I want to get drunk so bad
That I can taste it
And all of the things that I need to do it
Are right here
A bottle of rum and some ice cubes
A sugar rimmed glass
Fresh limes and a willing hand to
Cut
The one thing that I don’t have in my house
So I guess if I want it
That bad
I’ll have to put something on
And go
Out
I think I’ll drink directly from the bottle
Because maybe today
A fresh drink
Wasn’t mint
“Don’t open the door to heaven
Oh, subtle city sitting
along the curves of places
others fly over, without suggestion,
this ode is for you,
for the kindness your people show.
Others stop for food, which seems
reason enough to settle here,
but we sought answers to questions
that we didn’t have the voice or words to ask yet.
Almost every person we distressed
with our presence over weeks and weeks
possessed answers to our fumbled queries—
even if those answers displeased
several senses of decency.
Surely others see the treasure stoppered here
and its propensity to surprise,
so many memories with friends
sewn together around work and around
the chance we will not be here next year.
The most sorrowful sound to hear
is the whisper of the word elsewhere
thrown into the quandary of trusted specters
already so tenuously built on speculations.
You came into our bedroom
Stood beside your father
Slumped shoulders, head hung low
Your hair was slick with sweat and rain
You looked at me through knotted strands
You stood fidgeting like you always do
Your eyes searching for a sign
Filled with three day old shame
Voice shaking as you apologized
The relief and rage I felt at once
No one prepares us parents for
Not in times like these moments
You simply wanted so desperately
To feel free like a “grown man”
Unbeknownst to you, most grown men
Are actually dying, trying to stay young
The precipice of adulthood is harsh
I wanted to scoop you up, hold you tight
Pour all the love into the crack needing filled
That you had spent three days running from
I just wasn’t sure you’d understand at the time
So I gave an affirmative response
Then asked for a hug, holding on
Probably longer than you thought necessary
Maybe I needed it more than you did?
Sometimes offering grace with a slice of silence
Speaks so much louder than words.
I remember when I was little
My papaw had a fourwheeler
Enjoyed with every cookout
By laughing granddaughters,
A worrying grandmother,
And fathers who had one or two beers
Cruising around that huge country field
Years went by
Daughters grew older
And too big to fit on with their dads
That fourwheeler sat
Inside the rickety old barn
Only used by an older sister to sneak around
A while later I saw a fourwheeler again
Rode it with a guy to steer
In awe of how the mountains consumed us
Reminded of the time gone by
Now I remember those joyrides
The wind smacking my face
Blowing my hair beyond hope of control
And I continue to laugh
Like that little girl
Holding onto the man that she trusts
There is a cathedral beneath every man.
Not one built of stone,
but of appetite.
A quiet, ancient thing
lit by the blue flame of wanting.
Some carry it carefully,
hidden beneath pressed collars
and practiced gentleness.
Others let it ring through them
like war bells.
But always—
at the center—
desire.
For flesh.
For gold.
For dominion.
One.
Or all three.
The holy obsessions
around which entire lives are arranged.
A man may speak beautifully of love,
may cup devotion in his hands
as though it were sacred,
may build a home,
father children,
learn the choreography of tenderness—
and still there will remain within him
some private kingdom of longing
for which everything else
is negotiable.
Watch what he pursues
when no one is looking.
There lies the truest scripture.
Some men hunger for women
not even from lust alone,
but from the unbearable need
to feel chosen.
To see themselves reflected
in another body
and mistaken for immortal.
Some spend themselves at the altar of money,
feeding the great mechanical mouth of ambition,
mistaking accumulation
for permanence.
As though enough wealth
might finally silence
the terror of being ordinary.
And some crave power—
that dark, intoxicating current
of bending rooms toward themselves.
They do not merely wish to be loved.
They wish to prevail.
To stand above.
To remain untouched by consequence.
Most men worship at several altars at once.
Sex.
Money.
Power.
The old triumvirate.
The three-headed god
history has forever dragged behind it.
Wars have been waged for less.
Kingdoms buried for less.
Women ruined for less.
And still they call it nature.
But loyalty is not measured
by what a man desires.
It is measured
by what he refuses to sacrifice
in order to obtain it.
And that is the sorrow of it—
how often goodness is abandoned
not in moments of desperation,
but in moments of wanting.
How many men
would rather be worshipped
than witnessed.
How many would choose
the glittering illusion of conquest
over the terrifying intimacy
of being fully known.
“Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere;
They’re in each other all along.”
How can a poet reimagine
what Rumi already wrote
so perfectly?
How can a man not try
to say it, again, for her?
*** *** ***
Tonight, we tried to answer
the impossible question:
What made you fall in love
with me?
You answered, because you were
different.
& you weren’t wrong, are right, it was
because you were different.
But everyone is different, aren’t they?
Every snowflake & all that fluff?
A different different, you reply.
& I understand.
& again
it is enough
*** *** ***
For you. But I’m not
satisfied. I’m a poet,
dammit, & persnickety.
I run my mind around Rumi.
I try to taste the words
on my tongue, until
they un-dissolve.
I settle for what
the English language
can offer.
I didn’t fall in love with you;
I discovered it. Love
at first sight? No.
That implies the perfection
of the flesh, the dark depths
of your eyes, the specific shade
of your skin, the lines of your neck
& the blue veins in your wrist,
the course fabric of your hair,
falling ringlets framing grace,
lush energy like an aura–all these
things that are you, but aren’t you, but enough
to force a hormonal reaction—a pheromone
call and response, making me—trip
—fall—
release–
& relinquish
entire potentials, entire timelines
of a life or thousand more
without a single choice
in our matter.
No—there was not a choice. But
tt was the slip cover pulled away
from the priceless, antique car,
waiting in an unseen garage
for four decades.
It was Toto biting & yanking
at the Wizard’s pantaloons, until
the whole charade came crashing down
& was revealed.
It was knowing, in that instant,
that everything a lifelong romantic
had sought, had thought
he’d wanted/needed/desired/
was right there—on an old woman’s loveseat
in a lackluster, backwater town
in Ohio.
In Ohio!
& finding it in a shape
he’d never foreseen at all
but was just as necessary
nonetheless.
It was, somehow, seeing
everything & everyone
you’d ever been, ever’d be
in the space of
the breath
hanging
between us.
It was a mirror
to an intricate web
of reality, woven
like a scarlet thread
through the tapestry
of the man I was
or might have been
or still might be
all at once.
It was the skipping stone
taking flight,
sending ripples that reshaped
everything.
Everything.
It was mathematical.
It was impractical.
It was parenthetical
yet antithetical
in that anything
theoretical
had just become
the ineffable.
It made no sense
that it made total sense
or that, apparently,
it was reciprocal.
*** *** ***
When my mother met you,
hugged you, she cried.
I can’t even
make this up.
*** *** ***
Let’s close with something
that might sound more like honesty
(not extra, as you call me, as you’ll call this):
Rumi said it better.
But he said it
to someone else.
& that’s kind of the point
I’m trying to make.
It was always going to be
a me saying these words
to a you
on a dingy little loveseat
in Lima, Ohio.
His fingers meander—intrusively—across the sleeve
Of his brother’s Armani double-breasted blazer ash gray
He paints a scowl on his face
Rolling his eyes he asks
How much did that set you back
His brother fails to respond
Label whore he hisses under his breath
He steps back takes a deep breath
Maybe this isn’t the time
To unleash his disdain
After all, he and his younger brother
Have not locked eyes
In more than two decades
He blames their father always placing his brother on a pedestal
Offering praise like it was a plated gourmet dish
Served with delicate herbs garnish
Moves closer to his brother leans down slightly
He grunts
You always felt entitled
Eyes closed, the younger brother still does not answer
The elder brother ponders why he agreed to come
Nothing’s changed
A slight tap on his shoulder he turns around
It’s time
Explains the mortician
He lowers the lid of the casket latches it shut
Locks the gasket
The thunderous sounds of
How Great Thou Art
Played on a pipe organ
Reverberates throughout the cathedral
Face flushed sweat beads leave a watery trail
He balls his fists
Storms out of the sanctuary
* This poem is inspired by the Old Testament relationship between brothers Esau and Jacob
In the morning I will curse this world
and all things in it; the rising sun,
the running greed, and the nameless
voice that has convinced us that this
is how all things should be, but for now
I will curl into the open arms of my
blushing lover and daydream of us
taking care of the fields while
the sunlight gives us soft kisses
and sings us blessings of summer rain,
and I will tell him that this is all
that really matters, our mutual
sleep sacrifice, the others smile,
some computerized creation we call
art on the screen in the background,
and a spark between our foreheads
pressed together as if to say,
if we must fall, we will do so together.
