PoetryBlog
Ode to dkARTS
dkARTS. I remember the art store
opening
on Main Street.
Green and black. Art supplies and coffee.
I drive by, thinking I should stop in. Some time.
That was the summer. More than one year ago.
I didn't stop in.
A friend had tried it. He liked coffee.
"We should go."
We didn't.
He told me of the owner, and her dog, who peed
on the floor,
although the owner said "she never does that,"
and did not believe it untils he saw it
with her own eyes.
Finally. I stopped in.
I met the owner. Patricia.
Patti. Purcel.
Aliterative name, literative personality.
She and I eventually clicked.
Melded into a fluid dance of words and thoughts and
anal philosophies that were edged with liberal
ideas.
And Abby. Who barked at me.
Soon, I was a regular.
I met Desmal. The 'D' in dkARTS.
(Later I learned the K was Patti's middle name.)
Desmal. The rock star artist.
The photographer. The guy who warps around any definition.
The heart, the soul of it all,
the face that beamed no matter his mood.
He made me want a Holga.
(And now I have a disease called Lomography.)
Desmal and Patti. And Scot. And Jeremiah. And Kevin. And Mary, strange eccentric crazy quiet aloof but sincere Mary. And Wayne, Angela, Greg, the other Greg (Ian), Joe, Bo, Kelly, Ash, Jason, Hermes, Danny, Amy, Dallas and dozens more whose names elude me.
Then me. I was here, this place was mine, for a time.
(Now it's Drew's.)
Poetry night. Like tonight. We shaped it, made it, created life in downtown Statesboro. We were rock stars. Me, Desmal, Mary, Patti. Rock stars of art, and we made each of you feel like one, too.
But not as much as Desmal made this place.
Lomo Scavs, art openings, art clopenings, schnizzle head marathons, Gummo viewing (I hate rabbits!), frosted gardens, summr flings, broken glass tiles, lomo homes, branding, branding, branding, art classes, customers (the good and the bad and the weird), frappe mix (sweet, sweet frappe), the Owigami fak-tow-ee, and oh god so much more.
I can't fit into one poem all the thoughts of dkARTS. I can't fit them into a book.
I'm leaving, for the most part.
Oh, I'll be back. You can't really leave it behind.
Or at least I can't.
But I do have some advice;
Cherish it. Love it. Live it. Enjoy it. All of you.
Be an artist, be a coffee drinker, be a philosopher.
Be a rock star.
The Car Wreck
Let me
set the stage...
One month ago tomorrow...
Raining. Hurricanes stacked on top of each other.
Oil slicked roads from at least one too many eighteen wheelers.
Probably from Wal*Mart.
Me, Kelly, our capitalism purchases.
And my car.
Forget the cliché blur.
It all happened slllloooowwwwwwwlllly...
Kelly inhales sharp.
Huh!
I turn from telling her my story.
Look at the road ahead,
where before I had just been "keeping an eye out."
A van, stopped.
Moving my way just a bit too quickly.
I brake.
We slide.
I turn the wheel
but it won't move.
I brace Kelly in that parental sort of way
Although she's just my cousin and my own age.
We crack into the van (it's white).
But it's more of a thump.
A wet thump like a melon breaking.
We stop. No air bags. No bodily harm.
"Fuck," I probably said.
I immediately call my parents.
A fight ensues, but that's another story.
The cop arrives.
"Too fast for conditions," and $270.
No one is hurt.
My car, broken, bent and beaten,
goes to the body shop to await its fate.
One month later, it is reborn.
After a new hood, a new radiator, a new radiator fan, another new radiator fan, a new radiator nipple, a new dip stick, a new bumper, a new side panel, a new set of headlights, a new set of fog lamps, a new front-bumper license tag holder, a new alignment, a new mirror, a new door, a new sport stripe, a new paint job in Toreador Red (same as before)... It is reborn.
Rejoice! And fear, for I am once again mobile.
When I Have One
I stood in line at Eckerd behind a woman
who was expecting a child some time in the near future.
She was hunched and tired, worried, haggard.
She did not glow. She did not seem happy.
She did not exude pride or joy or any such
feelings that we as humans like to think
of our mothers to be.
She seemed almost angry that she had to
carry such a burden.
I am sure long ago the "new" had worn off
her pregnancy and she was quite
burdened by the weight nestled
in her rounded belly,
and feels heavy in the ankles that carried it.
She moves forward a space in line,
and I follow, wondering if she's picked
a name or if she knows the sex,
or if she's even really considered the matter much.
Then, I realize how much I want a child,
and wonder how I might feel when I have one.
We Thought We'd Found Love
We met. It was a Thursday, I think.
Four phone conversations,
an hour over coffee,
and two Big Macs later,
and we thought we found love.
While holding hands in a movie,
when looking into each others eyes,
while scratching one another during sex
and after another hour over coffee,
we thought we'd found love.
When choosing essential oils to make our own soaps.
While laughing at ducks in the park.
After learning be both loved banana popsicles,
and deciding to give up coffee,
we thought we'd found love.
Even after you took that job
and after the long distance started taking its toll,
and after I met someone else
who I felt the same way I had felt about you
after just three phone conversations,
still,
we thought we'd found love.
After you broke up with me
and I had cheated on you,
And after we had sex in the park near the ducks,
And after we never spoke again
not even over coffee...
Even then,
we thought we'd found love.
Even after we'd lost it.
Soon
An all-too orange Camaro drives by,
its muffler dragging nails across my ears
and soon I think about you
and that orange shirt you wore.
It, too, was too orange,
but not too orange for you.
Soon, I have forgotten how orange it was
and how I never paid attention
to how blue you were
when I would forget things like
your birthday and how
you loved to read in lamp light
and how you bought that shirt
on sale at Penney's.
Soon, I'll remember how you
told me it wouldn't work,
we wouldn't work,
and then you dragged nails
across my heart
but it was too late because
I was always too late.
Soon I'll remember you can't
build spires of love on
foundations of mud
and I'd covered you with
dirty indifference and gritty
underestimation.
And all too soon,
soon is never soon enough
and as I watch that Camaro
drive away
all I remember is the back of your shirt
that orange shirt
from Penney's
that we bought the week
before you left me or maybe I left you...
And all I remember is thinking,
I'll see you soon.
But I haven't since.
Murder Pain Kill Dead
I've never really known anyone
who has died.
At least, not in the
normal way.
I can count on one hand
the funerals I have attended.
Unless you count my own.
I have died a dozen times
Killed by broken hearts.
Stabbed. Stuck. Sterilized of love.
I grow back. My heart pumps blood
that once drained from my eyes
as tears.
I build myself whole again,
starting with my cracked foundation,
but each subsequent incarnation
is structured on fear
and the fresh dirt
of my last death.
Dog Barking
I had just fallen asleep
and had just began some
beautiful dream when
the dog began barking.
Over and over and over and
over and over again in
the same harsh horse "rorf"
sound. I yelled at it to
stop and was a thesaurus
of "shut up"s, hoping to
find the one the dog liked
the most.
It liked none of them
and I rolled over.
A Bandaged Me
So you're leaving now?
I ask,
like a bandage that is raw
and bleeding through.
The tape is pulled back
and is exposed and the
wound feels almost fresh
against the air.
Almost numb.
"I was never really here,"
I am told,
and it bleeds again.
Being Awakened
Being awakened right as you
begin to dream is painful
to your sense of reality.
When the world around
you is blurred, like a
watercolor life, the lines
that make up real and
dream get fuzzy and all
you can do is hope the
good parts are real, but
all you really do is get pissed
that they are not.
Small Town
Growing up in a small town
to me
was like digging ditches.
It was an honest living,
one you're proud of at the
end of the day,
when you look back and
notice that you actually
accomplished something.
But nonetheless,
it's a pain in the ass
to do.
Our First Night is Our Last
It was the first time we
spent the night together,
you in my bed, against the
wall and the posters by
Cappiello. I moved all the
pillows off the bed, hoping
not to need their comfort
for the night.
You undressed in stages,
an article at a time, and
when you spoke I tried to
guess the different flavors
of alcohol on your breth
and wondered what they
would taste like.
I stayed still, trying to let
my stillness comfort you,
as I knew the only other
comfort you had came from
a bottle just a few hours
earlier.
We lay there and I wondered
at your thoughts and if
you were thinking mine.
I never found out.
A night of caution ensued
and I never really
touched you, just inches away.
Sometimes I'd brush against
you and sometimes you were
warm, sometimes cool to
the touch.
At some point in the night
I abandoned my hopes and
scooped a pillow from the
floor to hold in lieu of you.
Supporting Actor
My friend Kyle says
he's a supporting actor in
someone else's movie.
I suggest to him he should
fire his agent and
audition for something bigger.
I need to do the same for myself.
So is it Yes or No?
How does one take the word "no"
when it's sprinkled with "yes"?
Do I forge headstrong into
negativity, seeking the affirmative?
Or do I try to draw it out like
wild game?
But this is not a game and
my heart does not have a safety.
I should go to another forest
where the trees are
more clear with their hints.
Frustration in December
I feel fur-covered frustration
at you, as
your eyes hide you as you
hide behind the bark of trees
grown around your words.
Moss hangs from your lips,
and it shakes with the sentences
you try not to speak, but do,
but only at the wrong times.
Love Me Like You
Your eyes run sea foam green
and spill into dyed rose petals
at my feet.
"No one can love me like you,"
you once said, before you
found another.
I grasp at the colors as they
slip through my tear-stained
fingers and flow away from
me forever.
No one can love me like you.
Change My Mind
I want
to shellack your heart,
spray crystal clear glaze on your smile,
encase you in glass like Lenin.
I want
you the way you were
like I remember you and
I want
you to stay like that until
I change my mind.
A Week Before Christmas, 2003
It is 9:40 a.m. and raining.
There is a gingerbread house on my table
that I did not create.
My dogs do not want to go out.
"There is no sun," they seem to say
with confused eyes and lolling
tongues.
I nod to them and walk back
to my room
to write
poetry.
Bookmaking
I made this book with Desmal--
dismal not in my education
of bookmaking.
Pages bound by waxed thread,
tightly grouped so I can
tread this line.
Flowers are not really my thing
but I can still write on
this 24lb. paper.
Jaded Neon
Look at you,
with your neon so jaded
and dull and dim
in the grime of the night.
Feel it now?
rose petals melting in snow
and pink and red
fly like some wayward kite.
Don't turn yet--
although your patience has grown sheer
silk but rotten
your image blurred from sight
Go, give up.
tomorrow is nothing to you--
gone before here.
worry not about "might."
It is over.
Neon faded to grey then black
Left motionless
Absorbed by apathetic night.
Goodbye, Detroit
Rest in peace, Detroit.
Exuberant, happy, bouncy,
you were a good dog, on whole.
Floppy, loving and dumb,
everyone loved to hate you
and hated to love you.
We shall miss thee,
oh great destroyer
of all things furniture.
I Have Been Taught
To smile. To laugh. To giggle.
To run in fields. To be care free.
To hug. To care. To trust.
To lie. To cry. To die inside.
To fall. To fail. To miss.
To hurt. To break.
Love can teach you many things,
And I have been taught them all.
Halloween Dreams
It was a Thursday night
and the sun had covered the sky
in cotton candy.
We were alone with the crickets
and shooting stars
after the moon had smiled
tootholy from behind a cloud.
I smiled at you as we kissed,
that Halloween night
that we pretended to be
people who were in love.
The next day,
after hours of made-up and latex-covered sex,
on a bed that we pretended was a meadow,
with candles that dimmed out reality beyond our walls,
that night was a treat,
And it wasn't until the sun spread across the morning
that I realized all of it--
the candy, the kiss, the love, the meadows--
it was all a trick.
Disdainfully Gazing at Dogs
ARGH!
I hated some dogs tonight.
Came home and my dogs had ripped my couch apart.
Ripped. Apart. Couch. Apart. Ripped. Everywhere. So much. Ripped. Apart. The couch.
You'll be happy to know I didn't hit them.
Oh, I wanted to...
I just yelled at them disdainfully
and looked at them evilly.
I think they got the point.
The Maze of Invisible Walls
When the lightening flashes,
what do you see in its blue-white illuminance?
You stand there, covered with my honesty.
Pretentious, precocious.
Lost and found all at once,
but always losing,
always waiting for tomorrow.
You move— all of us move—
through a maze of invisible walls,
never quite sure if the breath
you hear is your own,
the person behind you,
or some terrible thing watching you.
And yet you stand,
festive in your solitude,
when I have told you all you
need to know.
The lightening crackles
and everything around you—
the stones at your feet,
the leaves in the air,
the person slightly in front and to your right—
everything around you feels it,
and they feel you
and you feel them.
And how sad it is that only once
in your infinitely short life
do you reach out and connect,
touch.
Only once
do you create your own lightening.
Only once are you truly caught
in the moment that is life.
