columbia drive
sometimes i wonder if i ever left that backyard. on my knees digging in
the hillbilly dirt with a plastic spoon for nightcrawlers, bottlecaps,
.22 shells & the lost scriptures of saint ishmael. dressed much as i am
now in white t-shirt, blue jeans & fifteen dollar tennis shoes. a string
tied to my wrist with a sparrow attached to the other end. a feathered
facsimile of a guardian angel circling overhead on the lookout all the
way to the dead end of a gravel road for copperhead snakes, runaway
automobiles, any potential heavenly black marks, enlightening koans in
secretive manila envelopes covered in wet leaves, any schools of dead
presidents & their sharp-tongued flunkies who scold birds simply for
being birds.
i stood on the riverbank thinking those diamonds glittering on the water
aren't any more shiny, any more beautiful than the abandoned lot across
the street littered with broken glass. i ran through waist-high weeds as
grasshoppers explode out in front of me & the seventeen year cicada
drone sounds like what i imagine an alien invasion would, till i get to
a tree stump riddled with potshots & unloaded questions that have no
choice but to go against the grain. where i sat wondering how to
overcome my alter-boy guilt. how to turn the tables on ahab, abraham &
other archetypal protagonists. how to cut my way out of white whale
belly with only an alias & penknife.
scarlet fever
one hundred-five degrees & rising above the black veil between life &
death to a world of porcelain gloss & gelatin consistency. where
television squeezes out ghosts & school books are burned in effigy. a
world of arrogant isolation & superimposed wholeness. running the gamut
from lamentation to ecstasy in under ten seconds. too new to ever be
taken for granted. too high to be mistaken for even a bird. it was like
looking through a viewmaster times ten.
i was exorcised of the ordinary at an early age by feverish
hallucinations that kept the world at a quarantined distance. blessed me
with an ambidextrous logic, a precocious insight into abstract thought
that gives true freedom of expression. my frame of reference stretched
wide open to surrealist possibility that let me riff off not only the
profound & absurd but also the hidden, unnoticed. let me test the
limitations of rational thought & correct pronunciation.
but it also gave me an exaggerated, hyper-sensitive response to even
dull, innocuous sounds & colors, an at times overwhelming counterpoint.
little tolerance for lowest common denominators & banal cultural
checkpoints or icons.
part black elk, part john the revelator & part absent-minded zen
trickster; all attempts to indoctrinate me into the ways of never-ever
land failed. my roots weren't all that deep but my antenna more than
made up the difference.
from "monster poems"
the monster with the child-proof head beckons to me. offers me
mind-candy guaranteed or
your soul back-to clean up psychological clutter, wipe away bad dreams,
clear your conscience until it shines like new.
*******
the monster with the snake-oil tongue hisses in my ear-how much longer
do you think you can get away with not knowing the odds? pulls something
out of his pocket about the size of a fist, wrapped in a piece of cloth.
asks me if i'm a gambling man.
*******
the monster with the twist off head & a bottleneck offers me a remedy
for that aching heart & all those other parts that can't be tamed. tells
me-sometimes its necessary to invent an occasion. says this will take
care of the rust in my wheelhouse.
*******
the monster with the heart-shaped head & too much make-up proposes a
deal-forty nights for the price of one. knowing full well i can't even
afford one night. offers me unlimited credit. i'm a bit leery because
she never pulls back what could be a bridal veil or possibly a burial
shroud.
*******
the monster that looks suspeciously like me, possibly long lost
kinfolk-offers me locust & wild honey along with a lump of wet clay. it
seems like a reasonable alternative, but there's one catch-i have to
sign up for permanent graveyard shift.
*******
the monster with the feline features invites me to slip on some
feathers. they fit like a glove. asks me-what's it going to hurt to take
a little test drive. calls me sparrow. seems to know how to pull my
strings.
*******
even the devil himself hits his knees sometimes. strikes a pose of
submission. though its a hollow gesture, some angels fall for it.
