The Light is not the only soul in the room with a teaching credential.
“Two Dramatic Poems”
We're in it now.
Walkers and wipes from here till the end.
People will say "How wonderful they
take care of each other."
People will say "They have each other."
Smiles will barely mask pity
as I become your good deed.
I don't think I'll care about good wishes.
I'll be grateful for you, I hope,
in-between bouts of awareness.
You'll love me until I die,
and then love me more until you smile
for the time I was once whole –
when there was no walker,
no wipes –
when we thought death was the worst,
some far-off place, some mirage.
*
We thought we'd escape –
took long walks across the bridge
and ate food, fun food, hamburgers.
I took stairs two and three at a time,
and you attracted guys in the showers,
just washing yourself you attracted life.
Jealous old men shot proverbs:
"Enjoy it while your can."
"Things that don't go wrong before
fifty...do after. Beware!"
Pity crossed our lips but we stood sure
age was someone else's war,
someone else's ward,
the cost of ignorance.
Choice.
Never bad luck.
Never true.
Now everything we do is timed.
Weighed. Purposed.
My body isn't mine anymore
though I placate it with spinach
and cardio and porn.
He's tending toward home,
breaking me into the grave
slowly, surely,
ready to lay down
as I conjure stairs
taken two or three at a time
and showers, those showers,
filled with beauty,
mine for a few minutes more.
“No need”
I wonder where my hand is in all this,
this marsh where moss floats and webs
stay put, bugs plane pond-skin unafraid
of the sleepy-eyed frog just back from the edge
and full. Here is safe and here is calm;
nothing ever happens here that wasn’t
fore-ordained, announced by ripples or
sudden silence.
It feels like death.
Happiness would be a shock.
No need.
I’ll bide my time, lay here wild,
skim this unmade life, this greenish
eden-bayou, this unfriendly not-mine
as all eventually devour this man,
whispering via mosquito-buzz:
there’s nothing you can do to stop me.
“Oxnard Street Poet”
Older than the sidewalk cracks and street, settled on his flaking porch, he remembered the Valley when it was trees. “I’m ready to not be old,” he said as I passed by. His eyes were uncommonly blue, for an old man. He said: “They published my poem.” I was on my way to school, about to not stop. “Once I get the book, I’ll read it to you.” * The book cost $49.95. He held up the flyer they sent. But he was proud, so I said nothing. * “Hallo,” he’d say, waving from his chair. “Hello,” I’d say, not wanting to be rude. Lovely day, awesome morning, top of the world, hello, hallo, have a good day. Joe was great-uncle wrinkled, and I had class to get to, I was a Senior. But everyone should talk to a grandpa sitting on a porch. * He asked if I wanted to read his poem. The book was thick with cheap paper. I was late but said yes and the poem was about apples and I didn’t have to make something up. It was worth more than the book. “Do you like it?” he asked. “I want to read it to my English class.” Joe gave me his book. He said to be careful with it. “I never got published before.” * We sat watching cars speed down Oxnard Street, heads moving left to right then back again, ready. * Joe made coffee and I listened to stories. He voted for Roosevelt and Nixon, twice — “bet you no one’ll ever tell you that!” — He didn’t like his grand-daughter. He said I wouldn’t either. “Uppity. Ugliness is inner.” He said if you wanted to get a pothole fixed in LA, put a movie-camera next to it and the mayor would come fill it himself. He so near the end talked to me so near the beginning, said we were bookends on God’s shelf. His hands trembled, so I carried the cups. “That’s what age does, shakes us loose from the inside out.” * The Oxnard Street poet and an uppity kid who learned to listen to words warmed by coffee and care and age.
“Mine”
He’s a poster. He posed for it, flexed. Baseball player who’s won — wife, kid, God, arms. Good. Yes. I wish him well... and then plod up my empty street soaked in past and full of dark. The house is on the right. A light is on. He waits for me. Posters aren’t made of me. My triceps don’t act like that. Fans? No. My shy love and this quiet plot, beautiful, mine and silent and home. I’ll choose mine every time.
“Weight”
Where did this weight — solid rock crushing my chest into spine — come from? “You know very well. That fight? Fourth grade? Wyoming?” Yeah. So maybe it's time to build a house with that old stone and move.
“Lorca”
Hey, bro!
I did her!
With sunglasses on!
— Memorial Acclamation
Go do it, then,
whatever it is that you do —
sex someone, buy that ring —
film it, even, make
a record of your elementary courage
and then social your accomplishment
to your kind.
After all, you have the keys —
(Secret gesture.
Secret gesture.
Secret gesture!)
— and I should want to be
just
like
you.
But,
no.
If you’re going to do it, hijo,
choose a field where
you will get caught
and shot
and then I’ll know you’re real.
Let your body stand erect
as rifles are raised by priests and soldiers;
stand before their righteous hate, alone,
knowing you die for your desire.
Then I’ll follow.
In your childlike voice:
“It was just a little fun!”
“Why do you have to be so serious?”
Mi pequeñito, you have a thousand ways
to explain your survival —
as his blood sings from Spain,
intones a truth known only to me:
Divinity is a dead body,
sinking and stinking,
unliked and unfriended,
shot by justice,
abhorred by Church,
buried nowhere but my heart.
Cristo amó.
Cristo murió.
Cristo murió.
“Dolores Park, SF”
I should write something, here from this perch above the city. But what? Walking up 14th, I saw a guy shooting up between his toes. He'll be dead soon. And then the perfect couple modeling their perfect lululemon exercising their perfect dogs — already dead.
Back to Poems.
You know — there’s are books…
Greg Beckman 