It Only Breaks Along the Cracks

As he sat there, Freud-like, scribbling on yellow steno paper, He remembered—or he thought he remembered, maybe he just remembered the stories— when he was two and was locked in the car the faces of giants at every angle trying to set him free his mother screaming silently just outside the glass— fear, confusion, heat— they broke the glass but it didn’t shatter— put your head down cover your face baby— all the pieces stayed together a transparent jigsaw puzzle the man punched it and broke through the air came in cool.
He remembered it for only a second at the sink —I’m cracking up spinning out— metaphors come to the insane there was no logic here —hold my breath, no breathe— all he had to do was the dishes he fell to the floor plate after plate fell hurled their china shards in a spiral across the yellow linoleum red dots across the sunny yellow— he had wanted hard wood, but— Someone had to get in past the panic punch through —insignificant so major— come, cool, inside
She held his head to keep glass from shattering
not knowing it had to break to let in air.
Because it only breaks along the crack
And you may fall in the mire of madness
with only the little dwarf pills to join hand to hand to pull you back
and afterward the shame—
there will always be the shame—
the how can you do this to your family shame

and he must say to the sinking soul lying on the couch beside him,
“you can learn to swim from two types of teachers,
the one who always perfectly split the water
and the one who almost drowned.”

Doctor's Prescription

You said, “Not ideas,
but in things.”
Like wet farm tools,
or the last plum,
or white chickens pecking at the dirt,
or
shards of my teacup
on a wooden floor
in a lake of amber tea.

Stones

White, smooth, weather polished stones.
My grandmother and I collected them in the park
behind my house. Or rather she watched me
as I chose each one, somehow instinctively,
and placed it in my pocket.
I’m not sure on what merits I made my choices,
which to leave by the gnarled oak tree
and which to plant on each side of me.
I felt sorry for all the orphan rocks and wanted to take them all.
But choosing one means leaving another,
and perhaps they chose me anyway.
Some were tiny like bird eggs.
Some were larger like the cobblestones
used as ballast before paving the downtown streets.

With these, I would fill my pockets until I could hardly move,
almost doubling my weight with rubble.
I would sway with the weight of the mounds.

I have kept these stones since that day,
lining my pockets with their heavy affection.
Sometimes they have kept me from floating away.
Sometimes they have caused me to drown.

Wedding Blessing

This is a blessing
on all the forgotten days,
the normal days,
the Tuesday in January days
when nothing is really happening and
there is nothing springing eternal.

This is a blessing
on all the angry words,
the “you’re just like your parents” threats,
the fleeting “I should have never done this” doubts,
the fear he will never understand her,
and the horror when she does him.

This is a blessing
on the bad breath moments,
the haircut mistakes,
on the time when her hips grow as quickly as his belly,
when hair recedes or relocates,
when the back is stooped and the grasp shaky.

This is a blessing
on the “we can’t afford that” moments,
the loss of money or pride,
the denial of self
that doesn’t feel like denial when the two are one,
the nights when holding is the only touch desired.

This is a blessing
on the weeping so strong
it shakes the body
and matches to the beat of the heart
of the one you are cradling,
on the fever at midnight and the glimpse of final goodbyes.

There is much to be treasured in romance
and the candlelight specks in sparkling eyes,
but this blessing is on the deepest roots
that burrow far below a kiss
through sickness, sin, and madness
to the nurturing of tears.

Unaware

I know you didn’t mean it to me directly,
but in one poem (exceptionally read), you stuck a huge stick of dynamite up in me and
blasted everything I believe in,
and I don’t know how I feel about that.

Although I applaud, from a place as deep as my doubt, after everything you do,
I sat there silent, and then left the room.
I didn’t have anything to say.
I hate feeling stupid.

I felt like a fourth grader when the cool kid walks up to him
and says, “You’re stupid,”
and then punches him in the face.
That puny little guy goes away and pretends it doesn’t hurt until the swelling goes down.

I wanted to say, “Hey, I hated it like you.
I doubted it. I kicked against the wall of human suffering.
I wandered into churches at night and shook my fist at the stained glass above me.”
But it got stuck in my throat.

I have fought this fight before with
Sylvia Plath and Charles Bukowski,
and a hundred other poets—like you­—whom I love,
but who—like you—would hate what I am if they knew me.

I don’t feel the hatred you say engulfs my beliefs. I wanted to, but
I hear your words ricocheting down the halls of my mind,
and I can see down that hall because of the sparks made by your mastery of sound.
And I love what that has done for me as an artist.

Some would say, “I feel pity for somebody that doesn’t believe in God,”
but that’s just arrogant,
and I don’t feel particularly proud of myself right now nor condescending.
I definitely don’t want to be the sole representative of a two thousand year old religion.

I don’t feel wounded
because I know you weren’t angry with me;
I’m not sure you were angry at all.
I feel a little novocained right now, and I have to come to.

Maybe I love you
because you shook the tree I sit in
and if a tree is strong enough to sit in,
it’s strong enough to shake.


I guess I did take it personally
because I have read the book cover to cover
and took it in, like a lover memorizes a face,
and I actually thought it out instead of just accepting it
in a ribboned box at Christmas.

I guess it bothers me that sooner
or later we reach this fork in the road—this diversity fork—
and we can look at each other and be tolerant just so long before separating into different paths.
I see you getting smaller in the distance.

I guess I wonder if two people
build on different foundations, that are,
to the other one, invisible,
can they ever really see the other person’s building at all?

I guess I wonder
if you knew what I actually believed,
and that I bought into what you see as lies,
if you would still respect me.


And I hate that.
Because I really shouldn’t care.

Finding Me

I wish I wrote my poems with such style
That everyone that heard would be amazed
At how the syllables danced, all the while
Enchanting readers helpless, listening, dazed.
But I don’t do that.

I wish I could make love to the erotic poem.
One that slowly slips the blouse of disinterest off the shoulders—
shhh, don’t resist--
to fall carelessly on the floor,
and holds each curve of metaphor adoringly
before worshipping their perfect creation.
The one that licks around the edges of intent,
pulling gently with the lips,
and guides open the legs of entendre,
exploring and savoring each drop of response
as it probes the mind of the readers
slowly, rhythmically
deliberately,
looking up at them,
until it forces them with consuming shudders to come
to understand exactly what I intended them to feel.
But I don’t do that.

I wish I was a master of spoken word
demanding my message be heard
or I’ll knock you ‘side the head with my diction
the prediction in my fiction
forcing you to grab on, hold tight,
spin around,
shaking you,
breaking you,
making you
love the mouse that roared
in my house that soared higher than anybody
ever thought poetry could take them.
I could throw in an “ation”
like syncopation
with the nation
of anticipation.
I wanna curse
and be political,
maybe even Democrat.
But I don’t do that.

All I can do
is stand
on white tile
and bleed
and cry as I try to clean the mess
and hope
that someone who hears me
feels somewhat warmer
knowing that the coldness of the world
is shared.

LIfe in a Second

What is this other life I live?
Do I take on divinity
and create an image
of what I wish I was,
carefully selecting the items of me I
like and forming out of digital clay
only what I find tolerable?
Starting from scratch, do I
throw away the original blueprints
and build the new stronger,
better,
faster
version of Poet 2.0?

Or do I merely
birth a crying babe
into pixilated life?
A form released from molecules and age.
A man more like meThan I could ever be myself.