K.T.: *brief pause* You know what, A.A.? You're right. Fuck all the haters.
A.A.: *brief pause* K.T., no one's trying to fuck with you. Everyone's on your side. You're not even black.
K.T.: Yeah. Well, I just wanted to say 'fuck all the haters.'
And he was right. Everyone is on my side. I just have to remember that though the highs are never as high as they seem, neither are the lows as low as they seem. Getting back on track bit by bit.
***
Did you know May is National Poetry Month? I didn’t until a chance encounter with something I like to call the “Internet.” And here’s what I have to say about poetry: I don’t get it. At least, not in the way I get writing prose. Writing is my red-headed stepchild. I love it unconditionally, and it treats me like shit sometimes, and it treats me like a rose sometimes, and I am always there for it, or it’s always there for me. I can attempt to put into words what makes it special, but that ruins it.
Poetry is just the opposite. I’m not sure what constitutes a good poem, or a bad poem, and I have to resort to analysis to tell the difference. And whenever I have to rely on analytics as opposed to feeling it, you can tell there’s something lost, and my heart isn’t there. Not to say I can’t analyze prose, but I do it only after I understand that it’s something to be treasured. Poetry, wow. Utterly clueless.
My favorite poem of all time is “Do not go gentle into that good night” by Dylan Thomas. And mostly, it’s not for the deeper implications of it, and for Thomas’ dying father, one of his last exhortations to hold on. It’s mostly because, to me, the lyrics “Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light” tell me to not give up, to continue the fight. Nothing deep about it. Like I said, I have no clue.
And so, in honor of National Poetry Month, I wrote a poem. (Oh, God. He’s gone there.) I might try it again before the month (or life) is up. You can see the basis of my poesy is to tell a story, much as the basis of my writing is to tell a story. My sense of rhyme and meter is not there, as I just throw it out there and hopefully it will stick. Still, still I try, and it is part of my (slow) evolution as a writer.
Snowfall in July
Wavy rivulets cascade down the windowpane.
He drags his finger across the streaky glass,
Rounded curves trailing off into a thin tail.
A loud, nasal sigh, and twinned circles bloom
Fogging his Sunday afternoon.
She coughs, marbles rattling in a tin can.
Mom, always Mom, but not the same Mom.
Mom used to pick him up under her arm
And run across the yard
And throw him in the backseat
And drive off to the park
And race him all the way to the swingset
And push him for hours every Sunday,
The last time it happened, the snow was so deep
He couldn’t fall over, wading through giant pillows,
Mom lifting him up to get him back upright.
Now, this Mom,
Wrapped in Mom’s favorite blanket,
The pale green with pink carnations,
That giant hole where her big toe pokes through.
She doesn’t have time for him.
She doesn’t have time for anyone.
She spits a black clot into another innocent tissue,
Dropping the fallen soldier beside her.
Crumpled tissue graveyard consecrating the couch.
He watches her arm dropping, slow, careful,
Yet careless as her hand lets go.
Wipes his eyes with his sleeve.
Too long, flopping over his hand, and damp-dark.
Looks back outside and watches the rain.
Sighs again, and wishes for snowfall in July.
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