Prodigal

(i'm taking an Imitations class in which we write poems in the styles of various famous poets. this week is alexander pope. basically, heroic couplets — iambic pentameter and exact rhyming.)

We walk the high road with no earthly care,
Defenseless to the frigid mountain air.
We took for granted skin, teeth, flesh, and bone,
Right up until we found that they were gone.
Now all that we have left are threadbare souls
With frozen breezes wafting through the holes.
So, deep in rapturous prayer, we walk and wait,
Exhausted, sightless, for the word of fate.
All our mistakes we lose and leave behind.
They spring up in our footsteps, curled and twined.
We must seem solemn to the passers-by,
Our pale and ghostly forms strange to their eye.
One asks us, "Travelers, have you lost your way?"
But no; we have no path from which to stray.
Their voices fade as we keep on our climb.
We lose their memory like we lose the time
To distant purposes that drive us on.
Our fathers said they'd meet us in the dawn.
There, all the chill of night will come undone;
So we must climb until we find the sun.

ludlow lions

when i was a young boy i would lie in wait
in the tall grass on the bank of the pond.
half-hidden i would watch the little insects,
dandelion seeds float across the surface.
i would watch you part the lily pads with
strong strokes. we were best friends.
when you got out of the water you would stand
in front of me and smile stupidly as
droplets of water fell from your nose and
your torso and your swimming trunks. i'd
watch their snaking paths down your ribs.
i never really understood it. now i sit
alone on my porch. my hair looks like
dandelion seeds. you were my best friend.
i just wish you could hear me now. i finally
get all the things i felt back then. all the
things i felt when we were growing up. all the
things i felt at your funeral. i get it.
i understand.

emily snicket

i hold my celibacy like a paintbrush
and pretend it is an instrument of
unique and providential self-expression.
i try nightly to remember home. when i fail i
instead think of the white house up the road,
ruined by fire, clothes strewn across the porch roof.
i listen to my voice crack and wonder
how long it will take to sand it down until
it is small, flaccid, non-threatening.
i look at the vesuvius shadow of an
insect i crushed on the wall.
i feel a sudden fondness for it.
and i wade through the rain like an artist
having overcome the human horror of solitude
and become a grave angel, sexless and alone.

miss counted

when she leaned against his shoulder i felt
a drop of something, like an unfired bullet
slide down my windpipe and settle underneath
my throat. but the pain was in my gut.
a wrench like seeing the ghost of a dead
friend only days after you shed your
last tears. i focused on the bullet instead.
what really hurts are the lightest touches,
the things we love the most. it's a well-known
fact but only to those who found out the hard way.
her head on his shoulder.
echoes, just now coming back to me before
they leave again. i'm afraid they're
going to fade out at last and they
won't return for another time.

"sleep, troubled sleep, the troubled waking of the heart"

the dredges grind upriver but i do not look.
instead i turn my attentions to things more
immediate. a function to predict the phase
of periodic abysses. how to take the first
step on what was so recently thin air.
i imagine you on the opposite side and
take pause in a vision of you feeling
the same puzzlement that sometimes
crawls up onto my porch and eats the
sunflower seeds i leave out for the birds.
in my vision you also distrust your first step.
but in the ancient amnesia we get closer.
for one moment before we fall out of phase.
we are just like always.
we forget to notice we're touching.

state of the union

it was barely drizzling outside.
i had a hat and sweatshirt on.
my mom covered us both with an umbrella.
we got in the car and cranked the heat up
until we arrived at the restaurant.
the room was fashionably dim-lit.
we all talked about the earthquake in haiti.
we talked about how horrible it was as if
proving our compassion to each other.
"quarter of a million dead there" my dad said.
he popped another fry in his mouth.
our twenty-dollar dinners were prepared
to perfection.
my grandfather held my grandmother's
trenchcoat to help her put it on.
after i got home i turned on a hard rock song.
my mom walked into the room.
"what?! what is this?! no!" she exclaimed
as if in great distress. she held her fleece
bathrobe tight over her pajamas. i turned it off.
we watched the daily show and laughed at
the democratic party's bungling mistakes.
the men in suits. i sit on leather couches.
the television is turned to channel 148.
my laptop came with a backlit keyboard.
i don't know anything.
or maybe i know enough but i'm just being a
tight-fisted, over-privileged american.
don't tell me that i'm just as over-privileged
as anyone else. that does not lessen my fault.
how much do i have to give to be a good person?
why is my wallet still full of cash?

20 feet (or: the goggles, they do nothing)

i couldn't see a thing but i've been
told blind faith looks good on me. so
i didn't stop.
it was a mistake.
first i lost the ability to integrate thoughts.
my legs became jigsaw puzzles standing on edge.
shotgun pellets brushed my face clean.
this is what we do.
we conquer hostile environments and use them
for recreation.
we give our stupid names to things that we
don't understand.
we think we've won when it's not even close to over.
the mountain calls down the ninth plague.
first i lost the ability to integrate thoughts.
my legs became jigsaw puzzles standing on edge.
i guess i was part of the hubris but it's not my fault
is it?
it's not my fault,
is it?

impaled

i'm destined to be one more
rejected adolescent. a
stereotype or a parody.
i watch national guard
commercials twice a week.
i sit at my computer and
keep myself busy all day.
do fish care more about the
suffocation or the hook in
the roof of their mouth?
i look at other people's
photographs. soldiers
sleeping in the trenches
they've just dug or
children holding baby
goats and smiling at
the camera with no irony.
when they see flocks of
wood ducks gathering in
autumn, do cardinals feel
a pang of loneliness?
i'm dependent on other
people's work. i say
"i'm not allowed to
start doing mine."
i'm not good enough.
i've never worn a
uniform. i'm not ready.

six-legs (or: if you happen to own a copter gecko and are looking to get rid of it, i would be happy to take it off your hands)

she stole my ability to find a place
for myself, a state of mind, the
strict and sprawled sense of belonging,
and when i try and write all the wrong
things come out on the page. my right
brain is showing its age.
i'm much too young to believe in morals,
to know who she is, even begin to
fathom what's right in front of me.
because these days all i see are bones and
some are buried, but some are thrown.
sooner or later i'll have to acknowledge
that i'm not the good man here.
what do you call it when you lose
your grip to one more deserving?
i'm perfectly willing to slip i just
wish i could stop her burning