Poem a Day for April - 1

I think back to the green tigers of my he-man childhood where the bad guys looked like skeletons and you could tell who the good people were because they were the attractive ones. I think back to the complicated carpets thrown over the bad memories and the few shocking times I heard the sound of grown-ups crying like children behind closed doors. The dripping tap of my wonder years keeps me up at night. The cartoons that held my attention becoming tarnished, dated, and cheap. The clear morality eroding over the years into what I am now. The bones of my arms lengthening, the mass of my body increasing, the pathways of my brain being snipped from possibility down to definition.
Once I was sexless. Now I am not.

Have I been whittled from something pure into something pointed? Have I been shrunk while I became larger? Have my lessons, string by string, strapped my Gulliver dreams to the ground?

I think forward to the flying cars of my science-fiction future where the bad guys look like robots and I can tell who the good people are because they’re wearing lab coats. I think forward to the complicated morals about to be explored with the new science and the few shocking times that we’ll get things right. The electric hum of my old age helps me sleep at night. The predictions that we think are great right now that will seem naïve, childish and small. The grey area I am right now eroding even further into black. The bones of my spine shrinking, the muscles of my body weakening, the pathways of my brain being snipped from hard structure down to gusts of unconnected memory. Now I am sexual. Soon, I won’t be.

Will I have been electrified from something primitive into something more advanced? Will I have been made simpler by having parts of me replaced? Will my hopes, kite by kite, set my childish soul free?




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Poem a Day for April - 2

A house of bricks, a house of straw, and then a house of twigs,
These houses were constructed by three tiny little pigs.

There’s a house that’s different than the other tiny boxes.
It’s a house of cotton. It was built by tiny foxes.

There’s the red and brown and black of all the fox’s fur
The white and white and white and white of all the furniture

Foxes like it soft and clean. Foxes like it neat.
Foxes like it comfortable beneath their tiny feet.

Fox’s ears are sensitive and cotton blocks the din
Cotton keeps the world out and makes the foxes grin

They have such lovely conversations far from all the crowds.
It’s like they have a house in heaven made of fluffy clouds

They’re not afraid, there are no doors, no windows and no locks.
For they are sure a big bad wolf cannot outwit a fox.

Other houses here reside besides this cotton house.
There is a house of watermelon carved out by a mouse.




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Poem a Day for April - 3

Treasure Maps

In between the saddle and the horse, the treasure map of my best intentions is flattened. Wrinkles compress into scars underneath the rider and above the beast. This thin sheet of paper is all I have to go on. A sweat-soaked promise kept in the dark under pressure on a journey.

The animal beneath me is more stable and takes me places faster than two legs can. The rider above me is smarter than the horse below but he is weaker. The pressure from above controls the animal below. Man and beast with me in the middle. Strength of will riding strength of body.

Maybe the horse is the devil and the rider is God. I am tucked under God’s saddle, blind to where we’re headed. God is separated from the Earth. The Devil has all four legs planted here. The horse gets dirty. God is kept clean. Rain falls on both of them. I am kept thin, mute, and stupid between them but I’m safe.

Or maybe the horse is my subconscious and the rider is my ego.

Either way, I’m the treasure map. We all are. Treasure maps on journeys, being used by forces beyond us to find amazing things.


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Poem a Day for April - 4

What you want is impossible. What you want doesn’t exist. In the stands we sit and watch the building builders build buildings, praying the gay away before the final bells toll. Watching a collection of tea towels and guard dogs taking up sides and pointing noses at each other across the straight line they’ve drawn in the sand. Watching parties lead to conflict and shaking our heads in shame. I know a bad day can stretch into a last day. I know that lonely can become friendly and a decision to make the next hours into the home stretch will seem like a relief. You won’t even know you’re insane.

I’m no expert at starting engines but I can say with authority that telephones cry each time they’re used to break a heart. I can say that each kamikaze flame of surrender to your orders, your mission, your ability to take one for the team, is nothing but a note stuck under the wipers of a broken windshield. A huge, muscled marine of cure making out with a tiny, whimpering underage girl of prevention. If your will becomes your last will and your testimony becomes your last testament, then what good are you?

I’m not attacking nobility. Giving your life by lying down under bulldozer tracks or tank treads to stand for something is more strength than I have.

But if you’re in a dive. Please. Pull up.





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Brazil in the Future according to MTV

Cross posted from Paul DiFi over at The Inferior 4. Really, really nice.

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