Poem by an anonymous friend

And I
wasn't
informed
that you
were the
only one
able to lie
around
here. I
apologize.

Eat your
own words,
poet.

-anon, July 24 4:42 am

Rejection Letter Summary

Mr. Davis,

We regret to inform you
that your submission
has been rejected.
From your biography,
it appears that you are young.
Perhaps when you grow older
you may ascend your current mediocrity
and
we will again welcome
a survey
your work.
One must always hope.

Respectfully Yours

Babysitter

Babysitting,
she called it;
the thing she would
do no longer,

as if I had never
drank colossal
amounts of wine
before,
and
required a caretaker.

She was trying to
insult me.
This is done from
time to time.
It is, occasionally,
more subtle,
but never successful.
There is sometimes a flash
behind
the eyes, you see,
and this brightness
lets you know
when the girl
is no longer just fucking around.

No woman
who actually
held
that sentiment
would stick around.

I did not
break anything at all,
not even me.
Although it is nearly seven
in the morning
I cannot understand why she seems
displeased.

The Places I Disappear

I.

The firmament is concrete,
painted a darker gray
than the normal grey
of concrete
for a reason
that must have seemed
sensible,
at least for a time.

On the floor
is a bright rug,
a girl’s rug,
bordered in pink
and decorated
with green leaves
and purple spirals
and flowers of various sorts.

As is nearly always true,
I have on blue jeans
a black T-shirt (Alkaline Trio)
and while directly overhead
my family indulges their religion

I fall to my knees
then curl onto the rug
(empty suitcases and treadmills as my companions)
and weep.

At first it is the
silent salt,
dredged out of the darkness of mines,
that streams down
in well established trails
that terminate, for mere moments,
on the right corner of my mouth
and the slight hollow
(so pleasing to be kissed upon)
between the hinge of the jaw
and the area directly behind the ear.

Soon, instead of this
reserved dignity,
I am crying out
diminutive nothings
and my body is given over
to the paroxysms of my anguish
that steadily seems to be inevitable.

I roll myself into a ball
and am now choking, gagging
on the breath that
is as automatic as my sadness
and nearly as reviled.

My head, the malevolent malcontent
to blame for all of this,
begins to throb its bass drum beat
and after a time
I stand and give
the sodium
to the skeleton
centered on my shirt.
It is somewhat to the right
of my sternum, which, of course,
is a little out of place.
It is placed more in the sinister direction.
It is perhaps a happy accident,
as it will certainly make stabbing into
my heart
much more difficult
than if my body was made in
the mundane and proper way.

II.

Friends have sometimes
noticed that I take
trips to the bathroom
more frequently than is typical.
I assume that they do not know
the cause of my absences,
but perhaps they are merely being kind.

I can splash some water on my face
and everything is the same again.
I have had bloodshot eyes for my whole life,
at first from allergies.
I have just discovered
by way of a query into my magnificent memory
that I have probably cried
in every bathroom that
I’ve been in
more than three times.

Maybe it is just that no one pays attention.

Though I like to imagine that I am clever
it may be that I simply
do not understand anything at all.
I swear I’ll get that boulder
to the top before next I sleep.

Corelle

A plate shattered on the floor today
(it was not my fault).
It was somewhat of a surprise because
they are supposed to be rather unbreakable.
When I was younger, doing dishes,
I would drop the cups on the tiled floor
to watch them bounce a few times
before finishing the horrendous task
of washing dishes for eight or nine people.

My sister (smallest) walked right into the room
(I suppose she was curious)
although she knew the plate was broken.
As she stood there, a shocked look appeared,
the sort that can only come when slivers
of some foreign substance suddenly
seem to be
too close to uncovered feet.

It reminded me of those who find their coffins
in the rafters or the crypts of decrepit homes
and churches,
with polished granite slabs telling lies about memory.

In New York City
I placed a coin on the grave of Alexander Hamilton.
It seemed appropriate.
Did he have golden disks to cover his eyes?
Does Charon accept American currency?

I often find myself in a room where there
is apparently something quite demolished,
but with frequency I cannot tell
if it is a small sloughing off of my skin and soul
or else a deeper, more sinister
trap that I myself had laid.

When something is truly broken at the joints
and nothing but a core remains,
sometimes if the center of a person
maintains enough gravity it can
(unlike the horses and men of the Shah)
place most things again into their proper places,
but after a time entropy makes slaves of us all.

They think that they are clever

They think they know my mind,
that they can prevent the nightmares
that make me wake bathed in sweat on every night,
that by hiding small things from me
in foolish attempts to foil my freedom
I shall be preserved.

Do they know so little?
Do they think that I am not prepared for the future?
I am ignored,
played on the ivory of piano keys,
mocked and reviled,
cruelly forced to keep on with
each passing day-

The day
with its truculent fingernails
upon my throat
with a teasing leathery grip
(coarse like my father's hands on my shirt collar)
as if life, too, believes that I shall be a coward forever.

The day
with its vitriol,
devouring the vestiges of hope
more efficiently
than the H-two-S-O-four
that shares its definition.

The night
with its never-ending solitude
and the stars like the iris of a goddess,
impossibly far away.
They are nearly all dead, now,
whispering that
it is impossible to tell
differences between
the beauty of life
and the beauty of death.

The morning
with its slashing polluted colors
like the ones my mother mixes on her canvases.
The morning with a song from
The Phantom of the Opera
that always makes me weep,
as he sings
"She may not remember me,
but I remember her."

The morning
with my sisters sleeping on green couches
and my brother in repose on the floor
(he, like I, uses a black pillowcase)
and I am the only one in this darkened world
who seems to take me seriously.

I do not mind.
There is only a pleasure in being right,
in the preservation of integrity,
even as friends and old lovers
and newly encountered muses
roll their eyes
and make their accusations of manipulation.
Yes, I am such a man,
I shall say anything at all
if I believe that it will render me
what I require.

I do not mind
that people do not have time for me,
that they do not wish to see my face
and that they wish to avoid
my voice and cracking knuckles
and madness.

The more literate of them
will realize that
Medea would have
done her dreadful killing
even if she had not been slighted.

It makes no difference
for there are no differences.
We are part of the world-
we have taken our carbon from something
and it longs to be free once again.

Even the most mediocre of magicians
can play a shell game.
It is rather less entertaining
for onlookers
if the opponent
does not wish to win,
although at the end of the flipping wrists and marathon talking,
after choosing the wrong repository of treasure,
you can make a person's eyebrows positively
pop out of their forehead
if from your back pocket you flip into your hands
a shell and a golden coin
and tell the charlatan
(who would happily have taken your money and your soul)
that it is of no use to play games
with street performers.

Nothing happens
that would not have happened anyway.
Somebody has to lose.