site at all tonight.

— Sis is out of the hospital. Diagnosis: schizo-affective disorder. A thought disorder involving aural and visual hallucinations and other Fun Psychotic Stuff. We’ve been talking regularly and I think she’s relatively stable right now, but recovery/stability are relative terms.

Welcome to the ward.

— My own condition: eh. I’m beginning to notice some of the long-term effects of bipolar illness — cognitive breaks, short and long term memory disturbance, and my favorite, the Suddenly Forgetting How To Talk in the middle of sentences symptom. On the other hand, I’m not making bizarre accusations or freaking out all over friends, at least not at the moment. Like I said: eh.

This long term stuff is only now getting researched, so I may volunteer for a study. Eh, again.

— Had a preliminary, tentative conversation today regarding the possibility of some form of limited disability/reasonable accommodation stuff here. This is confronting beyond belief. I’ve always worked from the inside of my brain out to the world; thinking that I might lose that is pretty sobering.

We’re not talking Alzheimer’s here, although the physiological effects are in fact similar — plaques on the neurons, cell loss, etc. — and there are plenty of things I can do to keep myself sharp (omega-3s, hydration, exercise, mental stimulation like puzzles and surprise, creative pursuits!), but nonetheless…eh. Eh.

I fear I’ll never be able to maintain work/school/poetry at the same level.

Some of it is likely age, too. And that has its own fears. I realize I’m much older than most of the poets around me, and it’s starting to tell. Aging out of the scene and little to fall back on as to performance venues, and little energy to create my own.

You know…eh.

— Anyway, testing my limits: bringing a guitar to the WAG for the open mike tonight. Might sing just to scare myself and others. Might just wuss out and do poetry about knifefights and suicide.

Say it with me: eh.

Can I just say that I’m surprised there was no reaction, one way or the other, on the Icepick poem?

Spring is in the air, and all I can smell is fresh clean earth and new-mown grass.

This makes me nostalgic for…NYC. For taxi fumes and fermented garbage, for unexplained puddles of guck and freakish outbursts that are ignored by the other passers-by.

I think I gotta get myself a gig or two down thar.

The Icepick Grip

I’m working on school stuff, work stuff, and thinking about whether I’d like to go out before my appointment and get a little sun, or feel a little better about myself by working harder here.

I have no desire to write poetry. For once, I think that’s a good thing.

Whatever my decisions, I know they will be for the best in the long run.

I am glad the Ken Hunt Prize was accepted by PSI as a feature of the competition. I have a lot of work to do now to make it happen.

Now I have to go, and work on a paper for at least a little while. More later.

I do not like walking around ashamed. But I don’t know how to make it right.

I don’t recognize myself.

What the hell do I do now?

The last line of this poem refers to the title of a chapbook by Paul Gagnon, “The Darkness Is Habitable.”

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The child at the top
of the cellar stairs
is still ready to fall into the dark.
You haven’t got your arms up to catch me
and I’m too large
to make a safe landing on my own.

I wonder:
did you think I’d be
in love with you forever,
even after you let me fall?
Is it remotely possible
that you believe I am

that easy to please?
I wanted a family. I got a disease.
There had to come a time
when I chose health instead of you.
(You stare at me. Nothing
can make me feel different.)

There was a time
when I would have
allowed myself to die for you.
There was a time
when it would have been worth it
to hit every stair all the way down.

It is not remotely possible
that I will not walk away now,
once I learn to stand on unschooled feet.
The way home is not down the stairs.
I’m going up and over,
out and through, away instead.

The face of things will be the same.
We’ll talk. We’ll be cordial.
We’ll even snuggle up from
time to time;
but we’ll never be
one blood again.

This is the nature of
remote possibility.
The toddler flies
when the stairs rot through.
Darkness can become habitable,
if never safe.

OK. I’m closing down the shop for the time being…Off to school, then Canada.

I am taking a tiny, old, slow laptop with me for writing purposes, but not sure what kind of access I’ll have, so I will not be on much no matter what.

Hope you all have a great week, and I’ll talk to you when I can. Back with some frequency on Saturday next.

Well…the papers are done. The outline is done. And I’m done. Sorta.

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Now then: the schedule for the next week.

Tomorrow — work followed by school till 10.
Saturday — school 9-5.
Sunday — school 9-5. Then, flight to Toronto at 9 PM.

While in Toronto:

Monday: Train Project Management course, 9-5. Business dinner that night.
Tuesday: Train Objectives class 9-1 at the Toronto warehouse. Do something that night — jazz?
Wednesday: Train day one of a management class 9-5. Weep quietly at night.
Thursday: Train day two of a management class 9-5. Weep loudly at night.

Homeward bound:

Friday: fly home from Toronto. Go to wedding Friday night (yay flapper_girl and penny_player !). Be joyful and make merry.

Saturday, Sunday: Obliteration.

Monday: Back at work, teach an all day class.

This is tailor-made to set me into a cycle. I need to marshall my energies carefully.

I suspect I won’t be here much after tomorrow, so good luck to all.

that the paper was done?

All I had to do tonight was go through and make sure all the citations were correct, etc.?

Well…

a note from one of my classmates came through.

We also have to present an outline of the ten page paper we have due on May 10.

Guess who doesn’t have one written yet? Me…and pretty much everyone else. It’s not on the syllabus and he only mentioned it once in class; most of us thought he was talking about a certain percentage of class who were presenting their info from those papers, while the rest of us were doing something else.

Guess who’ll be up later than he wanted to be tonight?

Just for that, I’m going to get drunk for my presentation on Sunday. That’ll show them.

All this sadness lately. Just some thoughts. Hope they help.

Spring must arrive before
the frogs can sing. They can only speak
when it becomes clear
that there is something that must be said.

When there is nothing
to say, say nothing.
There are worse things to do
than stand mute before grief
and learn that giving comfort
is not always comfortable.
When there is nothing to be said,
nothing said is a comfort.

A hand on a shoulder
is a branch leaning on its neighbors.
An embrace is a breeze that stirs without chilling.
A face turned upward against the dark
is a prophecy of fireflies.

The way spring comes on — slowly,
until it is everywhere all at once —
that’s the nature of the love others have for us.
What loves us remains present, even when we turn from it,
as spring spreads while we sleep.