dear rumors kept

 

 

 

 

Tammi Terrell  laid flat dead after Marvin Gaye, then David Ruffin took turns

hitting her in the head with the hammer in 68. That year of the race riot

when rumors hit the town and burned it. We stood on the brown porch

watching as Jeans party store burned and I thought of all the good candy

going down, the chips getting black on the edges. Dan Rather was jostled

in Chicago, then clubbed by the Guard in that slipknot with long ends

overlapping vertically in those gardens of forward independence.

 

I still feel for the tanks of my unconscious, touching their green sides, rolling,

menacing, and then it was over and Jean, still smoldering, sang hymnals

learned in the Lutheran church where Pastor Pinkart forbad colored folk

from communion, but allowed me to light candles, though robe-less, then

disappear like the still reach of mysticism. I was born for this.

 

Born for memory, good and evil, the stuff identified, the bad stuff buried with

the rings of prostitutes slipped off by their pimps at the final viewing. Everything

free is beautiful but so little poetic of the last seven years of my life, played out

like Billy Sole the native tracker in that movie "Predator", where you know how to

get away, see the way away, but get sucked up in the jaws of the monster,

all the while refusing to scream, just go to be ancestral. (?)

 

Forgiving Dad for the flat over the pool room, for the pancakes sweet made with

potatoes, his way of saying he was sorry for a night of drunkenness, for being carried

home and laid on the front steps. For wanting my first kiss (thank you Sherl) full of

saliva and warm tongue, for not remembering the trip home just waking up the next day

an asterisk in a farewell letter, marching off to war.

 

For falling in and out of love as the authorship of endogenous poetry, the burning

of a heretic, the autologous bone marrow transplant, the kissing of a centerfold,

the autographic nature of calm breezes: Like living alone, for the demiurge of Platonic

deities who fashions the sensible world in the light of eternal bliss,

 

this patriotism, this uniform, this often aching art of belonging, is. Now it all shines

like the cover of Fingerhut, since it is where I find myself; myself, the anagram for a

Detroit winter, where you shovel snow all morning, then repeat the same motion

at noon in no one else's company, trying to uncover the hidden message of why.

Why the hell would Marvin do something like that in the first Place?

 

Why are we all the autistic boy who sides on behalf of shapes

and shadows, known. That the light that comes

and then disappears is just the sun, or moon

or both at once,

making due.

Reviews

[Emily B]

I see John in your words. in little ways. The heart is yours and the stories, but there is an undercurrent that keeps him alive a little.

[Lydia Shutter]

You took me back there....to when I heard about it on the radio. No one listens to radio news anymore though, do they? Then you personalized it with what was happening in YOUR life....forgiving your Dad for all you have listed was so effective. The metaphor of shoveling snow only to have to do it all over again a couple hours later was brilliant. Why do we do things that truly expend energy for no reason? Why? Well, I think some of it is because of old tapes that play in our brains...things our friends, family, or even strangers have said so many times we take them as fact. Another part is it is a zen thing. We do these repititious activities because they are brainless....and they help us deal with the unpoetic side of life...the side that seems to grow with each passing year. Yes, we do have to "make do" sometimes because we truly have no other choice. We can not create shadows where there are none any more than we can make the sun shine on a rainy day. Why did Marvin do something like that? We will never really know, will we? Sorry for going on and on...your words made my mind wander! Lydi**

[writing mojo]

well put dana. It's amazing to me what makes us flesh shells move with ups and downs, from insides to outs, from environmental to chemicals as genetically dotted eyes and crossed barring Tees..holding the holey trinity on a crucifix of the passionate innate
the double edged sword in the side bind of a story opened again
and poured more than vinegar, it poured blood on record with
the needle still sticking in the city grooved with "What's going on" blue spirited... amazing piece

[Robbie~xoxo~]

You are indeed a fascinating writer.... our memories have a way of threading through good and evil, love, and forgiveness, it must be in our DNA... our journey make us who we are...

Thank you for sharing, my friend.~xoxo~

[emmajoy]

' For falling in and out of love as the authorship of endogenous poetry, the burning ~ of a heretic, the autologous bone marrow transplant, the kissing of a centerfold, ~ the autographic nature of calm breezes: Like living alone, for the demiurge of Platonic deities who fashions the sensible world in the light of eternal bliss, ' What a powerful and inspired writer you are, from start to finish!

You lead a reader from here to there, person to person, age to age, experience and emotion, touches of nostalgia and utter reality. Your final verse is the fading last bars lingering in the air.. superb.