Why deny the obvious child?

 

I’ve been listening to this song by Paul Simon (yes, of Simon & Garfunkel) for the past few days.

Maybe it’s the drums, maybe it’s the melody or the lyrics, but it just gets stuck in my head so easily. It sort of sounds like an anthem, as well. An anthem about childhood.

“Why deny the obvious child” that’s inside us all?

 

Aches and Pains

My eyes are dry.

My lungs feel like wool sweaters

rolled and stuffed inside me.

Spine is slowly turning into the St. Louis Arch.

Bones stiff as flint.

Muscles like ink pens, exuding

pain from the inside, out.

I’m turning into cardboard.

I’ll be arthritic

before I’m twenty.

Soliloquy from a Youth

O but if you could see how lonely I am,

for I am young and crave that sickening, sweet,

drink known as pity. And I am lonely;

I house a heart that is heavy with burdens

that many men and women have held before-

but they are new to me, and I state,

once again, I am young, and with youth

comes yet another burden: inexperience.

Once

Once I cried from my powder blue room

my wails rising from my crib

like awful birds- beaks targeting ears

at which to peck.

 

Once I reached inside myself

and found the nerve to kick off the training wheels

and form my own path, unencumbered.

 

Once I found myself in a four square court

and the ball bounced between me

and people who introduced themselves

as they held that yellow rubber sphere.

 

Once I looked at the monochrome clock

that crouched, always in the same place,

on the mocha-brown walls of a building

that always smelled of new shoes and Lysol.

 

Once I found myself in a room-

painted a darker blue, the same

room where that doll-sized impression of myself

used its voice to rouse people from slumber.

Now I can use my voice to do the same,

but in spite of everything,

I take my own initiative

and set forth, out of the crib, onto the street, into the halls

on my own.

And Time Scrolls On

And Time scrolls on,

motioning not to its Underlings

(who heavily preoccupy themselves

with Trivial things).

Time to Say Goodbye

Out

as a candle

dims and breathes its last

dark gray curl of smoke.

Out of the clutter,

the hands of loved ones

not to far off,

the bookshelves standing

like sentinels,

the bedroom walls boarding your body in,

but not your breath,

not your spirit.

You were not afraid.

Fear of death

is for the young people.

You lived long enough, well

enough. It was time

to say goodbye

to it all.

And so you did.

In Response to Dream Song 14

Life, friends, is boring

only to those who make it so.

To complain of a friend’s plights

and gripes, and then complain

of being bored

marks a hypocrite

who has lost his inner child

who would see the great sea flash

and the blue sky and its cottons yearn

and dream

not of fantasy worlds,

but of the wonders here,

in his life.

-In response to Dream Song 14 by John Berryman

What Is to Come

The New Year is but an hour away.

Minutes separate myself

from a new sun- that new jewel

set into its old, black, stone broach-

and my changing life.

 

I have yet to empty my lungs

of old breath.

Have yet to empty my mind

of new doubts,

the kind that are common this time of year.

I have yet to purge my body

of sins well aged, like fine wine

(they lingered even on Christmas Day).

 

And so the clock and calendar eye me

with regret. And I sigh,

slump into the sofa,

play with my old thumbs,

and smile in spit of the fact

that what’s to come

is as unknown to me

as the source of this burgeoning sense of hope.

World in White

I am where the fury cannot reach me.

Claws of ice, of cold glass

would cut my cheeks

when I was younger, when I was

more foolish.

Now the breath of the globe

stirs its perfect blanket, it separates

into particles that cluster into talons,

but once would melt against my raw flesh-

no harsher than a mother’s love.

 

There is beauty

in this rage.

Only where I am is where Earth

could fold a new layer of skin

over itself, and become pristine,

with no black macadam,

no brown roots,

no pink beasts

to disturb its purity.

They are all too afraid.

On and on and on

Sweet lady,

you’ve shrunk to a corn husk,

your eyes bulge with water-weight,

you’re hunched over like a crescent moon.

Prattle on in Polish 

among the younger adults

who sip wine, that sour nectar.

 

I’m a ghost in the room.

I fade into the gray walls.

My disinterest fuels my observation,

and, if you’ll forgive me, my ignorance

towards announced recollection of days long gone 

(fond memories I’ll sneeze at in the future).

I notice the pot bellies– as one grays,

one grows out– the obsession with the menial,

and I realize I want glamour,

I want flashing lights and millions to know my name,

then I won’t be wide eyed, staring at a dog.

Then I’ll be able

to make conversation

with people who mutually want to,

to talk about things 

that actually have meaning.