Let’s do it live
Up here,
right now,
with everybody looking.
Let yer papaw tell ye a story.
Let me tell ya what I done.
I ain’t never told nobody,
but my ending has begun.
And if someone had a knowd it,
they’d a put me in the jail,
but the derned ol cancer’s got me.
Ain’t no reason I cain’t tell.
I was right about your age.
I was put near 12 years old.
And yer mamaw she was too,
and there was this old boy we knowed.
I reckon he was probably 16,
and he done a real bad thing
to your mamaw, and she told me,
and the memory still stings.
I won’t go into no details,
but I tell you it was bad,
and I knew he’d just keep on,
cause the mayor was his dad.
And the mayor and the sheriff,
they was kin some way or how.
So I knew I had to stop it,
and I had to stop it now.
So I took my little rifle.
was my little .22.
Cause I knowed he had one like it,
and he hunted with it too.
And I snuck up in the woods,
well before the light of day,
and I laid down there a waiting.
I knowed he was on his way.
So I heard some sticks a crunchin,
and I raised up my gun,
and a shot rung through the holler,
by the risin of the sun.
I grabbed up the empty shell,
and I took it home with me.
And I give it to your grandma
back in 1983.
She still has it round here somewhere,
and it might be yours someday.
And the rifle, it is yours.
Please don’t never give it ‘way.
I feel fire in my belly,
burning like the fire of hell,
but I know that I ain’t going there.
I know that very well.
For the killing that I did
was a mix of hate and love,
and the Lord is gonna grab me up
and take me up above
to be with her.
if it is Spring
and i saw daffodils in February,
yucca gone wild in Kentucky,
broken ridges devoid of waters
springing like wry grins
while up in Cleveland a little
black squirrel the size of your
heart thumping in the shag bark
hickories distracted me from
my uncles long-winded prose
in front of the place my
grandparents once lived.
but i didnt see clearly what all
i was meant to do besides
get carried away by my cousins.
i forgot when life could resume
that farmers would have plowed
their fields already, and that
red buds could possibly
be presenting with blooms.
i walked through our old house
where when you were alive
foundations rattled with our
wild laughter.
it was carved out, and dank as
a cave with all the implied odors,
and all the beware signs covered
by last years wisteria.
if this is spring let me tell you
it isnt crisp or clean as the
buckeye leaf buds breaking
out in mass hysteria.
it is vestiges, and it is a pond
clogged and it is more
of a refrain.
Travel, I dare you
Quit your job, I bet you’re scared to.
Take a risk and climb a cliff,
Imagine what it would be like to fall off the tip;
It wouldn’t hurt, maybe a bit,
But then you’d have a story to tell your friends.
Do something new
And do it now
Before kids ask you to explain adventure
And you don’t know how.
DISCHARGE
green block of Jell-O
shaking on styrofoam
men standing over you
heirs of your father’s house
feel the forked lightning
burning in rooted scars
PUNCH in your belly hard
CLAP of crashed cars
smell of gasped whisky breath
cold slap of rain squall
wails and entreaties lost
This wind has heard it all
I will avenge you
I am the ozone
smell of electrical
fire in the engine wall
when the ghost shakes your head
you keep on shaking it
eggs of a grey tooth stare
skull split of spider legs
she of the razor blade
she of the naked arms
kissed by an ancient love
thoughtless of current harms
check by the blood pressure
check by the wheelchair
check ideations gone
check by the aftercare
green block of Jell-O
white bowl on orange tray
show them some gratitude
you’re going home today
there’s an adage that says
something like:
you could be the
ripest
juiciest
peach in the bunch
and there’s still
someone out there
who doesn’t like peaches.
which is all
well and good
but peaches
were your favorite.
you loved them.
you craved them.
you ate them all the time.
i told you to
slow down;
that you’d
make
yourself sick.
you’d
burn
yourself out.
you said,
“never.”
you swallowed the pit
because you thought
it would
yield more.
and yet
here we are…
you
with your fingers
down your throat-
puking it all up-
trying to
get it all out-
and me saying,
“i told you so.”
Four in the morning somewhere west of LaCrosse in mid-July, fourteen or fifteen hours since you left Chicago, almost an hour after that last driver dropped you off, the school teacher who responded to your thumb after the guy who claimed to be Agency in Nam but said he couldn’t talk about it let you out, forty or so degrees cooler than that sun-boiled Friday afternoon, making you glad you brought your foul-weather jacket with you but still as cold as any night watch on a quiet quarterdeck, near-zero traffic making you wish she’d offered to take you home and warm you up, when a car rolls up, a window rolls down, and a total stranger spitting at you proves the night is even colder than you thought possible.
The scent of sulfur fills my wretched nose
I’ve been backed into too many corners to be shocked by the events that will follow
1. The burn of bourbon will become my good morning kiss
2. The scale will decline as my body becomes frail
3. The circles beneath my eyes will become the pillows that I rest my head on at night
She whispered softly to me as I emptied the bottle into my hands
“All you must do is swallow, and I’ll make sure you never have another sleepless night, I’ll kiss all your tired tears away, we will live in harmony together.”
The devil has already signed on
it’s Burning Day
and about time.
In my need
to be reborn
I can forget
I unsettle
others with
the shape
I’m in
(what I must
become
before I
become
again).
In this routine,
cycling between
bouts of being,
I’ve learned
I have to wither
slowly to
my worst
then burn
before I
can burst
into
betterness.
This is
my own
sad magic:
I make
meaning
out of ashes,
out of ashes,
I make
triumph.
