they think this
is easy
that all it takes is
a snap of the fingers
and the words just
magically appear
on the page
they don’t understand
the pain, the scars
the horrific memories
that make you cry
the fact there is
no joy
the rainbows fade
into a ghetto where
you saw a man shot
down on live television
Through the open window
the four o’ clock sun glistens
against the fretboard as my guitar
glances back at me from
the corner of the room –
I’m not much of a musician,
but I’ve had more success with music
and certainly made more money
than I ever will penning poems,
but these days the only ones
that’ll hear me strumming strings
are my neighbours, or flatmates
and I like it like that –
as a way to unwind from the day
and the madness outside on the
blood and piss stained streets
before I stare at the blinking cursor,
and at that I then move the slide over
the fretboard as the guitar sounds
like a distant howl in a moonlit forest,
a rhythmic lapping
of waves against the shore
and then a traffic accident at rush hour
as I hit the wrong note –
I consider adding some words to the song
thinking back to one beautiful mess,
before everything was said
and smile as I find some different to play,
knowing that some songs
like memories
are better off without the words.
‘Beware the deadly under-dose’
said Marty Matz
and he’s right, of course,
he would also constantly beg
and borrow cash and
wouldn’t think too much
about spending $50:00
on a bolognaise sauce
or buying a busy bar a
round of drinks with the
money he borrowed:
Marty had a taste for
opium and brandy,
he was charming and
captivating and funny
and intelligent and
wrote astounding
poppy-drenched
surrealist poetry,
he poured wine over
Corso’s coffin
and read his poetry
to jazz;
he was beautiful
to some,
a bastard to others
but poet to all.
There’s the Fact,
and After the Fact —
the silence of a new apartment,
hugging the kids too hard,
watching them manipulate.
It’s his telling friends you took him
to the cleaners, cold stares
at soccer games.
After the fact is buying hundred dollar jeans
then eating ramen for a week,
lying about your age,
your weight.
It’s wondering if they’re mama’s boys
or gays still in the closet,
what to do with small talk,
stretch marks. It’s settling
for a 6 because you’re horny.
The Fact’s a piece of cake.
i etched tally marks
on yr tombstone
you strung miniature
skulls on jute twine
across my crib
an early lesson
a tiny abacus where
i leaned italian math
by subtraction
you taught me
i was only as good
as my last scribble
my last etching
as i take my next
transfusion
with archival
ink
i cover
the holes
in the wall
with
dreams
of the
dead
crashing upon me once again
i remember sitting at
the top of my stairs
listening to some
sad fucking songs
i’m sure the end
of the world was
crashing upon me
once again
it was the last
good cry i ever
had
almost thirty
fucking years
ago
they beat it out
of me when i
was young
you would think
the adult years
would have been
better than this
____________
as long as we celebrate our ignorance
it’s easier to hate than love
harmony is some mystical
thought only meant for
songs
it’s easier to teach a child
to be racist than have them
learn long division
and as long as we celebrate
our ignorance
we will never mind the
chains around our necks
or the electronics around
our ankles
attack ad after attack ad
and don’t worry
the cycle for the next
election starts in just
a few weeks
and we wonder why elected
officials never get anything
done
and i’m supposed to give
my last few pennies to
someone who doesn’t
need them
i forget what book of
the bible told me i’m
required
Miss Hooker threw me out of Sunday School
for singing I guess Jesus loves me when
Yes, Jesus loves me are the correct words
and then let me back in near the end when
it was time to say the Lord’s Prayer and
she even made me lead the class in it
and was looking and listening as she
stood beside me to make sure I didn’t
crucify the prayer as well, that’s what
she said I did to “Jesus Loves Me,” too.
And she kept me after school, she set
free everybody but me and then had
me stand in front of her desk as she asked
Do you have a demon in you, Gale, that
makes you sin like you do in Sunday School
–in Sunday School!–because that’s a double
-sin that one day God will get you for and
when you go to hell Satan will get you
all over again even though you did
exactly what he hoped you would do? What
could I say? I’m sorry, Miss Hooker, and
I was just having a little fun, but
she answered with Some fun it will be when
your classmates burn in Hellfire because you
led them into sin, so we’d better pray
about this, young man, so we got down on
our knees, I’m only 10 to Miss Hooker’s
25 so I have less space to fall
and she talked to God with her eyes closed and
head bowed and her hands set like praying hands
but all I really remember was Lord,
help me to teach Gale the error of his ways,
Amen, because I had one eye opened
to watch her there, kneeling helplessly but
thinking herself mighty strong, like the meek
who inherit the earth, I guess, and when
she opened her eyes I closed my opened
one and she said, You may look now, Gale,
so we got to our feet and I’m damned if
I didn’t seem taller or at least she
was shorter. That’s how I know what love is,
or at least one kind, the kind that wants to
make babies even if you don’t know how,
which I don’t, but I think that it starts with
getting married, which we will, when I’m old
enough and she’s enough still young. I tried
to tell her so but instead I started to
cry. Which is good practice for when I’m grown.
