When I had Time and Hope

I used to be the kind of person who got excited about things—secretly, so as not to play the fool out loud—the kind of person who had ideas, who thought, “this time, it’s all going to turn out right!”

I had exclamation points in my thoughts, roses of hope blooming in my chest, a vision of how happiness was possible if you only just glittered, gestured, hummed in exactly the right way so as to alter the universe’s nasty tendency toward imprisonment.

Was it the universe that was so dead set against I or anyone, really, ever having a moment’s rest from worry?

If things were all right, how long could it last? If things were bad, was there any hope? Would hope’s emissary slip past without my noticing? Could I keep my eyes peeled and all my senses alert for the magic animal, the force to be harnessed?

Even awash in gloom, I clung to the dim glimmer of time’s expanse. “Not now,” I mumbled, in a barely audible voice, grey with exhaustion, “but someday. There’s still time.”

I wonder whether or how much any of this has to do with my beginnings, the stories that first formed when I tried to explain to myself why things were as they were. I came up with reasons, and then, to make myself feel a little more secure, I gave myself the power to alter the facts to make them fit better.

I was of a temperament to want to fix things. Maybe it was just the discomfort of being there when someone was in pain.

Bipolar disorder, aka manic depression, runs in my mother’s family. My Auntie Sandra was the first I knew of to stand on the corner in her pajamas cursing passers by.

My Uncle Nate had an eye tattooed on the back of his left elbow. It was supposed to keep him safe from harm by scaring off any bad luck that might try to sneak up on him. He’d gotten it in the Navy, possibly from one of his mates, since the eye was the sort a child of a certain age draws, with a perfectly round pupil resting in a perfectly symmetrical pair of arcs, and fringed all around with evenly spaced eyelashes. “I kept seein’ Uncle Nate’s elbow comin’ at me,” Auntie Sandra said, with a mild, medicated smile. Her once brilliant blue eyes were washed out from thorazine to an almost colorless yellow-grey.

Auntie Sandra took me to the store in downtown Calumet, using a shortcut. “We used to go this way when we skipped school, smoking cigarettes and wearing red lipstick,” she said. She gave me some makeup she wasn’t using any more.

I knew, or at least suspected, that she was trying to make me feel like a human being, part of the world. But it was impossible for me to feel like a part of the world. As far as I knew, that had always been the case. It wasn’t that I wanted to be apart, it was that I could see everything from the outside. How I longed to swim in experience, riding emotions from wave to wave, graceful and nearly effortless. I imagined other people weren’t in such a state of exile as I was, though you’d think the opposite would be true, that I’d assume everyone was in the same boat as I. But I observed that nearly everyone I came across inhabited themselves with ease.

On Being Painted Over

I have lived many dreams-come-true in my life, which is an accomplishment, after all. Let me say that up front, so as to remind myself of the fact. Dreams can be lived. What you long to find you will find.

What I am is an arrow, a beam of light. My eyes aim. My mind aims. My interest and attention aim. I am an instrument that measures my perceptions against my desires.

What is an animal but a perceptual device? A window for a god to look through. An idea, caught in the ether and unable to take form, rides the life of a bird, a girl, a snake, searches for it's chance to exist.

The world of forms is a world of windows and ideas. A world of passages.

What is an animal but an alimentary tube, with a mouth on one end, asshole on the other? A slave to necessity. Equipped with senses designed to promote survival. Prodded constantly to move, to get, to have, to let go. Tricked into reproduction, or not. Life promotes life, after all, without favorites. Let us celebrate the embroidery of the plain facts with pleasures and inventions.

Tragic Bee

The teacher had a block of wood

with different items attached to its sides;

a pipe cleaner, sandpaper, a cotton ball;

including a soft furry bumblebee

stuck on with a pin.

It was a lesson about touch.

When I told my mother about it

she lamented the bee as though it’s living body

had been cruelly impaled by my heartless teacher,

never considering that the bee

might have been a treasure my teacher found

and wanted to share with us.

This was a story my mother told me

over and over again,

the spin she put on

every experience, mostly I guess

because it was a good story, full of pathos,

with clearly defined victims and villains

and haunting regrets.

The hero always dies, beautiful and tragic.

It was and still is extremely important

that I understand the suffering of innocents

and do whatever I can to save the world

by knowing everything there is to know,

but no matter how hard I try

I will still discover a tragedy I failed to prevent

or one I will soon cause by my selfishness.

I, like most of the others, was afraid to touch the bee

even though it was dead

and the teacher assured us

it could no longer sting,

but I touched it anyway, and it was very soft..

Our teacher was young and new to the job.

It was the beginning of the school year,

and she was trying out the things she thought of

over the summer to make teaching

new and fun. She was surprised, amused, and a little disappointed

that our imaginations were so powerful

the mere thought of a stinger

made us shiver, depriving us

of the beautiful softness

she wanted us to know, but she was soft.

I felt disloyal. Maybe my mother

was trying to be sympathetic to my squeamishness.

What I said wasn’t what I meant.

I wanted to know if it was safe to try something new and scary.

The answer was, not unless you want to crucify someone.

Thunder

Dreaming each night of thunder

the small girl floated in the air.

The window by her bed

had an invisible ladder

to escape the flames of the burning house.

Between her bed and the wall

were bags of what she’d take

things she could sell, maybe,

on the road to some great adventure,

some deeply felt existence where fear

dissolved into home.

She wore her clothes

under her nightgown, so she’d be ready.

Before she slept she went over in her mind

the route she’d take down the roof,

leaping to the ground unharmed.

She poked through her bag, examining

each thing, deciding again

what was essential, but began to feel

there was nothing there

she could use, there was nothing anywhere

that would ensure her safe journey,

the disaster she waited for

had already occurred, she was too young

to hit the road alone, and there was nowhere

she knew of to go.

It must have been sudden,

the change from plans for escape

to resignation, to digging in for the long haul,

watching for signs everywhere that would mean

an end to the suffering.

“It’s time to begin your life,”

the signs would say, “go ahead and stop

being afraid, stop

hiding your face, slouching

against walls and in corners, hiding

behind your long hair.” She pretended

she was grown and nothing could harm her,

grew a bright shell

that despised and defended

weakness, a life-like shield

made from clothes that seemed

to protect her, a stance

and expression that prevented

attack, words so quick and clever

no one thought to wander behind them to see

who was there.

Still, she always slept in her clothes

and kept her bags packed

and all her favorite stuff close,

in case a family of gypsies or acrobats

gathered under her window

and called for her to come home.

Whose Large Eyes Catch the Light

I’m throwing open all of my windows and doors,

singing a song to the cold night air,

a beautiful song, to invite all the animals in.

I want to live with the furred and feathered,

the wild, the sincerely ferocious, the always hidden,

whose large eyes catch the light.

Small, soft animals will look cautiously out

from the pockets of winter coats.

Birds will nest in old shoes, in the morning

they will fly up to perch at the top of the bookcase

to see what I’ve been reading.

When I sit at the kitchen table

eating a bowl of cereal,

slurping the sugary milk

from the bottom of the bowl,

I’ll look up and see a large crow

flying across the room

saying “Caw! Caw! Caw!”

Little birds will cling to my hair,

their feet will poke my head

when they ride along to the store.

Foxes will cough from shadows.

I’ll sleep with bears

dreaming of stars

and caverns.

Bobcats will sit on the roof

looking out over the city

thinking their high up thoughts.

When wolves howl a river of sound,

I’ll ride along.

When I tell people stories

about my lucky life full of wildness

everyone will wonder what voice I used

to call to the animals so convincingly.

They’ll think, what’s in her heart

that makes her so fond of savage beasts?

Does her house have a dirt floor, is it

mossy and crowded with rough branches

crisscrossing the rooms and reaching past

tables and lamps and couches and chairs?

Do they hang their wet scarves and mittens

on twigs by the fire?

Do stars peek

through the open roof between boughs?

When I’m sad

love and warmth will surround me.

I’ll be soft as fur inside,

and won’t need words,

or lies.

It smells like diesel fuel in here, and something else. It smells like the sky, I guess, the sky that comes in when the overhead doors open. Heartman used to cock his hip and toss out the old coffee in a brown splashing arc, spin on the forefoot of his duct-taped cowboy boot on the lip of the walk along the office wall and head back in to fill the pot with fresh water. Skinny as a praying mantis, with aviator bifocals, bad teeth, held his hand over his mouth when he smiled. Over on the side wall, on one of the beams, he stacked all the rosters from every day he ever worked. After he died nobody wanted to use his truck, but they’d go over and get his lighter to light a cigarette.

Poems to my Skin

Inflammation

The fire is

an image of fire,

wound-voice

calling out, but not

the original wound,

which shirks inspection,

dissection,

interrogation--

criminal self

lurking under integument,

emerging wet, bloody.

Crusted over with shell--

parody of protection.

Sad self, weeping

through walls.

When protest is smothered,

fire goes underground.

Our Lady of Sorrows,

boss of neglected realms.

Distraction

I am an expert

in meditation,

able to take refuge

in sensation,

following the furls

of paisley

on a quilt, the varying widths

of the spaces between floor boards,

the dancing motes in a sliver

of late sun.

Able to find snags--

scabs,

dead skin--

to remove

with precise maneuvers,

divided attention.