20:
your child is dying
in some version of america
i never wanted to know
the poem slips into my blood
at five in the morning
without a sound
we were closer to
something beautiful at one point
i think
were alive in a different way
that couldn’t last
and my voice gets too loud here
my son is asleep in the next room
the kitten curled up on his pillow
and the edges of this day
have begun to drag themselves
out of the darkness
what i wanted
wasn’t to be someone else
but maybe someone
better
not a priest
but a conquistador
a phoenix
and i am tired of feeling
gravity’s pull and i am crawling
towards the year of
crucifixion
belief in nothing is still
belief
but april refuses to see this
what grows between us
becomes something more complex
than war
20:
this will be my year
blood and famine
and small crucifixions
and there is nothing i can do
to stop any of it
the shadows of birds
across
the walls of this room
the names of the dead
written on tiny scraps of paper
buried by the water’s edge
but nothing grows and
nothing grows and
nothing grows
and it’s october
and the wind cries all night
tears your face from my mind
and then it’s november
the missing girl turns
seventeen
her parents walk away
from their religion
let the flowers
fall from their hands and
gather up whatever bones
they can and i have no
words of comfort
i have prayers
but no god
that the sounds are made
at all
is the important thing
20:
“Uh huh, yeah. No, I’m listening; stuck at the office; broccoli in the steamer in half an hour; asshole boss – you said it first -; deadline at nine so no later than ten; chicken breast thaw in the sink.” Mumbling on the cordless, wipe afternoon Koz-Zone cartoons out of my eyes. Mom’s staccato instruction, as though it was not mantra every other night this month.
“No. I did my work already, Jesus.” Homework’s unblemished fill-in-the-blank Spanish 1 workbook nestles safe in the nylon nest of my Jansport. Big toe nail scrapes on the white/blue plaid gray linoleum of the one man kitchen; shuffle, shuffle through white tube sock into kitchen, shielding eyes against the halogen track lighting. First light since the last light of dusk set over the Torco building, diving behind the Chicago Public Library; jumping turn-styles at Jackson Blue Line, the dusk heads to the West-side.
“Dad says that he’s got another or two test-drives – whatever, one or two more. Happy? – Anyway he says that he’s going over to the hospital to check on Bri and then he’s gonna try to meet with the doctor, so he doesn’t know when he’ll be home and to eat without him.” Dad sleeps since school let out with “headache” as hello. Brian mechanically breathes infant intensive care today with no visiting hours. Breaking Jewel broccoli on the ash Formica counter. Tracing the foreground pink translucent boomer-rang with index finger tough, trying to get them to take off. Dad sleeps through broccoli banging and sailing counter-pattern boomerangs. He sleeps, still losing the pigment from his hands.
“I need you to sign this thing for me for school tomorrow. No, I didn’t get into no trouble – fine any trouble – I’m failing gym. Jesus, you don’t need to scream, it’s gym for Christ’s sake. I dunno, I just don’t feel like it. It’s stupid running and climbing ropes and basketball without shirts on; it’s all stupid. Is that a good answer?” Yanking the freezer door open, swinging back on two hinges hard and bouncing closed again. Opening a second time soft, taking two vacuum-sealed pink-ice breasts out, “Yeah, I’m doing it right now. I’m making enough for everyone. I thought you said I could go talk to Dr. Tamomi during gym.” Pealing the wrap off the breasts, “thunk, thunk”, they click together like stone in the streaked steal sink, knocking flecks of pink frost blood off. Blood snowflakes melt in to puddles, looking like Hi-C fruit punch teardrops.
“Yeah, I can hold Mom.” Above the molted blue-gray cabinets, smiling black faced Uncle Ben and his five-minute rice come down “shthump” on top of the boomerangs. Shuffle, shuffle; Dad’s thin black socks come into the kitchen, groggy, shifting toward the drawer where his afternoon aspirin are. His swollen, baby possum eyes trying to focus on the elements of dinner, “Mom working late again?”
“Mom” mouthed to his shaking head. “Not now dude. Just tell her that I’ve got to deliver a new M3 and a used Audi four-door. Then I gotta go see Chuck at the Cruther’s funeral home.” “Already did.” Handing him keys, checkbook, and wallet from the ledge of the pigeon-shit white washed window. His chalky hands dart shameful, quick into his slack’s pocket. Color started leaving Dad’s hands almost a year ago, when illness removed Brian from Mom. “Thanks dude, but I think I’ll train it again tonight. I might grab a quick drink with the guys later. See you tomorrow and try not to be up to late, huh?” Front door opens and closes leaving the Old Spice from Dad and the stale hallway musk of chlorine and Berber carpeting in his wake.
“No, that’s fine I can keep holding. Nothing, just sitting on the floor waiting for the water to boil.” Digging under the sink, grabbing the can of Scotch-Guard and the stained yellow rag, applying liberally. Breathing deep, breathing deep until the evening shudders, the atmospheric sucking sound of the South loop, the nothing of the apartment, the boiling water, the Mom on hold; all of it is replaced by “wawawawawawawawaw…”. Sideways in giggle fits and another hit, prism rainbows from the “Pacific Mission” neon cross up the street stream fantastic onto the floor, dancing for me. Light to white; gasping upright thinking “I’m blind, how long was I laying there, I can’t feel my lips, am I dead or have I been, did I burn dinner?”
“Mom?” Two minutes passed sitting there. Water beading, threatening a boil. Holding, still. “Wawa” fades to the return of the silence, popping and hissing, rolling warped like the Frank Zappa LP Mom and Dad used to listen to when they’d read the Sunday Tribune together fifty four Sundays ago. Smallish last hit to stop spinning the wrong way, throw can and rag alike back under sink.
“Yeah, I’m still here. No that’s ok. So the doctor said you gotta go to the hospital now? Did you tell him you have to eat, too? Ok, it’s ok. I’m sorry; stop crying everything is fine. Maybe they’re letting him come home. Yeah, I’ll still eat, good night.” Grasping Fruit Roll-Ups with warm Diet Coke in one pink hand and Scotch-Guard with rag in the other pink hand; curling up on the couch, sleeping there.
10:
It’s a matter of timing, you see,
Whether one survives. Survival is
Related to whether one zigs, or zags,
Or pirouettes perfectly, or just
Hunkers down at
Exactly the right instant
By accident.
You take Jimbo, for instance.
Thirty-five years ago a pack of cigarettes
Cost eleven cents in the Ship’s Store
Outside CONUS.
That’s a buck ten a carton,
Any brand you like.
Lucky Strike was the favorite,
Short, sweet, harsh.
Pall Mall was a coffin nail,
Second only to king Camel –
Shredded bullshit –
Smoked only by the bravest.
No one smoked filter tips,
Which were for pussies;
They did not serve up that one
Sweet, raw cut of tobacco
Which you could spit out
Cool as Bogart.
Winstons were acceptable,
Even though they were filtered.
I don’t know why.
Maybe because Winston-Salem is in Carolina,
In the South,
Where everybody smokes.
Menthols (Kool, Salem)
Were for pimps and benny-boys.
The US Navy expected us to smoke.
Boys are manlike,
Susceptible to man things,
Which the Navy knows.
The best way to control a man
Is to control his vices.
Why else would they stock the Ship’s Store
With smokes less than cost,
Or perpetuate a myth as salty as the “Smoking Lamp,”
Or slip four-butt mini-packs
Into each and every C-rat carton in the Fleet?
Smokes were General Issue,
Like Beans and Weenies, and Fruit Cocktail,
And Undersized Asswipe.
The Navy wanted us to smoke
So we smoked.
We were good at it, too.
Gung Ho.
Squared away.
I knew one Texas boy who could blow
A humongous smoke ring clear across the compartment,
Then, with the same lungful,
Blow a second smoke ring right
Through the middle of the first one!
He was held in high regard.
A bosun striker with buck teeth
Could blow SQUARE smoke rings!
(Two dimensional ones, of course,
Not cubes; Not even a bosun’s mate
Is THAT clever).
Every hand smoked his own style.
Some smoked fast – hot boxing, we called it.
Others lipped ‘em, wetting the mouth end with their spit
And making it hard to bum a drag
If you were squeamish.
No one held his cigarette like a damned Civilian,
Between his fingers, hot end up.
Sailors learn early to cup the burning coal
In the palm of the hand
To shield it from the spray and the wind
And the eyes of the lookout.
Everyone smoked while the eagle shit,
Except the college boys,
Who never amounted to much anyway.
If you ran out, you bummed:
“Borrow a smoke?”
“Got a fag?”
“Bum a weed?
“Gimme a nail!”
“Catch you payday,”
“Chief owes me 7 for 5,”
“Man, I’m havin’ a nicotine fit!”
If they had jacked the price up to
Ten bucks a butt, we
Would still have smoked, because
That’s what the Navy wanted us to do,
And that’s what we did.
Even if they had passed a reg against smoking,
We would still have smoked –
Bootlegged them, or growed our own,
(Like the applejack we brewed
In the paint locker),
Or smoked broom straws or worn out swabs…
The skipper didn’t like the look of cigarette packs
Rolled up in our skivvie shirt sleeves, like James Dean,
Or in our dungaree shirt pockets,
Or in the breast pocket of our dress blues.
Petty officers would dress us down
And Shore Patrol would stop us on the street.
So we carried our cigarettes in our socks,
Where they sometimes got sweaty
If we didn’t carry them in one of those
Plastic cigarette case things that
No self-respecting Bosun’s Mate would use,
Only Cooks and Steward’s Mates
And other bottom feeders.
One time in the South China Sea in 1962,
When Laos erupted the first time,
Me and my mates were chipping paint
Around the Main Deck cloverleafs,
Sweating in the 120-degree sun,
Laboring hard and loving/hating it.
A tenderhearted OOD passed the word
“Now Hear This: The Smoking Lamp is Lighted!”
Bless you, sir.
I reached in my socks for my pack of
Genuine, Unfiltered, King Size, Coffin Nail,
Lung-searing, God Bless You Pall Malls
(The same as Jimbo smoked).
You guessed it:
They were soaked clear through from
The sweat running down
From my balls into my shoes,
Sogging my smokes on the way by.
In polite society, my shipmates might have
Declined my kind offer of a refreshing smoke,
But not in the South China Sea,
Not on that ol’ tub of a ship,
Not in that heat, and
Not at that time.
Nobody didn’t smoke ‘em clear down
To the fingertips.
I guess it must have been the right thing to do, too,
Because, so far as I know, not one of us
Who smoked those ball-sweat butts
That day ever caught cancer.
Jimbo was discharged from the Navy in that same year
And I never even met him until 23 years later
When we’d both been out of the Navy so long we
Almost weren’t sailors anymore.
If Jimbo had joined the Navy maybe one year later
Than he did, he might – just might – have got stationed
On that same ol’ crock tub as I was on.
He might have been my shipmate,
Chipping paint off the cloverleafs
Right beside me,
And he might – just might –
Have smoked one of those ball-sweat Pall Malls
That day, and maybe he
Wouldn’t be dead now of lung cancer.
It’s all a matter of timing, you see.
04:
and i am tired of reading
all of these words i wrote as if
i thought i might actually
know something
i am tired
of these empty notebooks
like mute accusations
if you were in this room
right now
you would smell desperation
would feel a small cool breeze as
the storm pushes its way north
picture it
three years in this house
and i know none of my neighbors
ten years in this town
and i refuse to call it home
and did i pray
at my father’s bedside
in the last days before his death?
no
and does this
make me a bad person?
i’ve been told that it does
and there is a man
who returns what i send him with
a note that says
“these are not poems”
and there is the possibility that
he’s right
there are my hands
crippled with self-doubt
burned and then healed
and then burned again until
they refuse to acknowledge the
simple pain of passing days
and if i don’t call myself
an artist
then i can’t be crucified
as a witch
the logic is subtle
but it’s there
think of war
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