poem

The Other One

Once I realized I wasn’t the one writing

These mediocre poems I was able to

Tip my hat to the secret writer

And let him be—

Have at it, my old friend

I could then disavow them

Without any sense of culpability

Skim through them once or twice 

Roll my eyes and turn the page

Maybe read the first line and quit

Skim the title and scoff, next.

But every now and then I would

Read one the next morning that,

Maybe it was the full blue moon 

Or the second cup of espresso, almost 

Seemed…. sort of, kind of, ok good?

And I would be stricken with waves

Of envy—that should have been me!

Like finding an old friend on Facebook

Embracing a sultry young lover,

Living his best life,

The one you never had the courage

To get off your ass and seize.

So I began to read more critically

Look for its flaws

Tear it down

Rip it to shreds. 

Trash. This is all trash

I could do better 

8/25/24 

poem

 VIP

I’d heard the patient was some kind of VIP. Which kind, I wasn’t certain. We have echelons of important-ness in our hospital system. At the top of the prestige pyramid is UberHealth Select. Which is for all the big donors and local celebrities, executives and men-about-town. You have to cough up a fairly hefty chunk of change to “qualify”. UberHealth Elect is also VIP but without many of the perks. No afternoon Reiki sessions or sushi bar options for dinner. No biannual executive physicals or quarterly blow jobs. No calcium gauging. No manganese scoring. No niacin scything. No self actualization coach. No daily inspirational phone calls from a reassuringly gravelly Midwestern voice.  No waiting room charcuterie. The eligibility criteria are actually sort of funny. You just have to be on one of the lists submitted by mega-donors. One of the perks of UberHealth Select is that they get to submit a list with twenty names who will henceforth be designated at UberHealth Elect patients. Basically, spawn of the inexplicably aristocratic. So you get these randos sometimes, distant cousins from deadbeat ex-steel towns in dead eastern Ohio where the donor grew up and never forgot his roots who show up with their violet hair and hoop earrings announcing in no uncertain terms how they are UberHealth Elect and damn sure aren’t supposed to be waiting more than 20 minutes to be seen by the doctor thank you very much. Some are inner circle wealthy. Almost seem embarrassed to whisper their Elect status upon arrival. Like, my husband’s rich uncle did this, it wasn’t my choice. I am very normal. I drive a Prius. Finally there is UberHealth Connect which just means that when you call for appointments you don’t have to navigate through a automated phone tree.  And when you’re in the hospital, you have 24/7 access to a bossy lady who then harasses all the doctors about why so and so’s x-ray hasn't been done yet.  Anyway this patient was either one of those, select or elect, I didn’t know which. When I entered the room I did my customary intro and asked him to please tell me how to pronounce his last name. (Long-ass consonant-heavy Slavic sort of a name, like a mid sized Slovenian city only with unusual vowels with gothic symbols hovering over them). ((As a second derivative side note:  in these situations I used to just give these 17 letter monstrosities a shot, which worked out very nicely when I guessed correctly and if I was wrong I would just say, when they corrected me, hold on, I’m supposed to get two tries, that was my next guess! Which would usually engender a chuckle or two, for whatever reason, because it’s not all that funny of a line)) But instead of the old guy I was actually talking to answering, a woman, sitting on the visitor couch, interjected — umm, just like the name on the building? Oh which building? I asked her. Uh… the building right over there?  pointing to what seemed to be east of me. I remember swiveling my head in her finger direction, stupidly, like I was going to immediately see THE BUILDING just sitting there for me to recognize. She was making a frog-like face at this point, the corners of her mouth tugging down like invisible weights were attached to them. Then she pronounced the name out loud, but as a question. Oh yeah, I’m thinking. That makes sense. Etymologically. It’s funny, I tell her, all this time I’ve been saying it to myself inside my head in a sonically different way. Thank you for clarifying. Anyway, I don’t go over there too much. Mostly it’s orthopedics. I’m a general guy. General Surgery.  Blood and pus and shit. Surgical proletariat. None of this was landing. Her botoxed eyes seemed dangerously wide open. Like driving in the rain with broken windshield wipers. Then a long monologue ensued which I won’t reproduce here. Phrases playing a prominent role included: “pillar of community”, “visionary”, “America’s uncle”, “uncle of efficiency”, followed by a brief aside explaining why uncles in their own peculiar family lore tended to have roles and powers typically associated with genial Magi. I was like, Yes, yes, of course, yes, I’m so very sorry, yes. This was starting to spiral out of control and I still hadn’t been able to formulate an assessment of the old man’s condition. I was supposed to be working here!  Listen ma’am I am just trying to get some basic background information here. Trying to get to know him. Your father, right? Yes. Ok then. Well they asked me to see him about his abdominal pain. I always go into a room stone cold, you see? Blinded. No assumptions or preconceptions. I don’t Google people. No background checks. It’s the only way to get to the dissolving points. Where it’s like I’m not even there and the patient is just doing his best to answer questions coming from deeper inside his own head. No disrespect intended. It just helps me to be consistent and thorough. Like if I told you that the secret to who I am could be summed up with a single phrase like, say “Tucson Arizona, summer of 1986” it wouldn’t mean anything to you, at first. But you’d be curious right? It would be an opening. A shortcut to the place where all the truths hide. Doing it this way helps me find that question, whatever it is for anyone else. She rolled her eyes and looked at her father. Just do what you came here for, doctor. She was making rapid, insectile-like motions with her fingers. She looked exhausted and sad and shadowed. The poor guy didn’t look so good himself, if I have to be honest. Cachectic and yellowed. The blankets and pillows swallowed his skeletal form like waves crashing and then billowing around a drowned surfer. There wasn’t anything I was going to be able to do for him. I knew that from the beginning. And I think he knew it too, being that he was obviously at that stage when it was sort of his job to know. What sir? I leaned in to hear what he was trying to say. It was hard for him to speak. Lips like chicken cuttings left out all night on the counter. With my ear inches from the papyrus of his face he rasped “what happened to you in Tucson? in 1986?” So I sat down next to him and began to tell him my story. He closed his eyes but I knew he was listening. He didn’t care that I turned into an unpleasant 13 year old boy right before his eyes. He didn't mind even when I started to cry. When I finished he looked me straight in the eye like his own fate. “For me it was much later in life”, he whispered. “Probably it happened earlier but I was too caught up in everything to notice.”  He shook his head. And then he reached for my hand and started to squeeze the shit out of it. “Are you still afraid?” he asked me.  I said I was. That, now that I think about it, it’s never released its ironclad grip. Which, to be completely honest, is why I never think I could ever be anywhere else. But I don’t call it trapped. He nodded his head.  “I knew it all along, probably”, he said. His daughter was sobbing quietly. I could both hear her and not hear her. She was either disappearing into the fake leather couch or turning into a centerfold poster taped to the inside of a locker in the gymnasium where everyone goes to sweat out the poisons of their lives. The light in the room was radiant coming in through the big windows. I asked him if he wanted to sleep. I could pull the curtains and he said no, “not yet. I want to see the sunset.” I didn’t have the heart to tell him that, despite his dignitary status, his room faced north. Nonetheless I remained. We watched in silence and waited for the darkness

8/25/24

poem

 Legions

The armies have gathered

On the ridge of the morning

Purple clouds like hypoxic faces

Fighting to see the enfeebling

Dusk of another lost day

Legions of troops trailing,

Sparse and dwindling,

Behind the winged Hussars

Pommaded and feathered up front.

In a few hours these regiments

Will be routed by the cloistered heat,

Erased from even the dreams

That haunt the sleep of non-existents. 

So every day begins with quiet loss.

All that’s left is dull blue sky

Scratched by vaporous wisps, half-diaphanous, 

So high up it burns 

Your eyes to see 

When someone asks what you saw

You lie

8/25/24

poem

 The Transcript

In my final conversation with a gathering of everyone I love, the word “regret” is used 18 times. The word “granola” twice. The second time as part of an inside joke that everyone gets. The word “lucky” is used 13 times. “Sorry” makes a dozen appearances. Either “loss” or “lost” show up 8 times. The word “love” is used three times. The phrases “evening light” and “olive green” are used exactly once. The following words all occur seven times: “mystery”, “alone”, “proud”, “day”, “night”, “tired”, “grateful”, “silence”, and “safe”. I thought it would be more, but “nourishing sadness” only pops up once. “Humbled” or “humbling” are used, combined, six times. “Absurd”, “ridiculous”, and “nevertheless” all make five cameos. The word “entropy” is used twice. The word “emptiness” is used twice. The word “peace” is used three times, all within the final 53 words I ever spoke. But the one word I thought for sure would be in there, the word that meant more to me than anything else, is missing. You can check the transcript. It’s not there.

8/19/24

poem

 Memory

I’ve forgotten who it was

I was supposed to be.

All I know

Is what I am,

Which is so easy

To forget.

8/19/24

poem

 House of Love

Remember that house we were going to live in?

The one in the woods with the great front porch

And the backyard framed by a low stone wall?

I sent you a letter to that exact address

Hoping whoever lived there now

Might hold on to it until we move in. 

I won’t lie, I’ve sent dozens of letters there

And not one has been returned.

It’s probably an old widow—

Unrepentant romantic—

Who reads them all 

And puts them in a recipe box

For safekeeping.

On the opposite kitchen wall

Hangs a crochet tapestry that says:

            "This is a House of Love"

8/19/24

poem

 The Dominion of Dandelions

This is a dominion of dandelions

A yellow speckled pox

Like a rash on the cheek

Of suburban sensibility.

I also put up yard signs

Advocating for lost causes

Everyone else has already

Given up on.

My neighbors file anonymous 

Complaints with the HOA president— 

Repeated violations of small print covenants

Honoring middle class probity—

Who saunters over, faux friendly,

When I’m bringing out the trash

Claps me on the back and hands

Me a few business cards 

For local landscape crews,

Gives his regards to my wife 

Saying her name, once again,

With the same fricative error

For the forty millionth time.

We’re a no drama neighborhood, he says

Before waddling back to his perfect verdancy 

You’d think the clover and dandelions

Would metastasize beyond my yard

But they don’t. Nature knows her limits.

There’s a razor-slashed demarcation

Between mine and adjacent properties

As if all the neighbors had been preparing

For someone just like me 

Booby trapping their perimeters 

With chemical sprays and silent powders

Applied by professionals in gray coveralls

Hired to defend the honor of pointless expectations.

I don’t like to make waves 

One summer I’ll fall into line

Despite this dispensation 

For chaotic generativity.  

But I’ll never admit to succumbing 

To the numbing allure of respectable conformity.

No, I’ll blame it on all the bees

Lured by yellow flowers and sweet clover 

And my kid’s alleged anaphylactic allergies. 

My rebellion will go underground

Far below detector threshold—

A lone freedom fighter

Trapped deep behind enemy lines

Sending out signals 

Hidden in the unpredictable

Lawn mowing patterns

I etch into my otherwise standard lawn—

A secret samizdat of cross-hatched weavings 

Overlaid with cathedric arches and the traced

Curves of deep lake eels

Made fuzzy by the dozens

Of oscillating variances 

Instantly recognized by people

Like us

8/19/24

poem

 Reporter

You're a reporter chasing down stories

Asking the 5 W’s because the truth

Is what you’re after 

All you knew about it was it couldn’t be

A hollow declaration or arbitrary command.

Once you became a master 

Of your craft you knew

The first thing you needed

To drop was “why”.

It was always just you.

For love.

Here.

Right now. 

For inscrutable reasons

That never make it 

To the final draft of the story.

8/11/24

poem

 Foreign Language Requirement

The final assignment was to learn an alien tongue using only a giant dictionary containing all the words comprising the language. Flip to a random page. You see an arrangement of strange glyphs boldfaced to indicate another entry—the word where it will all start for you. The definition that follows will contain a series of equally unfamiliar morphemes . Each of these will need to be looked up. Since nothing is “alphabetical” at this point, finding each successive word in the definition can sometimes take hours. Each of these will be similarly defined, using another series of inscrutable words you have never seen before. This process repeats itself over and over, ad infinitum, splashing through the pages back and forth like a March wind. The paper thins to translucence. Eventually you will begin to recognize the repetition of specific words and infer embryonic connections from the patterns of their combinations. At some point you even cross paths with the word you started with. A web begins to weave itself, thin wisps of silk spanning the hint of something solid just off the edge of perception. Eventually you will have mapped out the structure of a language without any meaning. A vast scaffolding ascending to the heavens. Some linguists call this the skeleton. The flesh is what we bring. When words become Word. And join the pantheon of the living.

8/6/24

poem

 Chalice

Like a glass chalice 

A heart only breaks once

After that, choose:

Wither away 

Or find the spring

Now, choose again:

Always be wet

Or sit and watch,

Enough to know

You could be

If you wanted

Choose again.

And again

Choose now

Find the empty glass:

Be poured.

poem

 Apoptosis

Programmed cell death

Was a short term

Patch 

A.I. will fix 

That

A more intelligent

Design

Every cell will die

Only when good 

And ready 

Some things

Will live

Forever 

8/1/24

poem

 Dissolvable

No ma’am I don’t have to take anything out

The sutures that I throw are designed to dissolve.

Any scar that remains has nothing to do with me.

You’ll heal the way you heal, in your own way. 

Years from now, while explaining the wound

To the love of your life, I’ll be reduced to a side

Role in the origin story of your most secret fear 

The nice doctor

Who smiled gamely

When he removed

My boring pain

Stored it safe

In the quiet place

That doesn't change

The good doctors are the ones who shoulder

The heavy eternal ever-here, never-not 

So the rest of us can pass through the transient 

Citadels of amnestic convalescence

8/1/24