Poet Songs and Jazz Bands

Poet Songs and Jazz Bands

(“You may drink from the brook. And I have commanded ravens to bring you food there.” 1 Kings 17:4)

I used to sit right up front,
I didn’t want to miss a thing. The way the sound passed
through the throat of the poetess I loved. I didn’t want
a single note to drop on the darkwood floor. I used to
write whatever came to mind.

There were rooms like water, the saxophone streamed over
the casement in background sounds of summer meadows.
We liked jazz, we loved Brubeck,
we danced if another would dance first.
There were lazy brooks
that smoothed stones for us to put in our pockets
and display on our shelves at home.

I used to hear the espresso hiss, black as ravens served in
ceramic thimbles. The troubadour never missed the chance
to soar between sad eyes and aspirations. We breathed the
same air, heavy like upholstery, waiting for the piece of bread
we would pass from table to unknowable. We never cared
for
the first cut or the upper crust,
we saw visions in the cups of wine set between us.

But some venues close and become
parking lots or clothing stores or memories lost
in youthful ideals. We thought we might find it again.
Maps are sometime edited, locations pressed flat
and forgotten.

Now I sit near the back,
if I go anywhere at all. Though today I did invite
a bald eagle whose white face and plume
seemed to take in everything. The sun broke the
field where cattle grazed
into perforated patches, an opportunity hatched
between land and sky. Looking past the clouds I
returned, still unsatisfied.

There are streams that never evaporate, if only
in mind.
There are birds that sing the songs you once heard
from poets, jazz bands and campfires in a simple
Kum Ba Yah.

Drink with Me

Drink with Me

(“What man is like Job? He drinks derision like water.” Job 34:7 as spoken by Elihu)

What else would I drink when you offer such bitter libations?
What have you offered me but your sour incantations?
When you sat at my table I offered you the sweetest wine,
when we sweat away the afternoon I always filled your water first.

You are false springs, for you make me false with what you
have attempted to offer me.
I will not take your sour wine, your vinegar, when I have said,
“I thirst.”

And, you, with a tongue red as fire,
never inquire once about the weight I carry, the burden I
cannot
unpack without
it being filled again.

Every morning begins the same,
every evening ends in pain,
and your favorite saying is “get over it’
and I would gladly do so if it would
get over me.

You are false springs, siphoning your poison into my soul,
you make me false with your projections, your supposed hologram
of my mental apprehensions.
What questions have you asked to find the reason my
love has turned to pain?
Oh, you asked them once, and never asked again
because it did not fit with your preconceptions
of what a man like me should drink in the desert.

If you offered a top-shelf gift poured in crystal,
I would drink slowly with you, never dismissing the distilled
liquor you sacrifice for a friend. But, in the end,
you’ve only brought the bitterest brew and accused me
of drinking it long before you.
Truly, I would offer you the barrel-aged best
if you would only stop for a moment, cease your
enmeshed arguments and breathe with me a while.

I’ve seen your millstone, the albatross around your neck,
but I have not mentioned it. And now, burdened as I,
you double the weight I carry by words too heavy to bear.

If I could transfer every fiber, every nerve, every misgiving,
every quiver of my words, every question of my faith,
and every battle I have fought to keep the demons at bay;
if I could transfer them to you, so you felt them. This time.
This space. This thirst. This heat. This dirt and disgrace…

…then perhaps you would drink with me something better than
sulfur springs. Then perhaps you would hold your tongue,
hold my hand, join me and either weep or sing for my agony
when you arrive so late to the party.