Failing That
Con/Jur/d, 4/20/2021

Part 1

Before she told
me “You’re like a car 
whose engine fails
the minute you’re up
to speed” the sports
psychologist who I
thought ‘never-in-a 
million-years’ would
we be friends read
me an ode to failed
potential, the curse
it was to have it,
not earn it, by beat-
ing against the same
wall until it collapses,
under the influence
of will, perseverance,
sheer bull-headedness,
and I realized we were 
friends after all, although, 
we have given up on that, 
because as-you-can-see, 
it’s not as easy as it seems 
to remove ‘that’ as a con-
junctive, for that-clauses,
sometimes I don’t want
to even try.

Failing that, it 
should be obvious we
couldn’t carve up the
past, like a Thanksgiving
turkey, served by bitter
arguing puritans, inducting
us into a world where
children only get the
dark-sinewy-avian-flesh
because it builds character,
creates obstacles to joy, 
and helps replicate the
dark magic, needed
to survive, on this rough
rock, hints of paradise
hewn from its surface,
removed and repackaged, 
sold as a mortician’s gift,
for a select few, granted
post-mortality boons.

Luckily we fail,
to believe that, brandishing
potentials like a sword or a
plowshare, against implacable
myths of our youth, until broken,
shattered, failed we stumble
into what is.

Part 2

CRASH. I need,
to apologize, I
don’t but I will,
since after 20
poems in as
many days, I
have become
inebriated by 
words, I failed
to remain under
the limit, I’m fail -
ing to capture
the silence
implicit in a
well crafted
SOUND, I’ve
failed to celebrate
failure, I’ve let you
down.

I know I don’t
deserve it, I’ve left
wall crumbles, 
and muddied stones,
fresh-turned from
hard-packed earth
all over you plus
metaphors so twist
ed, they SCREAM
waking the neighbors,
spoiling enjoyment,
a high handed moral 
SHOUT, but if you
could, and why not?

Why should I do
all the heavy lifting?
Can’t you see my
legs buckling under 
the burden of LANG
UAGE? Stop LAUGH
ING!

If you could, take a
look at all those
failures, all that wasted
potential, all those poor -
ly planned lines, and all
the consequences of
everything that failed,
that brought you here,
to this unexpected 
moment, a bonus track
past the expected ending
into this

GLORIOUS DIVINE NOW