pulling weeds this morning from the garden: transdermal belief

 

 

 

there are things like these,

blithe and poisonous that well up

like testis in the August sun. And sometimes,

 

on the days when I am saddest,

I list the things that I believe in most.

Not the things of happiness most,

 

or the things of orgasm most, but

all the things contemptuous and despicable.

The tiger I fought to an inch of his life,

 

the rattletraps of pitiable inadequacy,

thinking that nature was all it took to

grown a garden green. Not the melons

 

systematic and seldom. Never the lilacs unengaged.

Catching symbols in my little bra of

wearisome. Holding poems up

 

to the meringue, sugar light, those bearing

the greetings of sentiment; all others I

share with the mingling, meaningful

people.

 

I believe that everything we do (write)

is the compassionate treatment of our own selves

in constant distress.

 

Oh lord, must Satan come from the same ground,

Up through roots of constant struggle? I was a contender

in another life. Held the belt and title; punch drunk now,

 

I lay heavy on the ropes, the eyeswell pressed

tightly to my small, mischievous sprinklings. Wounded.

I believe

 

Negro is the only language I know.

The only high-vowel-snap.

The only evergreen path.

The only American owl.

Reviews

[Tree]

Poetry that sings, stings, bites and hugs. So many favorites here: like your usage of "sugar light," to desribe the illumination of a poem. The boxing metaphor, the Punch drunk ... And I am reminded how when reading you it's more than the adage that describes the "good poet" as: every stanza must stand alone as a poem, or even every verse must be able to sing without the band, but you, take it a step further: it is almost every word/ that is a poem.

And you just killed this poet, broke down his wall (heart), with that last stanza.

Well done, Dana

DP

[W.k.kortas]

What is the act of pulling weeds but trying (an attempt that is, ultimately, doomed) to keep the disorder at bay? Not unlike the act of writing poetry itself, the tiltiing at the windmills of "our own selves/in constant distress." This is the whole damn human condition written on the dirtied knees of a pair of jeans.

[Cory Barrett]

Your writing is like a drug, and a very good drug at that. All emotions, thoughts, happiness, pain, sex, anguish, and their crony stem form the same source. As the soil bares many plants, so does our mind. And for both the ugly, deep rooted weeds are the hardest to kill. Thank you for your writing.