outside in gambols

Here lies a confessional piece. I wrote it last year sometime to commemorate an epoch of literal powerlessness in my life. Before I wrote this poem (as indicated in the first two lines) I had written very little in the way of direct acknowledgment of my on again off again struggle with incapacitation. Since I wrote this poem, I have written more freely (at times more pathetically--allowing myself the occasional wail of self-pity) of my tenebrous condition.

Because such poems are practically and rightfully poor stuff for at-large publication, my little blog here makes for a decent outlet.

The Playground

I have not said enough of the bed

Or the five weeks I spent there

Daily funneling through the slender

Middle of an hourglass

until the end when all of me

Had settled in the bottom.

Five weeks and I’ve only a few lines

To show for it. The comforter—ha!—

Was red, faded from use and ultraviolet

Rays. Windows are crap for stopping

Light and no great conquerors

Of playground sounds either.

Children slide, sling gravel, sing.

Songs of their own invention.

Swing.

The great triumph of some days—

Crawling to the bathroom; the white

Flag of most days—pissing in a bottle.

Family bought CDs of jokes, L’Amour,

Music interposed on lapping waves.

For calmness. For calmness slows

Funneling grit. That was the theory.

At last, I lost my mind. Five weeks

Finding shapes in the ceiling:

Horses, mostly, horses on a carousel

Without poles, without children—

They were all outside in gambols.

Children slide, sling gravel, sing.

Songs of their own invention.

Swing.

What else? It’s important

To be forthright. As I gathered

At the bottom, pinned by the Wrestler,

Watching my million grains cascade

Upon me. Me in the third person—

Out of body because in of it reeks

Of sweat, fear, the last several meals

And unwashed armpits. To be forthright.

It’s important. What else? Envy.

Sadness. Radish-bitter daydreams,

This one of many: Me in a tree,

Limbs like a ladder, up and up.

Children slide, sling gravel, sing.

Songs of their own invention.

Swing.

Sometimes, I sang. I’ve written

Hundreds of songs but none

Of them came to mind. I sang the hymns

Of my youth. God on a horse

On the ceiling, me and the comforter—

Faded, stitched together; it cannot

Budge beneath me, I cannot rise

Above it, we are each others’ jailer.

No bars. Just keys. Jangling

From the ceiling. Do I remember

Any psalms? The twenty-third, is all.

It’s enough. For an hour. Then not even close.

Children slide, sling gravel, sing.

Songs of their own invention.

Swing.

much assembly required

Ether,

Here on Substantiopetrapopulus there is an expression of affection that takes the form of a collection of Others' introspection (thence funneled into the serendipitous perfection of a multi-track compression) in which the enamored one in question, after a session of deep and mesmerized reflection, has compiled a selection of apropos lyrics and a painstakingly just-so progression of musical ministrations.

AKA, The Mixed Tape. One lover to another, or a friend to a friend. A compilation of songs meant to convey a variegated yet cohesive audio-quilt of simpatico sentiment.

Typically, the mixed tape runs between 10 and 30 songs (depending on the degree of the giver's obnoxiousness and/ or the extent to which the giver suspects the receiver needs a thoroughgoing, propagandized force-feed).

Segue:

The assemblage of a poetry manuscript to be submitted to a particular contest, I have found, is like the making of a mixed tape. Except on steroids and for the behoof of an indeterminate audience.

befitting a storm

Here's a little ditty I wrote a couple of years ago commemorating a rare snow for us Birminghamites. We had one of our"winter storms" over the weekend and I thought I'd exhume the poem and post it here for your amusement. Fellow southerners--nod; distant northerners--roll your eyes; elsewhere crows--laugh.

Middle Alabama Snow

We wake to snow

But still incredulous,

Our disbelief like sleep

In dream-deep eyes.

In outsized flakes

Like kindergartners cut

From origami folds,

The snow descends

And reunites

On roofs and shrubbery.

The window watches on

As we look through.

Our wonderment

Is tempered by distrust.

We know the heavy sigh

And shoulder-slump

That come as sure

As morning’s sun, as sure

As he will stand and stretch

His sleep-fresh rays.

Our mittens are

Mismatched and our long-johns

Don’t fit and itch, but time

Won’t stop for us.

It never does.

By afternoon, the thaw

Will break a febrile sweat

Across the knolls

Of matted grass.

With snow in blotches

Like hives-mottled flesh

On hoods of cars

And yellow lawns,

The purple pansy will

Erect its humble head,

Revivified.

So quickly we tie

Our tennis shoes and zip

Our raincoats up. We grab

The boogie-boards

And laundry bins

To sled the nearest slope

And crash and climb and crash

Again. Again.

Then not so smoothly,

Now in mostly

Mud,

But again.

going home

I was born in Lynchburg, Virginia. Small town then. Smallish now. Besides being my birthplace and its atrocious name, it is probably best known for its intrepid cleric--one Jerry Falwell and his more reasonable extension, Liberty University.

The year was 1975. The month was December. The day was the fourteenth of thirty-one--not quite middling.

Within a couple of years, I left Lynchburg behind for the larger town of Richmond where I spent ten years bicycling, shoplifting, collecting baseball cards, playing a variety of tags, whining, and being average at sports, above average at school, and below average at having friends--which was fine because I had a big brother and, before long, three little ones. Life, on average, was good. And, as it turns out (having witnessed and heard-tell of other lives) far, far too good for complaints.

Today, I am leaving for Lynchburg. My birthplace. For a funeral. Too easily ironic to elaborate the irony. In fact, I am troubled to find that my feelings about the trip are ones of alternating hesitation and resignation.

But why? Well . . . I suppose there's my natural aversion to dolor and its wont of sucking one into its melancholic juices, there to marinate until dour, until sour with thoughts of one's own mortality. Thoughts I've overthought already. Already having brushes near enough to taste. (In my experience, that particular taste is sweet, the moment calm, the resignation so pure as to obviate all hesitation. But this irony too is almost too blah to mention.)

What else? Well . . . there's the fact that the uncle for whom the bell tolled is the one I've interacted with the least over the years. (35 since 1975 [he calculated unnecessarily]). So there's a sense that among the nearer family members I will feel somehow unworthy of bereavement. That somehow, when I go to hug a cousin or an aunt, there will be a coolness in my touch that bespeaks my absence from their lives. On one hand, this is a bogus thought. An imaginary exclusion. But on the other hand, I believe there is something to it. Not a bad thing and certainly not a good thing but just a thing. A thing that makes you feel that way without offering excuse or implicating its agency. Just an icky, unavoidable thing.

Anything more? Not much. I'm not a fan of the shrinkray of adulthood. The redoubtable influence of time over matter. The squish of youth beneath the heels of experience. The verdant football yard now barely a swatch of brown grass.

Oh, and I hate, with a capital HATE, car trips. Anything over thirty minutes really sticks in my craw--which is saying a lot because otherwise I have no craw to speak of for all that I know. Craws are like the appendices that way. Unnoticeable until molested. In that case, craws are also like one's feeling upon going home. Not just for a funeral but for an encounter with the living. The rest of us. The flesh-wrapped skeletons, still warm from birth.

something altogether peaceful

I have been in a prosy state of mind over the last week. Re-reading my novel. (Which, by the way, gets worse every time I read it. It's like there are little elves that skitter and twitter and make my manuscript sucky when I'm not looking. I really wish they would just help me with my cobbling.) Then I got a story accepted for publication which gave me a glimmer of hope, fiction-wise; so I've been skittering and twittering and attempting to make other short-stories less sucky. Add my quotidian, prosaic lifestyle to the mix and you've got a prosy state of mind.

That said, here's another fiction excerpt from a story called "Wet Cement." There are two narrative tracks that interweave as the story progresses. Both follow Nathan--as an adult in the past tense and as a child in present tense. The excerpt is an example of the latter. I should also mention that in the present tense, the narrator is given a juvenile voice. It is less evident here than elsewhere. But still, you should know it's intentional; otherwise, you might think me a tad silly. (Or more silly as the case may very well be.)

Simon is Nathan's older brother. Murphy is Simon's oafish friend. Dottie is Simon's girlfriend. The foursome have gathered at a forbidden rope-swing as naughty children will and, in an ill-advised grasp at glory, Nathan finds himself in a spot of bother.

Nathan is hanging from the rope like a horse thief. An idiot horse thief who had been trying to impress Simon’s girlfriend with a circus feat. Only he had underestimated, truth is, everything. He didn’t stop for one second to think what a knuckleheaded thing to even think about. Never mind shoving off the bank and actually doing it.

Murphy is laughing like all get out. Dottie, at least, is telling him to shut up. Someone help him. He’s dying.

Dying? Nathan is dying. What a thought for him. What a pitiful life flashes in front of his eyes. Not even all of it. Just that first time they actually caught Big Bertha and didn’t know how to unhook a catfish, only that there was a special way. That’s what he sees as he hangs, swinging, gasping—him and Simon toting the croaking fish that flopped like mad all the way home for Father to unhook. Nathan is vaguely aware of efforts to rescue him, shouts, wild and fearful. He’s on the verge of something pale, something altogether peaceful. He smiles, drooling, at the image of Father’s disembodied head looking over the back of the sofa at he and Simon and the dripping, croaking, flopping fish. Father looks happy to see them and not like they are going to get whipped for bringing a fish in the house. Mother’s head pops up beside Father’s, to see what there is too see. They’re grinning like kids. Like naughty kids.

Nathan is brought back to panic with a huge, long gasp. Simon yells, “You gotta reach, Natty. You’ll die if you don’t.” On tip-toes and not so steady, Simon stretches a branch towards Nathan’s hands.

Nathan reaches and barely grips the branch. Simon pulls him back to the bank of the gully. He has saved Nathan’s life. For happening so quick, it sure took forever.

“Your face is purple, moron,” Simon says.

This hurts about worse than choking. Being right about to hug his brother out of trembling gratitude and then stiff-armed with a “moron” to the face. He shrugs like no biggie but it is a biggie. It’s a hugie. He had almost died. He is full of love and boiling with hatred. So confusing, still dizzy. He will not cry. He will not cry. Dottie asks him if he is all right and he busts like a dam.

Murphy opens his fat mouth, no doubt to be a giant jerk-wad, some wise crack about the swing or the tears or both. But Simon stops him.

“Just shut up about it, Murph. How’d you like me to send you to the gallows.”

“Like to see you try.”

“Like to see you stop me.” And Simon chases Murphy down the tracks toward Sycamore Street. Nathan is left with Snotty Dottie who’s not so snotty now that she has so recently begged for his rescue.

The two older boys continue on, punching each other in the arm. When they reach the road, they turn left down the Sled Hill.

“They’re going to Finnegan’s Hollow, I bet.” Dottie’s voice surprises Nathan. He had been hoping they could just walk, no talking.

“Sure,” he says, meaning who knows what.

“Were you scared? I mean when you were up there, back there?”

Nathan feels his lip doing that lip thing when you are about to cry after you had already been crying enough. He manages, “Nah.” Like he’s some big tough guy. Like she was not a first-hand witness to the whole blubbery freak-show.

“I was scared,” Dottie says. Her voice is like his mom’s, like Mary’s, he imagines. It coats his insides like Pepto in those commercials. He knows his face is on fire and just looks ahead. His lip has stopped that thing and now he can’t grit the goofy grin out of his cheeks. She says, “Hey Nathan,” not Natty but Nathan, and he stops and turns smack into her puckered lips. They are silky wet like milk and her gloss tastes strawberry. Strawberry milk. Oh boy. Oh boy. Oh man.

been a'visiting

Ether, it's been a while. What have I been up to? Largely none of your business but a legitimate question. Actually, there are no illegitimate questions, only illegitimate people. So, I suppose you are safe on both counts. Though how your Eminent Diaphanousness is even such a thing as to qualify for safety from corporeal matters, I will never know. Perhaps, by insinuating your embodiment in this blog, this dead scroll of ones and zeros and hypertext mark-up, I have solidified your otherwise Zero-Status. I take the blame and in doing so, honor your question and legitimize your Being.

I have been a'visiting family in Mobile, Alabama, celebrating the Fourth of July. Why the Fourth of July? Well, here on earth (Substantiopetrapopulus to you, I believe) and in these United States of America we commemorate our independence as a nation on the day in which our written declaration of such was signed by our whitest and brightest. Typically events surrounding the occasion involve grilled meats and fireworks--variations are acceptable though rare. Even the unpatriotic, snide, and cynical generally take part in the festivities, unwilling as they usually are to pass up a party to prove a point.

(Ether, I confess to being all of those things at odd and slightly shameful times, but for the most part I try to curb my lack of enthusiasm for the sake of the gathering. Besides, at the end of the day, after the guilt of trespass, after the sorrow of spoils, after the tail-chasing polemics, I am glad to be an American--plenty happy, plenty free, and plenty fortunate.)

But I was saying . . . Mobile . . . family . . . my absence from Philosterous-Nonesucherol . . . well, here is a poem in progress to help you get a feel . . .


And At the Mirror Each Time

Thia Grace made out like a bandit

Selling quarter lemonade to uncles

With only paper bills. Jesse lit three-

Foot rods from the sputtering

Citronella candle and twirled

In a spangle of sparks. We all swatted

Gnats and suffered the bough-sieved

Rain to watch the amateur display

Of rockets and mortars, to comment

On how the smoke should keep

The mosquitoes at bay.

But earlier, before the burgers

And gumbo, while kids splatted

Water-balloons and pranced in the blow-

Up princess pool, Annalyn and I—

My newest niece, her wretched uncle—

Trolled the house on doldrums.

And at the mirror each time, we paused

To gurgle and grin—our reflections

So grotesque and magnificent, so full

Of promise and repulsion.

And this thought . . .

What should I tell her now? Now that Earth

Is as good as flat? Now in the moments

Before she naps? Nothing.

Nothing except this is freedom. Nothing

Except we have done a great thing,

You and I, tight-roping the gamut,

You poised, me palled, we gnarled

In this two-hearted body.

Or just nothing. Just sway, whistle

Through teeth a tinny lullaby.

Swallow the words and hum.

Guard against explosions.

Gurgle and grin.

yourself as the you

I wanted the moments of my life to follow each other and order themselves like those of a life remembered. I might as well try to catch time by the tail.--Jean Paul Sartre

So I've been undulating on the foamy swells of the Amorphilacious-Antaginons (aka Facebook) for over a week now and despite the occasional vertiginous crests and the stray stomach-sinking lulls, I feel like I might survive the scare. After all, what's a few soul-wrenching, psyche-anguishing, despair-inducing confrontations with yourself as The Other? That is, yourself as the you-that-once-was. That is, the you-that-is breaching the Nothing, reaching through stubbornly unsubstantial time, and faintly touching the you-that-was as a candle-flame might touch the fog.

Believe in ghosts, Ether, believe because they're out there. They resemble you: in the gleam of an eye or in the turn of a lip or in the cross of the legs. They remind you of you. They are you. Even when you're looking at someone-else-as-they-once-were it's just the you-as-The Other still stuck in the Nothingness of what once was but is no more--textbook case of Ghost encounter. Shiver.

To put it another way, all these old pictures of old friends and old mes gives me heebie-jeebie-willies.

Here's a sonnet--apropos of something above, I think. Or feel, rather.

Elementary

One may say that the eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.

– Albert Einstein

Remember sallow afternoons when we

Would count the passing cars and itemize

By color? Brother, I had open eyes

And gaping ears. I learned lessons for free

That you had bought by sitting in a class.

Who knew that stars were relatively still,

But you? You knew that salt would kill

A slug by shriveling it and that glass

Was made by blowing into glowing sand.

Remember pinching lightning bugs to smear

Our faces green and yellow? We would stand

At neighbors’ windows peering in like ghouls,

(Like what? I asked, secretly cramped with fear.

­Like ghosts, you said) no smarter pair of fools.