12.7.04

some truth-based things

I want poetry
I want sun and rain and truth
I am that cloud, THERE


The dishes aren't going to wash themselves, obviously; I've tried it, and nope. So I dig in: new pink sponge, new environmentally friendly dish soap, CrazySexyCool on the box, baseball highlights on the portable TV, I am the king of my scene. It is six-thirty a.m. I was married 12 years ago today.

every dish stacked
on the drying towel so--
evaporation


It's a strange morning of a strange day: Monday so back to work, L. starting a new class this morning, had friends to see (what up 'Nardo) and lots of events this weekend (the Blitzkrieg went well, I liked my play but I knew it would be confusing, turns out it was. My brother: "It's not like it tanked" or anything...."), exhausted, emotionally wrought, wanting more and better and warmer and calmer and less predictable and more predictable and happier and weirder and more normal and everything all at once on an organic cracker. With some hot sauce but without the digestive effects. Story of my life et cetera.

Shut off the water
Shut off the thinking as well.
Just dry dishes, eyes


I have been up a lot late thinking about these things, thinking, grinding what I like to think of as 'the facts' all up against each other like stones in a bird's stomach, like stones in my passway, like a giant making bread out of an englishman. I am chasing things that do not exist, the way I've always done--the problem now, of course, is that my pursuit is taking me away from more important quests, ones that I had pledged to myself longer ago than the phantom ones I've come to believe. I've been chasing waterfalls rather than the rivers and the lakes I am used to.

take care with this glass
it meant something to someone.
you may be someone.


I shut off the water and put down the sponge and grab my head to keep the thoughts on track. I suppress a howl and then wonder why, and then wonder further why I even needed to howl in the first place. "What is so wrong?" everyone always used to ask me, "You have everything!" I didn't. But I did. But I didn't. But I did. But I don't. But I do. I do. Twelve years ago I said "I do." THAT is important. I have two children. That is what is important.

prismatic effect
sunlight through the faucet spray
rainbow in the sink


I will never win the Nobel Prize for Literature after all. I will not be the greatest music critic of my generation, nor its greatest playwright, nor even one of the 'best young poets'--I'm 38 for god's sake. My brilliant career will be as father, as husband, as friend, as brother, as son. I will always wash my own dishes, and the dishes of my people; I will accomplish the small things that will help my kids to achieve great ones, if they want to; I will be happy again, fun again, myself again. I pick up the sponge and get busy.

all the dishes clean
my work is done here what what
time to have a beer

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