I Don’t Mean to Question You

I Don’t Mean to Question You

(“Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s pleasure to give you a kingdom.” Luke 12:32)

I don’t mean to question you, but I will.
Where is the flock, the kingdom, the pleasure, the joy?
Where are the carousels that once made me dance?
Where are the voices that used to elicit my laughter,
where is the treasure I thought my heart sought after?

I’m locked inside my body again,
my brain refuses the sun. The sentences I used to underline,
now are gibberish, a language from another time.
The songs I waggled on keys of black and white
pass through me like icicles of steam. The spark is
dead,
the embers are
cold,
and I waste time like I had years
that will never end.

All my mistakes are on repeat,
all my joys are dead weight,
all my complaints are deaf,
my thoughts squashed by rules that
that I’ve broken and paid for, from curios to
curiosity. I’ve shackled my words to avoid
conflagrations.
I’ve handcuffed my sentences and simply hope
that someone can read my moods. I’ve muted
so much
that I forget half the alphabet. Do I overstate it?

No

Even as I write I edit. I apologize, but days like this
feel like
dying. I hate sleight of hand; I would never deceive you.
But I can’t reveal too much for fear of driving yet another
beloved one away.

Don’t promise me heaven. Just stop with that shit. Don’t
promise me
no more tears
like I need a baby shampoo.
I want a garden here in my back yard,
not a paradise in the clouds.

How can anyone understand when my own
thoughts defy translation? Pain is a trap,
a snare in the forest.
Pain is a mind like a cauldron
boiling with an iron lid around its neck.

Did I say I don’t mean to question? Did I lie?
Pity is not the antibiotic I need,
tranquility is overrated.
But as people have been subtracted from me,
no one has been added.

I’m locked inside the pain again,
and chained to all my secrecy.
I am not finished.
I shall write again tomorrow.

This Day Has Drained Me

This Day Has Drained Me

(“’Don’t be alarmed,’ he told them. ‘You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they put him.’” Mark 16:6)

Today was dusty, though the sky was
airier
than normal.
It’s not up to me to
judge,
what with the law of relativity,
but I’m not sure I can break even,
or that evening breaks me.

I’ve waited for angels to pull me aside,
widen my view,
point out the empty place in the tomb.
Most days it is merely damp.

Not that I don’t hear the simple syllables
that insist
there is more,
much more than this.
It is all the other voices I’ve collected
and the dark strings of connected incidentals
that have swarmed my silence.

There still is a narrator that insists,
an immovable rock or island,
a force exists that resists my localized
view of things. How can this inner cavern quench
such glorious light,
how can a few chemicals in the brain
convince me the sun does not shine.

Whether it’s the smoke from the forests
or the haze from the factories,
this gravity will not let me spin out of control
even when the whole day has been wasted.

He is not here
(they
say)
and I nod in assent.
But if I understand the angels rightly,
(or the record of their descant)
I may find him on the next turn
down the road.

For now, I cut and paste
words and phrases
trying to edit my life.

And Carried

And Carried

(“They departed in a boat by themselves for a deserted place.” Mark 6:32)

I want to be alone (I told them)
and cried after the last one left (and carried her dog out too)
This silent place amplifies the drop of each tear,
(like the boom of a rubber-red playground ball against the hollow wall).
This silent place occupies every open space, couch or chair
(reminding me who, 20, 30, 40 years past of the ones who may still be sitting there.)

I want to be alone (I write them)
and still edit my phrases down the middle of the river (the rapids at the banks
would surely alarm the satellite men scanning people like me for movement
outside the lines)
I edit my phrases (and still call it poetry)
when poetry should be blood on the page, question marks and slashed phrases
so sharp it makes the reader want to rip it out of the book and burn it before
the questions creep between the place where eyes and brain always meet.

(I edit my phrases) I answer, mostly, as I’m expected (and argue once
the last inquisitor has exited, with my deserted self) He carried his doctrine out too.

I am in the dunce’s corner (I chose the seat myself)
without reading (magazine <weekly reader>, book <Fahrenheit 451>,
poetry <cummings, ferhlinghetti, Byron> ) and wear the paper crown well.

I know as much, but no more (only on different matters, different scores)
I have read widely, sang wildly (still different matters, but scorched the scores)
all upon a lonely corner because (enthralled by words my ears heard through my eyes)
the bell had rung, the day was done (and never noticed the last student leave).

I wandered home late (others carried out the doctoral theses well)
walked through the park (barber shop quartets in summer)
entered the front door where

Mother’s Remington always sat upon the dining room table. Next to it,
Father’s box of latin flash cards and a wall of books from Microbiology to
Faulkner. (I learned to edit myself far later, when big men with large desks
misread an innocent piece…)

I want to be alone.

(The faith, reason, here-and-now part of me knows that the disciples found that desert spot and experienced the miraculous feeding of the 5,000. This bit of knowledge I post at the end of this piece in case any firm believer firmly believes I have lost a marble or a screw has wriggled loose.)