Gonna cheat today and just give you the last 2 days’ poems, the first I hated when I wrote it, but now think it’s pretty good. The second I loved when I conceived it and now feel indeterminate about it. Why am I telling you this? Hypnotizing your experience before it happens? Because I want to rid myself of the illusion I don’t care about public perception. I do, and it’s a great way to motivate myself to do something like write 30 poems in 30 days, but it also comes with a cost. Having removed the Twitter app, not using Facebook except every few weeks, I can feel the impact of positive/negative comments a little like the smell of my favorite brand of cigarettes when I’m not smoking. I’m thrilled it has become an object rather than a motivating subject but in the interest of transparency, I can lie to myself but strive to be truthful to you dear, dear readers.
How it happened, Part 1: Having a cigarette in the country of my birth Con/Jur/d, 4/4/2021 This is how it happened, Before they taught borders, bound by family, Blood ties, we ran waddled crawled towards the danger fast shiny on asphalt “No,” cuts deep, big gods familiar bodies of pleasure, pain, saw him one last time still alive, my wedding, cigarette hand, I hadn’t given up yet playing with the fire. No Surprise when I realized this hotel, in morning light stood where forty years ago his broken home had been. Our immense lives ashed become small memories, swirling dawn, smoke. How it happened Part 2 Crow and Tree, Con/Jur/d, 4/5/2021 Skyline, The boys and their banana seat bikes had left me at the intersection, of day and night, an unfamiliar fallow field, a hot dirt trail, dusty smell of rapid cooling, bordered by tall grass and reeds, an indigo deeper shade of shadow. I try, and fail to find a memory whispering of why? We were already late for dinner our flexible curfews, casualties crushed by a day spent caterwauling across Sun-drenched stages for future productions of urban development, “Wilds Destruction,” a cast of thousands. Was it, because I was a new kid unfamiliar with gang rules, discomforted by primate signals, their goading, harsh or did I decide to leave on my own, my Mother’s backyard call unheard, canceled by crickets and a single cavernous crying caw A crow, on a dead tree, a backdrop giant ruling hillside tangles, communicates, “Alone, alone.” And I know what it means here, “Death, dissolution, abandonment,” a space, little kids are not welcome. Sun rays, wink out, the contours of evening are filled with hidden tigers, every breeze a sinewy snake snatching at exposed ankles, a bicycle a poor choice of weapon. Fear drives pedals. Around, the next bend and the curve after that, past a riotous swamp, frog croaks pelting, “Run, ride, run!” Twilight in a familiar orchard, breaks open Terror’s hard hug, a window in the distance grinds the mad beating to a warm halt. I’d like, to tell you how it happened, but a crow and nothing, happened, after all.