Poems, thoughts, and stories.
I couldn’t help it, leaving. It must be the way I’m made. They spoke God, said I'd wreck my soul with that abomination — so I chose the other tree, blue-green against the same sky, splashed its dark on my face and fell sound asleep as they raged beneath an equally good tree preparing for my salvation.
*
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I’ve tried to not want my City, to make life here, far from the streets and hills and men that brought me life in such breadth that I gulped lust at every turn, bodies and books and sweet blessed fog, busses, parks, crazies four floors beneath screaming “HELP! HELP!” though there’s only a streetlamp, three-hundred-dollar theater seats steps from human defecation (it’s not pretty) — tether-bridges to windy and windy headlands and mystical beaches and sex — where to walk is to be enveloped, in love. I tried to love her instead of him, once upon a time, way back when lies meant caring, and my brain and niceness said I shouldn’t hurt anyone so I drowned Aaron in hope and went on screwing and became good at it and talked about; but each night, laying on top of her sweet and forgiving body, sculpted ballers did sweaty lay-ups in my room, in my head in me and if it wasn’t for those players, she never would’ve cum, so it seemed like it was okay. But it wasn’t. I tried Return of the Native. I tried The Glass Menagerie. Everything by Faulkner. All I wanted was Sassoon, maybe a little Woolf, but I’d lock myself in my room to read words words words, and I’d yawn yawn yawn — while A Room of One’s Own whispered slyly to Suicide in the Trenches: “He’s missed the point. “He’s really missed the point.” Sushi Streisand Dances with Wolves mango con limón my dear friend who wants to be dear so he must be but… no-fap novenas TED Talks on writing guys who aren’t built who really aren’t built who seriously aren’t built great personalities no-fap try try try John Cage no-fap “Thy will be done” Los Angeles Christianity — when all along, sweet lullaby, sleeps the not-tried, the true, until I put on a jacket against cold San Francisco freedom and smile destiny.
*
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A violin is curved wood and four strings. It needs a person to make noise, an artist to make music, love to sing. Just like us.
He lives in my garden; only I have the key. There is no gate, no lock to un-lock like those posh private parks, just a tree and some grass, balloons from a story and maybe an old bottle of wine we bag before law comes spinning around, on the hunt for happiness. Over there is our first kiss on the stone pier they said Cortés built, stretching out into a tequila moon; and where that old lady sits, remembering or forgetting: a flight to somewhere, one screen lit in the dark, yours, watching the same movie, three times. He is my garden; only I have the key. No sock-puppet politician or fisting Missouri FratBoy can trespass our grass, mock our tree, pull down those balloons. He is my garden, eternally lost except to me, safe like drunk wine and watched movies, invisible to those who don’t speak love, far from parched howls and Christians, close as breath.
*Dedicated to Josh Hawley, who thought his own hand was up in the air as he declared war.
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The sun feels good in this world,
warm,
wide-windowed breeze
and your brown clone sunglasses
with golden wire frames.
I think I’m falling.
With you, my skin is tanned to sand,
porch-picnic-ready,
your mom asking “So is he
treating you good?”
When I say yes,
she gets that twinkle
so I know what she means.
I nod, shy; she smiles,
proud of her son.
I sit in your world
and we all eat chicken and talk
about school and
TV and
how you know when you’re in love.
(They had a lot of wine.)
Here, your parents are mine;
they don’t have to say
I’m welcome.
Now I remember:
Mom hides fear in her smile
while dad tries hard to forget
me,
sewn up tight as he
feasts on fury.
I am a billion sand-pieces
waiting for glass.
“Come on,” you say.
“The road’s too cool
for that.”
So I wrench out of then,
kiss this
forget that
for now.
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“Stand back, stand by.”
I am about to know I have loam and rock for a back and blue-grey sky for a head honor an orange sun yellow and gaze purple into ink rest in love as I have done all these years, wake to heartbeats and sleep with all sighs. Then when unripe Boys rape in dirt and shoot dark; masturbate dry pricks blood-smear voided genitals kill this body gorge on dull meat eat our kind burn our memory; then my arms Earth and Sky my companion-Sun my love this man envelop me pierce this hell carry me home.
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.
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How do I sift history into sound
cut pain into letters
spell you with words
that cleave night from day
right from wrong
lie from truth?
No.
Awe floats —
leaf in windless landscape
breathless birdsong
your heat —
and so I burn my noisy nets,
kiss my love,
praise
silent hands.
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Missing pencils and half-used cakes of board wax margaritas mid-afternoon on an old blue-painted porch the dog is sick but the vet says he’ll be okay “Do you ever miss Los Angeles?” Yeah, some friends, memories trouble is held back by the rocks protecting the bay.
for Dave
Greg Beckman 