Io sono all'angolo , tra il qui e là
(this poem takes place mostly,
in faded yellow photograph 1977)
I skimmed the asphalt once
skinny plastic skateboard
hot day, summer vacation
rode shirt off, hit a rock
and my body was flung forward
downward, skidding across
a chewed up road
up close and personal
friends thought Mercurochrome
liberally applied would get
all the spit bits of road stung
out of my chest, I had inherited
by gravity birth, a notebook sized scab...
I spent most
of my summer break
that year picking
the little pieces of myself
I was trying to memorize
as another moment
needing, getting through...
the slow warm amniotic
peroxide tweezer bath
my mother gave me
that night when she told me
I wasn't
a good skateboarder
but did I enjoy
showing off
seemed as if
it was meant
to hurt in some
arcane divinity
bubbling up
later on in my life
as another part
of the poem...
----------------------------
this is poem district interior 37-I8U2
full of pieces, creases
and what loose ends
I can catch to words
god wants to be a red Rumi poem...me, well I am the
opium of murdered dogs...taking to task, your reaps by
way of paper chalice and hurry...there is a slurry of curb
scum and particulates held up in the increasingly
humid air, mixing to perfection as I speak...
poem says, tare the skin, muscle, fat and bones...what is
left is pound foolery and penny payment due...memory,
after all, is a fickle mistress that fits me...
----------------------------
"...memory is
shaping pleasures
and pains too, I suppose
for a price
we will assign
to have certainties..."
the kinds
of failures, scars
and residues
we've left behind
these might be the things
we have to ease into
to know the places we go
when what we want
to be no more than
trying sometimes
not to remember
the old shoes
our ghosts wear
EJR ©
"in faded yellow photograph 1977" The perfect time/setting.
ReplyDelete"I had inherited
by gravity birth, a notebook sized scab" Brilliant poetry right here.
"picking
the little pieces of myself
I was trying to memorize" This takes me back to some very vivid memories of trying to decide who to be, which "pieces of myself to memorize" and which ones to uninvite to the party.
"the slow warm amniotic
peroxide tweezer bath
my mother gave me" Chilling description, but as I tell my children, sometimes a parent has to cause pain to heal (particularly when it comes to peroxide and tweezers).
"seemed as if
it was meant
to hurt in some
arcane divinity
bubbling up
later on in my life
as another part
of the poem..." This is good for me to read, being that I'm a mother of 4. Can't forget how much accidental damage can be done to a child's psyche. :(
"trying sometimes
not to remember
the old shoes
our ghosts wear" Closing lines should always leave us with some clever twist or a bit of a haunting, and you did that perfectly.
Humbled and grateful, having you leave such a lucid commentary...and while that bath did have its painful moments...I sure was glad to have my Mom being patient enough to pick out all of the tiny rubble from my entirely road-rash-ed chest...thank you...
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