To John In a moment of anger

I really don't like this poem, but I've promised myself to post everything I don't destroy, so here it is. Like I said, I don't like it.


You taught me well.
I know what you would say:

Find your chi.
Find the strength of your soul.
Breathe deeply.
Find the bodhisattva within you.
I know it’s there.
I see it in your eyes
and the eyes are windows,
peepholes
out of the prison
your soul
rattles
and echoes in.

Find me, John.
Teach me again
what I have forgotten.
I know you’re out there
with your effeminate hands
and Ramones shirts
and rebellious tranquility
in a world that wants you to be loud.
I wonder what you’re doing,
if your eyes are still blue
and cracked white like clay,
like trees in winter.
Your black hair was never messy enough to get you noticed,
never neat enough to get you picked on,
and your skank-dancing made me smile.
You always smiled back,
a perfect little brother,
and gave that inescapably charming wink
that you reserved for me alone.
You rolled Dan’s bowler hat onto your head
smooth as a lemon on a table-top.
Although I tried for years
I never learned to roll it that way.

You knew I couldn’t do it—
why did you spend so many hours
holding my hand, picking up the stiff felt
time after time as I let you down?

I laughed each time it fell,
Bowed a bit and made up an excuse.

I have no coordination.
My sense of balance is terrible.
It doesn’t matter, I’ll learn some other day.
I’m such a clutz.
I’m sorry.
Don’t bother yourself.
It’s okay. Thanks anyway.
I really don’t need to.
I’ll just mess up.

And then—

Fine.
If you want me to
I’ll try again.

You told me not to cloud my vision with judgment.
You were right.
I learned from you:
Don’t let them force you to be something,
Don’t see them only as they want to be seen;
Don’t cloud your vision
with judgment
with pills
with needles
or with love.
Love flows naturally
and cannot be forced.
If you have no love in you,
do not be ashamed,
you said.
You will find it.
It is already there.
You just have so much of it
that you have hidden it
and blocked the doorway.
But love is like water
and cannot be controlled.
It will seep out
or evaporate
or break down the doors
and return
no matter how deeply it is buried.

Is a week long enough
for an atheist to recognize
a bodhisattva?

Why is it
that I had almost forgotten you,
you who I loved so deeply,
my little brother and my mentor,
my little pea-plant growing in a closet,
your pale skin an obvious sign
(as I have learned
in school)
that you needed sunshine more badly
than any of us,
my cloud-child with sky-diamond eyes?
After all this time
I remember you
only now
as I stand poised
to break a lovely thing,
all sharp edges and dangerous delicacy,
as a means of vengeance—
would you have shed a tear for me, John?
Reminded me again
that I have forgotten everything you taught me?
I imagine that you would have merely smiled sweetly
and kissed my forehead
as I lowered the glass,
lovingly passed the soiled rag over its surfaces,
and put it away
with the hushed reverence of a child,
not daring
to let a tear
blemish its smooth harsh surface.

The Gypsy

stupidly modeled after Edward Thomas and written in my head on the subway:

The weekend before Christmas no one was anywhere.
The streets were filled with foreigners who seemed doomed to stare
at sparkling windows for all eternity. I began to hunch
my shoulders forwards, pocket my hands and skip lunch
from time to time. letting my bagged face grow pale
and bony and my shoulders point, growing frail
and squaring the corners of my worn black coat. Coffee
alone remained sweet and safe to me.
Amidst a crowd united in wonder I felt alien, new,
a stranger to the city of my heart. "Do you
have the time?" I'd ask, trying to break the weave
that smothered like a scarf on a summer's eve;
but they just shook their heads and picked up speed.
"Help me," cried a voice, "I only need
a few more bucks to go home for the holiday."
"All I've got is a twenty, but here--you must weigh
less than I do. Take my Sicilian slice."
"God bless you." I wondered what God was so nice
as to leave him alone in the New York cold
and hoped not to be so calculating when I'm old.
I wondered if he really had a family to journey home to,
and if I should have left him a buck or two.
Where was my giving spirit? Him and his kin
have often stopped the cold from seeping in
with friendly smiles and music that pierces through
the thickest of scarves, regardless of whether you
enjoy it. That night the snow blocked out for me
the faces of the city; all I could see
was the old man's smile, the peace on his very lips.
"God bless you." And now the tips
of ink-pens alone will thank him for the kindly look
that turned my icy eyes into running brooks
whose marks stayed on my face all night,
invisible in the city's frozen light.