I taped my mouth shut
for ten years,
‘til a professional told me
it was wrong,
I should wean.
There were pills, too,
that hypnotized
the disobedient sleep,
then upsold themselves.
On my knees,
I considered cuts,
and reached for a siren’s call.
But here
now
today
biding time.
The slant of the sun.
The moss-green mechanic
with his fat cigar,
chuffing like a chimney.
The little kid threesome
on the gravel shoulder,
fist-pumping the diesel driver.
and the undetected grasshopper
atop my dusty boot.
How slowly I move.
I’ve never been here,
but I know it.
Tell out loud
how good coffee lingers
like nicotine fingers.
Remember now
how a curly head kid
had to keep up with Dad,
no proffered hand,
in a strange land
of cigars and racing forms.
*Outta my way, kid.*
And men behind wickets
spat out the tickets
but seldom gave us money back.
And now, coffee cooling,
I think of tag-along days that are long gone.
And I remember how Dad always smelled of cigars,
though he never smoked one.
And how I came home from those days of loss
to a crying mother
and fights in the kitchen.
In an evening of pine perfume
and soft needle carpets,
we sat in the scout group, fire-entranced.
And laughed,
as neglected marshmallows blackened
and fell into flame.
Outhouse-bound,
I didn’t hear your soft steps behind me.
You ran ahead. Leaned against a tree,
not beckoning, but doing something odd with your fingers.
I stopped by you. How could I not?
With one of the warm mallows,
you made stretchy designs,
like knitting with thumbs and index fingers.
Now an amoeba, now a neuron, a spider web, a ghost with eyeholes.
You said nothing at all,
and turned your freckle face away, enthralling.
And I was silent too,
smiling and trying to catch your eye.
Just as the light failed,
you removed a ring from your finger, pocketing it.
Looked away, tapped your foot.
What a fool I was.
For his end time,
we flocked together from our compass points,
and gathered by his bedside.
Like the fresh faces on Auntie Em’s farm
after Dorothy’s dream.
In his life, he must have dreamt us
into something that held him happy
until this day.
His plugs and wires and tubes
seemed connected to an underground cloud,
and what it fed to him was bitter.
Today was his day for the punching of tickets,
like Tom Hanks on the Polar Express.
But, inspirational? Not so much.
Each one showed our other face
just as we were looking at his,
and we wanted to plug our ears
as he spewed secrets
that we dismissed as drug-induced,
but knew to be true.
And what do you do with the Never Dids,
the filthy kids and the hiding hids?
The thrown cans of salmon
and the smashing plates.
Oh God, we were sorry,
and a group hug just wasn’t in the cards.
hunch up those shoulders
carry that hollow barrel chest
on spindly trembling legs
practice your ghostly motions
stare obscenely out of eyes like yellowed olives
your gates are closed for good
and i stand
holding you up
listening to disconnected mutter
while you piss black tar
dribbling onto the floor
and you say “I’m sorry”
my man
oh my man
there’s a hole in my heart.
She called me.
We went rushing
in two cars.
His promise was empty, though.
Passed out,
half on the floor,
half on the couch.
She smacked him in the face,
gently.
Put a cold cloth on his forehead,
and he sputtered awake.
We searched the house,
emptied all of the bottles.
Haha, he said.
I stuffed my hands into my jacket pockets,
and left.
She left in morning.
Until next time.
Dad’s been long in his grave.
We didn’t know each other, really.
At nineteen, I felt like a fake,
attending bedside vigils,
not knowing what to say or do.
When i got the call, I was silent.
Only silent.
Fifty years ago.
And now, I’m a year away
from living as long as he did.
In a bothered and quavering dream
last night,
I waited by the winter waterfall,
in a cove among dark pines.
I knew of his coming,
and kept an eye upslope
on the frozen bush road.
There were no night noises here,
and so I heard the crunch of his zip-up rubbers
just before he materialized.
It was Dad all right, with his white goatee,
dressed in an overcoat of black oilcloth
and his tweed fedora.
He was carrying things:
one of those flat aluminum saucers you had when you were a kid,
and, in the other hand, a dufflebag.
He came up to me, and set his things down.
He did not speak, but pulled out a pack of cigarettes,
lighting one for each of us.
I could not speak,
and withdrew my eyes from his.
We smoked for a minute or two.
He picked up the dufflebag
and led me by the arm down to the river.
There was a wooden bench there,
and he motioned me to sit.
Beside me he placed the bag,
then made a curious praying gesture.
Then he held up one finger,
in token that I should wait.
I watched him trudge back up the icy hill,
carrying his saucer.
A moment later, he came plummeting down the hill.
He was laughing, laughing.
My Dad was having FUN,
such as I’d never seen him do in life.
As he passed me, he was waving,
and I stood up suddenly.
He was going straight for the river.
In a second, he was gone.
I ran to the riverbank,
just as he went through the thin ice.
He was still waving, and smiled placidly,
making the OK sign as he sunk.
I knew he didn’t want to be saved,
for this was only a cartoon death.
At the end, I struggled with the meaning
as I sat down once more on the bench.
I unzipped the brown dufflebag,
and there was a mewing as I lifted out the black cat.
It was warm, and I gathered it to me,
but it wanted to look at my face.
Its eyes looked into mine and held me,
seeing more than I wanted.
Dad, I thought.
At last, the eyes relaxed,
with a seeming smile of wistful regret.
“Would you like a cigarette?”
I said.
Just today, 55 years after the crash, Stuart’s face has appeared to me once more in a dream. I don’t know why I remember this, especially now, in my 69th year, but it feels as if God has spoken to me about one of his angels.
On December 27th, 1964, I was fourteen and my brother Mark was eleven. “Stewie” had been Mark’s only friend since he and his parents had moved into our apartment building, some four years before. Being probably the eldest kid in the building, I had been busy recruiting followers (all younger kids), setting trends with my Beatle Boots and Fabian haircut, and developing an interest in those strange creatures, the Gurlz. All of this, though, did not prevent me from feeling a streak of jealousy over the time Mark and Stuart spent together.
Sophie was Stuart’s mom, and they lived down the hall from us. I don’t have much of a memory of his dad, as he seemed to be away most of the time. Sophie worked as a part time secretary, I think, and Stuart would come to our place for a few hours while she was gone. With his round doe-like eyes and a lower lip that drooped into a perpetual pout, Stuart’s face was meant for a mother to love, and indeed he clung to Sophie whenever we saw them together. He may have been the shyest person I have ever met. Being a little younger than my brother, Stuart was a willing disciple when Mark began to school him in the basics of rebellion. Nothing serious came of it, but whenever trouble bubbled over, Mark was one of the suspects.
Stuart and his family had lived in our building going on five years when they had to move away because his father had gotten a new job. Mark was unhappy, of course, until Sophie started to bring Stuart for visits almost every weekend.
There was a new kid named Stanley. He and his family had moved into an apartment on the top floor of our building, and he always took the stairs when coming outside. Three flights, and he made a game out of running down them as fast as he could. At the bottom landing, there was a heavy glass door that you had to push open, then a few steps outside to the pavement. To the left of that door was a tall and narrow window made of frosted glass. I assume its purpose was to let in additional light, while improving the esthetics of the place.
This window had been broken by some kids playing ball, and all that was done was to remove the shards of glass from the frame so that no one would get hurt. Apparently, they couldn’t get it repaired right away because it was the weekend. Someone had put strips of tape over it to show there was no glass, but this didn’t last long. Once Stanley found out, his stair game became even more fun because now he could run right outside without stopping, making a beeline for the missing window.
On the following Monday, the repairmen were there first thing and put in the new one, this being of clear glass because they couldn’t get hold of the frosted stuff right away.
Mark and Stuart and I were having lunch on our second floor balcony when we heard the crash and Stanley’s screams. He had played his stair game one too many times, and had run clean through the plate glass window. My mother rushed out to see him laying in a pool of blood and went yelling down the hall for help. Women came out with towels to help bind him up. We went inside on mother’s instructions. Mark and I were stunned. Stuart just buckled, sat on the floor, and cried. Stanley wasn’t even his friend.
In the next week or two, while Stanley was still in the hospital, we didn’t see Stuart. Sophie had called to say that he was too upset to go anywhere, and so she stayed home with him. I felt that the accident was partly my fault for not telling anyone about Stanley and the stairs, but it took me a while to open up about it to my mother.
A couple of weeks before Christmas, after Stuart had spent a sleepover at our place, Sophie came to pick him up, saying they would see us between Christmas and New Years. And so they did, the day after Boxing Day. We had presents for Stuart, and they stayed most of the day with us. The next day, Mark and I were outside playing street hockey. When we came in to get warm, Mom was sitting by the kitchen telephone crying. She hung it up and motioned for us to come to her. Stuart and Sophie had been killed by a drunk driver after they left our place on the previous night. Mark started crying. I think I was silent. Stuart was a true friend, and the purest soul I had ever met.
As I write this, I think that young face was in my dream for a reason. I have gotten too far away from purity, if I ever had such a thing. Stuart wasn’t even family, but when I think of what the knives of the world did to him, and of how short his life was, I feel humbled and ashamed that more of us cannot hold onto some of that kind of innocence. So Stewie, know that you are remembered, and held in love.
A man walks to his usual crossroads, all right turns until he completes the simple square that brings him home. Tonight, he goes out late because of the hot sun, something to avoid with these new meds. As a trade off for the cool and pleasant breeze, someone has provided intermittent clouds of mosquitos. No matter. Without even breaking stride, he plucks up some hobbit courage and decides to take the long way home. All left turns. She’s sleeping anyway, won’t even notice. And besides, I have my phone and it’s still daylight. Hey Google, play The Beatles.
He wants to hear what’s going on around him as well, so he slips the phone into his back pocket and goes without the earbuds. The first thing that Spotify thinks of is “Yesterday”.
He knows that this route is exactly three times longer than the old one, and feels for a second that he has jumped in with both feet. There’s a moment of doubt. He stops and considers turning around, but stubborn pride spurs him on. After all, you’ll be 70 next year. Just easy…take it easy, you’ll get there. The numb knee still works, and it’s still numb, so that’s a bonus.
Ever since, as a kid, he had found the green edge of a twenty waving at him from the melting snow of spring, he had kept his nose to the ground whenever he could. No such luck tonight, of course. Just the expected litter of a sad society. His mind wandered stupidly, trying to picture what might be going on in people’s heads as they chucked things from car windows, smashed beer bottles in the ditch, crushed pop cans in a ritual showing of strength. What if, what if all of this could be gathered somehow, from every street in the neighbourhood? He would direct, yes he would, with his creative talent, a crew of say a hundred willing workers. He would design, and they would construct it, a massive sculpture of a muscular man, kneeling on one knee, shouldering the great sphere of Earth. All integrated, and all made of collected detritus. A name?
“Atlas, the Collossus of Roads”…..Well. Poof. That daydream had occupied his mind for a good kilometer. Now it was back to the slow scanning of sidewalk cracks.
And there, at the entrance to the church parking lot, a dirty spiral-bound notebook. It looked as if it had been run over one time too many. The metal binding was crushed, and the lined pages were splayed out like a bridge hand. What a find, he thought, as he picked it up and brushed the mud off it. Several of the drivers who were waiting at the stoplight got an eyeful, and one smiled and shook his head. Must have thought look at the old bum picking up whatever he comes across. The first page had stickers on it, saying such things as “Stay Rad!” and “You are capable of great things!”
Most other pages were blank. One appeared to be notes taken during a class on the abuse of pharmaceuticals. Their effects. Their routes of entry into the body. Memorize this. There will be a test.
On the dark blue cover of the book, someone had written in fine black marker, barely visible, the names of drugs that were commonly sold on the street: Oxycodone, tranquilizers, amphetamines. Underneath that, in the same handwriting: “Hey Dylan! These are really cool. I can get you some.” Spotify said TURN OFF YOUR MIND. RELAX, AND FLOAT DOWNSTREAM. IT IS NOT DYING. IT IS NOT DYING.
One last page, in pencil, bore the legend “I am sure, Ace, it is best for Wags to stay home”
Our man could see the stoplight of his destination, far off now, and uphill. His pace slowed. It was still pretty warm, and he took off his hat. Damn the mosquitos. Now, as three teenage girls approached him, the strains of A Hard Day’s Night were playing. They giggled, as teenage girls are prone to do, whispering asides to one another, hands covering painted lips. Just when the man thought they were having their sport at his expense, one of the girls did a fist pump and sang along with Lennon as he keened
“You know, I feel alright!”
Home. Finally. And none the worse for wear. He would sleep well tonight. In one hand was the notebook, and the other held a poor man’s bouquet of what he thought were wildflowers, but could have been partly weeds.
“For you”.
“Well, get that stuff outa here. It’s probably got bugs!”
Aremyfeetofftheground 