Monday, July 18, 2011

Justice, Justice Thou Shalt Pursue

     "Momma, Momma, I didn’t mean it, Momma. I don’t know..."
     My girl stands there, holding a rag doll, a muddy rag doll that used to be my light, my angel, my joyful noise in the morning, in her hands.
     "Momma, I think I broke it. Can you fix it, Momma? Can you? You fix everything, Momma. Can you? Please?"
     I stare at the flat eyes, greyed skin, fingerless nails. I, who rewired lamps, cleared elbows, soldered cracked engine blocks, I, who fix just about anything, I knew I couldn’t fix this. No one could fix this, not even God. No one.
     I shake my head.
     "Momma, please, Momma. Can’t you try? I don’t know who else to ask, Momma."
     I shake my head again, so cold except for the urine I realized was streaming down my leg.
     "Momma, help me. You can, you have to, Momma."
     The uneven plaster on the wall snags my shirt and keeps me upright while I shake my head. I watch the spinning colors behind my eyelids. I cannot look at what is in front of me.
     "Momma, if you can’t fix it, can you make it go away? Momma?"
     I swallow and nod yes.

Sushi: A Fish by Any Other Name is Still a Fish

Cunt.
Lying, cheating whoremonger.
He’d rather sit there, staring, contemplating a ‘relationship’
with her. Not me.
I scroll my email logs, going back.
Fourteen months, twenty-three days.
So many broken promises in those fourteen months, twenty-three days.
It made me not like myself, the me I was with him.
The needy, whining, shutting my eyes to truth, ignoring the elephant conga line snaking around the room, head pounding me I became with him.
If I don’t respect myself, why should he?
If I don’t value myself, why should he?
Why should anyone?
So many broken promises in those fourteen months, twenty-three days.
The last trip, the test trip which I didn’t know was a test and was doomed to fail, questions written on decomposing paper with disappearing ink, letters rearranging themselves faster than a speeding bullet which stops in the cinder block wall behind my head, which ended in a bout of hepatitis A for me after eating oysters in August.
The realization that he was emailing her from my computer and clearing the cache in a futile attempt to keep me from knowing he was making plans
with her. Not me.
So many broken promises in those fourteen months, twenty-three days.
You want her, you want to fill your belly with sushi?
Go ahead. Eat. Eat as much as you can.
Eat, and when you are hungry an hour later, eat some more. Enjoy.
But she won’t take fourteen months, twenty-three days of broken promises to move on.
I have lost my taste for raw foods, for duplicity.
Give me hard-cooked eggs, pasturized milk, blackened catfish and grilled bok choy.
No more broken promises. Ever ever.

Thursday, July 7, 2011

The Meaning [lessness] of Life

One more in a long line of one mores
Aphorisms swirl through the brain, trite and treacle,
knitting a shawl that wouldn’t keep a newt warm
No, not even a newt
There is so much rejection before "I can’t take it anymore" sets in good and hard
So good and hard all I want is to be amontilladoed in
before I hear dirges of accept and utilize, accept and utilize
Accept and utilize is a curse, not an inspiration
before the good cop bad cop shuffle has me confessing to crimes
I haven’t even heard of and couldn’t imagine

If I turn it inside out, struggle, nails claw chalkboard, to make this another learning experience
I am too old for this BS anyway
But if I do-
There is a truism, that fishing is like life
Not the cast your reel and you will surely catch something
Not even the teach a man-or woman-to fish and you’ll feed him for a lifetime
but my own variant,
My own, "If I don’t do what I’ve always done, I’ll get something I haven’t already got"
Maybe

Teach a man to fish and you’ll feed him for life
There is no bait
There is no hook
There is a broken reel
The ocean is so dense with salt, so full of tears, it cannot sustain life
So teach me to fish, hookless, baitless, broken
Let me cast my reel into barren water and watch me pull in a 1978 Bridgestone tyre
Watch me

Amabo te, fame deliria. Videro finem, exitum...
Da mihi piscis, piscis, amabo te. Lac humanus beneficii, amabo te.
Just give me a fish, just for now, to fill my mouth with sweet
calm the spasms for a little while
feed me enough for today, I won’t ask again tomorrow
I know I’ve worn out whatever welcome I had

Amabo te. I am the chum. Please.
 
Even if life is perfect in chance, in equity, in fairness,
[Who said life was fair, anyway?]
all the skills/training/certification/experience
when chance or unspoken paradigm intercede
and move a half meter to my left for the catch du jour
while all around, dozens doing pretty much similar with similar get
nothing
again

Life is a banquet, but most poor fools are starving,
while mouse rejected crumbs litter the table
and the Maid of Honor, never a bride, is the designated driver of a limo,
gas tank hovering on empty, who can’t even numb the hurt with Patron


translation:
Please, I am delirious with want. I see the end, the final end...
Give me a fish, a fish, please. The milk of human kindness, please.