Sunday, January 27th, 2013: Journal Entry

I have been trying not to think about him, but now and then I do. At those moments, I get a terrible feeling of unease in my bladder: the same sensation I get leaning a bit too far over the rails of a tall suspension bridge and staring at the Elysian green below; wondering if it would shatter the calm of the water if I dropped in unannounced or if the wet would welcome me with open arms like an old and loving friend.

Since it is impossible for me to say for certain without testing the hypothesis, I do not dwell on bridges for very long. I move along.

Exquisite Proximity

Nothing makes me happier than this
gentle pressure where our shoulders kiss
briefly, shifting our positions, when
our bums grow numb. We sit and listen
patiently to a poet droning on
about something I have forgotten
all but the general details of:
a topic vaguely connected with love
and its many disappointments.

How Heavy

How heavy must a heart become
to measure beats in bits of lead?
How awful must the walls of home
appear to add some shotgun red?

How chilly must the bathroom tile
feel to find a razor your
last sympathetic friend? I will
not pretend I know. No more

chilly than the floor usually is.
Maybe no colder than this rain.
No heavier than a feather or a kiss.
There’s no good way to measure pain.

Maybe

Maybe I do love you.
Unless I believe in you,
you cannot hurt me.
Until then what are you?
A mouth. An ass. A joke.
A hole of such hilarity
your slightest whisper makes
me fart with laughter.

I mention this because
I love you. Before you speak,
look in your mirror, dear,
and ask yourself, honestly,
“What can I say to him,
what can I hope to do,
he hasn’t done already,
when he believed in you?”

Ghost Limb

It seems ridiculous, but I can feel
phantom fingers tickling my thigh.
That sensation on my skin’s so real,
I reach out for your hand. Don’t ask me why

I reach for you. I am a lunatic
for dwelling on your presence in this way—
way past the time of your departure. It
must be nerves playing tricks. Nerves love to play.

Everything suggests you’re here right now.
Everything beyond my leg is numb,
calm, relaxed, like after laughter. How
infectious some good memories become:

golden, green, then gangrenous. I’m sure
I should have cut your arm off.

I am sure.

The Escape Artist

Since it is his 137th birthday and since Houdini was one of my earliest heroes and since I have always found him kind of sexy, I thought I would post a poem today in his honor.

The Escape Artist

Why don’t we take a tour of your ribcage?
Feel free to smoke. No spitting, though. It’s rude.
Now pick a person from the rack—an image
To titillate your senses. Something nude.

That’s your companion for Eternity.
Your soul-mate, if you like. He never rots.
You’ve picked a postcard—excellent. Let’s see.
He looks like that Houdini—clad in locks

From head to toe. Will he escape in time?
Reserve your seat for Harry’s greatest feat!
While we are waiting though, we ought to dine.
There must be something in the Snack Bar. Sweet:

I thought I saw a box of Raisin Bran…
You do like Raisin Bran? You look distressed.
No, the box contains no Raisin Bran,
But please inhale whatever’s there with zest.

You’ll find it very hard to criticize
The brute who brings the breakfast—and his rose.
Tears have a tendency to fill his eyes
When you attack him. And he breaks your nose.

Which brings us back around to your cell door:
They recently installed new mirrors—steel.
We had an “incident” on the top floor
When life inside lost all its sex-appeal.

It does get dark in here. That’s why I’m glad
They took my glasses and bricked up the sky.
The other prisoners all called me mad:
But I’ve no hopes to tie me down, do I?

Curriculum Vitae

For Gavin

Something human I can hold. If only
cameras captured living things. It seems like
we’re coming to that freakish place where
men are less mythic, monolithic, flesh
and blood. This must be where the talk-
ing stops, we start to smell something strange,
like gas. We look into each other’s eyes
and see our limits and desires for the first
time. “Is that the moon in there or me?”
We ask the odd homonculi reflected in
our skulls if these small images are souls,

our words wide open windows where
the breeze is soft and tropical. Or gas.
I’m in New York and I have nothing but
a leaky oven here to keep me warm—
words and pictures to manipulate:
the lease I signed allows no other pets.
Maybe I’ll make a cup of tea. First
a piss. It sounds like rain. Listen. Words.
They have no taste, no texture, and no smell.
These are my poems. They are sad—pale
yellow substitutes for the pink tongue

I crave to run along your clean crack.
I wish that words were more reassuring
like maps. I’ve been studying your woods,
you know, North Carolina, your intended
home. I would kill to climb a tree. Should I
apply for a position there? A pine cone?
A cat? A forest pixie? I’ll submit
a sample of my urine—my Curriculum
Vitae. Not my life. A sketch. A crude
outline in a tiddle-cup. Feel free
to test it, once you’ve fed the chickens.

My family is…they’re far away. I called
my granny twice a day for 20 years.
She had a massive stroke last summer, died
in church, just as I said the day before.
I never miss appointments. I’d prefer
a fling with Figaro to Madame Butterfly—
one happy ending to three hours of drama.
My favorite English poem is “To His
Coy Mistress.” My favorite poet must be this
guy, Gavin Dillard, although it is a photo-
finish: you and Shakespeare tied with Ovid.

My cock is 19 inches. Hard. It is.
I’ve never measured its circumference, nor
received complaints about its size—just groans—
which don’t count as complaints. I do like dogs.
I detest Mark Doty. Overwritten. Overrated.
I love one man at a time. I have this
trouble separating my dick from my heart.
I manage desolation with a dildo, since
it doesn’t leave an aftertaste like bad cologne.
I’d rather swim than dance, unless it is
to slam with skins. I worry I will die alone.

Ice Wine

As the light withdraws, I concentrate
On summer, other days, warm memories.
I see the ice congealing on those grapes
Missed during the September harvest, left
Clinging to the vines. Perhaps it’s time

To close my eyes, to let the cold be cold
And not complain about stiff fingers. I’m
Sure I’ll find the strength inside to let
The winter work its magic on me, too.

Red Eye

For Gavin


Your e-mail says the alcohol
Left you tipsier than usual:
It’s made me kind of sad. Beer
Can have that odd effect. It’s weird.

We’re both a bit hammered, unfit
To operate a car, forklift,
Or hearse. Whatever. So we drink
More as we attempt to shrink

Great distances to cans and glasses.
Later, as the Pacific passes,
We yawn, we burp, get up to pee,
Look down. Back to square one. Why me?

I hear a plane descend the sky
Above La Guardia. I try
To sleep. I can’t. I masturbate—
Shoot twice. No help. It’s four. Too late

To call. I drift off to a dream,
A flight domestic in its theme.
I see a man stand at a door,
Searching for keys. On the floor

Luggage: one heavy bag, one light.
He finds his keys. (Pants pocket, right.)
I hear a massive deadbolt click.
Me, I am lying on my stomach,

Naked, warm, my legs a “V,”
And hard again—evidently
Quite delighted he is here.
I pull the covers from my rear,

Eyes closed. I feel him slip a hand,
Between my cheeks. You understand,
It’s really you. That’s why I groan,
“Better late than never, prick.”

Five Months

The last time it was sunny was the first
full day we spent together in Japan.
It started with a cigarette, a burst
of flame, a yellow lighter, your right hand.

Another puff at Denny’s. Maybe two
o’clock we stopped to read a sign inside
Shinjuku Park: “shin” meaning “new.”
I pointed to the character with pride.

You laughed. The cherry blossoms were not gone:
beneath those black, twisted boughs there lay
these soggy little pastel piles. How long
they looked like crumpled Kleenex, I can’t say.

To me, that afternoon seems like the last
nice day on Earth. It’s been so overcast.

Now That I'm One-and-Forty

In keeping with the A.E. Housman theme I seem to have established between this week and last, I have updated "When I was One-and-Twenty," our founder's signature poem, for the present age.

I hope you don't mind.


Now That I’m One-And-Forty


Now that I’m one-and-forty,
I look at love this way:
As t-shirts, socks, and underwear
No longer white but gray;

I look at life like wine
Glistening in my glass,
Turning to vinegar.
Things happen now so fast.

When I was one-and-twenty,
I studied you one night;
I had a test to pass,
But failure seemed all right.

Some light fell on your shoulder,
Some fell on your cock,
Most fell on the floor.
The light came from a clock.

I watched the numbers change
From twenty-one to two;
I watched until two-forty-one,
Then fell asleep. Like you.

When I Watch The Living Meet

Not much sleep last night. When I did manage to shut my eyes for a few minutes of agitated REM, I dreamt I was 20 again, and I was living inside A Shropshire Lad, by A.E. Housman.

This poem kept resounding in my head:


XII. When I watch the living meet


WHEN I watch the living meet,
And the moving pageant file
Warm and breathing through the street
Where I lodge a little while,

If the heats of hate and lust
In the house of flesh are strong,
Let me mind the house of dust
Where my sojourn shall be long.

In the nation that is not
Nothing stands that stood before;
There revenges are forgot,
And the hater hates no more;

Lovers lying two and two
Ask not whom they sleep beside,
And the bridegroom all night through
Never turns him to the bride.

A Shropshire Lad

Continuing on the A.E. Housman theme from yesterday, here is a little poem about a book I had lost and then rediscovered in Connecticut, as I was getting ready to move back to New York.



A Shropshire Lad

Digging through a damp, decaying box
Of poetry books stored in the garage,
I found the one I had been looking for
Grown rather green and moldy—an image

Which might have raised a ghostly smile beneath
The author’s clipped Victorian moustache.
How perfect Housman was the moldy one!
My only one! Lord, how we might have laughed!

To a Parsnip

Inspired by Catullus and offered without one scintilla of commentary*.


To a Parsnip
After Catullus

For Eshu


Goodbye to Heaven’s alabaster root,
Sweet and dirty, hard and cold, a friend
Whose name escapes me now, tall and cute,
Uncircumcised, six inches end to end.

It pains me now to weigh him in one hand,
A knife the other, skinning him for stew:
But there’s more meat on Mr. Parsnip than
My friend possessed. It feels more human, too.



*This be an emended version, dedicated our faithful commentator Eshu, who hath found our original version funny, but our conclusion lacking Catullian bite. We hope he findeth our present alterations more to his Classical fancy. We wish for nothing more from Heaven than happy readers. God be wi’ you all. (Especially the Parsnip.)

I wasted time, and now doth time waste me

What can I say?

A lack of sunshine + a soul debilitating commute + a hideous workload + no time for a decent run = a lack of poetry.

This is why, last night, while looking out at the rain on my way back to Connecticut on the train, I turned to one our founder's most famous lyrics.

To An Athlete Dying Young

THE time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.

To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay,
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:

Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.

So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.

And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl's.

Although your humble author has certainly surpassed his sell-by-date for athletic glory, there may be a few things he can still accomplish in the world of words. When he can get a good night's sleep, take a walk in the woods, engineer a date, he might have more to say.

When.

Stern Measures

It has been an empty few days here at WhenIwasOneandTwenty.

I tried for several hours this weekend to get back into the spirit of the Pushkin project. Alas, when Alexander Pushkin met my poetic shovekin, and I re-read what I had written, I realized that all I was doing was bullying the English language into oblivion. So, I deleted what I had written, apologized to my dictionary and closed my laptop. Enough said.

I turned to Stevie Smith for consolation. But even 73 pages of Miss Smith, with all her wonder and whimsy, have not been able to pull me out of this psychological quicksand I seem to have stumbled into. Sterner measures are called for.

Therefore, I have taken Tristram Shandy down from my shelf here at work. Wistfulness, you have been warned. Ennui, prepare to meet to Eternity. Ye congregated Powers of Depression [a flutter of paper napkins] draw up your several wills and testaments, while mind and body remain yet sound. Uncle Toby hath mounted his horrible Hobby and draws his sword against you!


...

In the meantime, while Uncle Toby and his comical cavalry are busy chasing away the blues, and while I am rinsing beet and horseradish juice from the skin of two Macintosh apples (we seem to have had an incident with a leaky lunch container in our back pack this morning) here is a little piece from a few months ago, when I was feeling friskier, more creative, and more frivolous.


Zeus


While you showered, I put down my book
And yawned. The poet Yeats sat on a chair
Regarding me intensely, with that look
He liked to give farm girls from County Clare,

Parsing their potential, as a lover—
The wayward lock of hair, that muddy shoe—
Eyes darting up and down, like bees, over
A field of Irish clover, crowned with dew.

A dark, demented rain induced the trance
In which I met his scrutiny. Still, I
Was startled when a pair of underpants—
A lightning bolt—descended from the sky,

Landing on the face of Mr. Yeats,
Jolting me out of my reverie.
Clad in a cloud of steam (or was it Grace?)
You adjusted your—artillery.

Easter Sunday, 2009

A sudden rush of cold water from the leaky shower dissolved the nihilistic nimbus surrounding the maniac on the bench below. Like the reader, I had temporarily lost sight of him in this blog because of the steam. Like the reader, I slowly opened one eye to the significance of the loss. Then I opened two. Our fiendish friend was no longer sitting like a philosophy student, removed one step from Reality, as he had been until a moment ago.

Now he was standing somewhat further away, at a more educated distance, leaning against the hot ivory tiles of the wall, the glassy look of learning in his eye. The delicate fingers of his delicate hand were attached to the argent chain hanging from the shower valve above: and, for all I know, they have been delicately entwined there since Wednesday, waiting for the present paragraph to be written.

Released now, from a spell, he lifted his lips languorously toward the icy rain, rinsing his teeth, letting the water bubble effervescently down his torso from the corners of his mouth.

…

I am not certain when it was, exactly, during our discourse—probably in the short, opaque interval between the Book of Genesis and invention of Voltaire—while you were busy bargaining for deceased Victorians in Connecticut—when I realized that the lad not been summoned from the sulphurous depths of Hell in order to murder me—not necessarily, anyway—but that he had, in fact, been enlisted by other forces for a more shocking purpose: INSPIRATION.

“Get Thee behind me, Sir,” I growled, “I will not have myself being inspired by the likes of you. You, and your master, Beelzebub, be damn’d.”

The poor literal-minded fool merely blinked at me with incredulity, as if I were insane. What else could he do, Madam, I ask you? Nobody talks like we do nowadays, do they? He simply surveyed the steam in the room. Satisfied we were alone, and unlikely to be disturbed for a few days, he shrugged his shoulders and followed my instructions to the the very last tip on the very last toe of the very last letter.

Wow.

...




…


Whether the creature was damn’d or not, we shall never know. He certainly was good to me. A priapal putto brandishing a tiny black bow and arrow on his left buttock leaves some doubt in this writer's mind as to both his Earthly pedigree and his Eternal destination. Whatever his Future, he disappears from our story now—into Infinity—with our benediction.

It is with more than the ordinary pang of regret that I admit to the reader, and to myself, before I could could acquire a name, a telephone number, a lock of hair, a leg, some material reassurance that he actually had existed—and a dialogue between us had actually taken place. He had not even patted my knee. Aside from some residual redness around my ear, a fading blush, and some prickly sensations elsewhere, he had evaporated—leaving behind only a hazy memory, a chain of images—a chain of events—in my mind linking us together these last four days.  

...

All I know is this: wherever he went, I wish him well. I can still hear those florescent yellow flip-flops, flop, flop, flopping in the locker room, growing ever fainter, as he hurries away.

Parapluie

The weather today is actually not so bad in New York, in the 50s, but last night I had a difficult time getting to sleep. I think I only managed about an hour of solid slumber. And I am at work now, so I am feeling a bit obliterated.

Here is a vivid memory, a vain attempt to perk up my spirits.


Chanson de la Pluie

I said, “No thanks,” to Noah,
While crossing 14th Street;
He seemed to be selling umbrellas
Out standing in the sleet.

Most passersby ignored him:
He wore a puffy coat,
A golden clover pendant,
And he coughed, to clear his throat:

Unbrellas, unbrellas, unbrellas!
Unbrellas! He coughed again.
Unbrellas, unbrellas, unbrellas!
Unbrellas beat the rain!

Advice to young readers.

Hopefully the lapse into free verse in my last post did not leave the lyrical foundations of your psyche shaken.

The last--or maybe the second to last--thing on Earth I would wish to do as a poet, a prophet, or a purveyor of fine, rectified spirits would be to send you out lurching into the night--like a little lost lamp--with nothing concrete to hold on to.

Concrete may not be the most comforting substance to grasp--I prefer men wrapped in mink--but, as a writer, I find that whatever delicacy concrete lacks in terms of Art, it more than makes up for in rude Reality.

Enjoy.


Love is a Luxury

Love is a luxury you can’t afford;
I know that this knowledge may cause you pain
But who has time for tenderness, or
All of this messing around in the rain?

Come over here, precious, under this light:
Now, let me have a good look at you.
You probably gave your Mom quite a fright
When you emerged from that Bar and said, “Boo!”

I am just kidding. Isn’t Life funny?
Almost nobody has a good time—
Even on days when it’s more or less sunny...
Well, here’s my advice and a dime.

The lips, they cost extra. So does the bed.
And a goon with a gun collects the fee.
So, don’t let his liquor go to your head.
You will be charged for everything—you see?