me: writing

Hey, check it out! new place for allll of my writing. I know you’re all on the edge of your seats.

 

Wait

they’re
protesting in
the capital in the plaza
in the streets i’ve read
saw them i
passed overhead
someone took a picture
country roads
they’re shouting
shouting i
try to understand i
am here put
down the newspaper
put out my cigarette
sip the last drop of
beer gone flat
i pick up a pencil, flat,
i’ll sharpen it and
wait. While i wait
i light another cigarette
and i wait

________________________

Room for Rent

A pile of books
by my bed
I may stumble
when we come home

I’ll toss my shoes
by the door
with your sweater

The record player
will still hiss
gathering dust
waiting for a change
of disk

There’s a groove
on my side of the bed
but the other’s still open
I’ll clear the clutter
if you want
just fill out an application.

_________________________

What means Goodbye

We were meant      meant to
to be saying            goodbye
but the words          words
words wouldn’t
form in my throat   instead you
and I and we
gasped and came
and I choked and    we
lay coupled on an   empty
mattress in the        empty
apartment                alone
speaking in simple yeses
afraid of what
might come next
if we couldn’t
insulate ourselves against
the gathering wind

_____________________

WAR TOUCHED US HERE

It’s one of those things that Everybody says, that times were different then. I suppose I ought to have an opinion, one way or the other. But I can’t say really, if They are right: if times were different, or if they weren’t, if one war is better or worse than another, or if there is any one time that is remarkable in its capacity for confusion, and for pain. All I know is that I was young then, much younger, and even my parents were much younger then, too.

It was just after the sixties, so I recall them – my parents – as mostly in a blur of cocktail attire, phone calls to the neighbors, the nightly news and an after work martini. Everything is colored by a soft blue grey haze – either from the fading of time, or the cigarette that was permanently attached to my mother’s hand. She was beautiful then, the trail of smoke following her from room to room only added to my love of her, her mystery, whistling to the jazz she played softly on the record player.

My eldest brother had just been deployed across the Pacific. I still vaguely recall his first letter home, Our mission is never clear here – he wrote, describing his immediate living conditions. I was under the impression that we were expected to bring civilization, but I can’t see that the way we live is any more civilized than the natives. We keep ourselves occupied though – I had imagined this as a more rustic, camping trip that would be the continuance of Chet’s high school years, roasting weenies and playing touch football. In reality, I think my brother spent most of his stint “at war” stoned.

My other brother was mostly interested in girls and drugs too at that point, but instead of being at war he was at his drums, so I was left mainly to myself. Except when I was expected to work in my father’s store, an establishment in our small town, but I couldn’t take the pressure of being the only son around, representing my brothers and all that, all the mothers of other boys in my class and my brothers’ classes asking about Chet. Chet could have been fine or dead for all I knew, because we hardly ever got word from him, and least wise, I wasn’t trying to have any more contact with my classmate’s mothers who would clutch their handbags in remorse and shake their heads, pretending to sympathize, really just afraid that their son would be next, with the occasional mother who would reach over and pet my arm, pretending to sooth me, but really it was the reality of me, the live flesh and blood, that soothed them. I was a charm against those devils across the Pacific, my blood ran red, white and blue, against that telegram, the harbinger of sorrow. So near the end of summer, I got a different job, outside of town.
It wasn’t far from the outskirts of the town, on a game farm, working for the state. It didn’t pay particularly well, but a guy I used to pal around with a bit in school worked there too, so we’d spend the day shooting the shit as well cleaned cages and laid seed and prepared for the oncoming winter. It was hard work, but it was outdoors, and no one interfered with us very often.
I suppose that the operation could have been run more tightly, but our boss, the manager of the outfit, was more interested in the bottle than in dealing with us. He was fiercely protective of the plot of land he was in charge of, however, and made regular but brief rounds to make sure we were working hard and caring for the pheasants.
Occaisonally, after the day’s work, we’d bring the tools back to the shed near his one story house, once grey, now stained darker grey and black by the unpredictable rain and lack of upkeep, contrasting with the surrounding greens and yellows, a stubborn stone in a field meant for cultivation. He’d be out on the porch, even if the day wasn’t warm, staring off, sometimes at the setting sun, sometimes in that general direction, but evidently at nothing in particular. We’d try and make as little noise as possible, not wanting to disturb what might have been tranquility, though his expression never reflected serenity. I always avoided looking at him squarely in the face, but I especially avoided looking at him during those times. His hardened face was in a kind of neutral position, convoluted and revving, gathering potential energy, so that it was impossible to gage just exactly which gear he was going to jump off into.

Nearing the end of summer, and the end of the period of time I would be working there, we were groggily about to head out to run the usual rounds, Mr. Hunter – Hunt as everyone called him on the farm – bust out of the garage in his old Ford truck that once must have been a fire-engine red, but now gave the impression of wilting roses. I don’t think he could have worked on that truck much, because it did make a racket. The other boy’s words were lost to me, and as Hunt pulled up to us, neither of us tried to carry on as we had before, worried that the man had finally lost it; a former service man, it was rumored that he had kept to himself ever since his return from Korea.
Pulling up a few yards away, too close for either of us to be comfortable, because neither of us could admit that we were completely afraid of him. There was no way that we’d ever chosen to be more than a few feet away from him. And when forced into contact, we’d make it as short as possible. But today, he looked us over, his eyes beadily bouncing back and forth between the two of us, and then he reached out a long finger – Stuarts – he barked, looking me in the eye for just half a second, before jamming his thumb in a backwards motion behind him. Hop in back. Need an extra hand today.
Too terrified, but too determined to be a man, I refused the nagging urge to meet my companion’s gaze, followed orders, and hopped in the back of the old Ford. As we lumbered off, me sitting on the wheel well, I felt a pair of eyes clinging to my back, possibly more terrified than mine, ripping at my sweatshirt, pulling me back to the small mound of earth where I had been firmly planted three minutes ago. Now we were headed out towards the outer edges of the acreage, out towards the forest and the river, past the cages and the open fields where the pheasants and other small wildlife scavenged for worms and other foodbits, blown by the wind or carried on the backs of smaller critters.

By the time we reached the outer edge of the property, the reserve, the sun had fully risen, as much as it would in the early fall days. It wouldn’t get much higher than the jaunty angle in the eastern half of the light blue dome, keeping the plants and grass a type of golden that sticks in my memory, that I can only see in my mind’s eye now, or when I look at the faded photographs of the photo album my mother pieced together from that time. The haze that separates the camera from its object, a dusting that illuminates the space, but also clouds the definition between the physical objects themselves, captured in the image. The longer I think of myself standing there, the sharper the golden light becomes, the lens rotating into focus, the peppered grey of Hunt’s overgrown military cut, and the individual blades of field grass, of varying lengths, stirring with the faint drafts spiraling down from overhead, from the shifting of the skies and the early migratory paths. It was on this outermost edge that Hunt had laid his traps. We had often wondered what the large iron clamps could possibly have been for, jumbled in menacing piles behind the tool shed, half hidden by burlap, in masses like the ugly excrement of ancient machinery, entrails, chains and sharp edges overlapping. Shifting a clump of dried grass to uncover one of the traps, I could only gasp in exclamation and ask, but what are they for? before I remembered that I ought to be too scared to question the old man. I cowered, but Hunt wasn’t disturbed by the question, only growling low that they were for Protection. Without us these birds would be defenseless. Never know who might run out of food and take a fancy to a pheasant dinner. I tried to wrap my head around this, trying to imagine just who exactly we were protecting the pheasants from, but we continued along, apparently checking over each trap that Hunt had laid. Uncovering it, seeing that all was in working order, and laying the grass again.

After about ten minutes of the process, at first terrifying, I began to loosen up and lose interest in the task, bored at the repetition, annoyed that I couldn’t take a cigarette break and that the dried tall grass was pricking my skin uncomfortably. But that was when we heard the whimpering, faint at first, as if having lost hope, but so pained that it – the animal, whatever it was – could not contain its pain. Hunt’s eyes narrowed and he started in the direction of the noise. I don’t know how I made it those few, indeterminably long yards. I have no recollection of it, walking over there, but I must have done it just as Hunt did, one foot in front of the other, stepping left – right – left, towards the destination, I must have just followed. There, peering around Hunt as I would have had to do, moving away from directly behind him, was a mass of fur painted brown at his feet. It took me all of two seconds to realize that the paint was not paint, and that the mass of fur was an animal. The color of the paste coating the animal was not just brown but a maroon, red, brown from the mixture of blood and dirt that must have been alternately leaking and drying for the past few hours. Steeling myself to look more closely, the animal began to take shape – a leg here, the tail there, the head tucked under another leg, but it was undeniably a dog, midsized, a pet, or more likely a farm dog that guarded one of the nearby farms. The trap had closed firmly on its leg, from what I could tell admist the blood and grass, and a knowing feeling entered my gut. I knew that this wasn’t right. These traps, they couldn’t be safe, they couldn’t be normal. They couldn’t be legal, judging by their size. The animal barely hung onto what little life was left coursing through his weary viens: it was hard to tell just how long it’d been out here, but it wasn’t going to last much longer. But this dog did have an owner, and I could see Hunt thinking, maybe with a similar train of thought, this animal’s death, unlike the likely countless wilder animals that he’d caught, would not go unnoticed. I waited, wondering what his next possible step could be. He was careful with the next few words that came from his mouth. Go. Get. My. Gun.
I stuttered in disbelief, grasping to the naïve hope that there would be no more blood today, perhaps the gun was to call for help, perhaps… Seeing my inaction, Hunt himself strode back to the truck, and lifted it from behind the seat, small and narrow, the iron looked cool and even from the few yards away that I stood, it gave one the idea of premeditation. Though I knew next to nothing of guns or armory, I could tell that this was not a farm gun. This was not a gun for hunting. It was a shotgun, the type of machine that only people who like guns own, I’d been around enough to know this, but never to understand. Until now, as the unaffected grey of the barrel was still and unaffected by the scene unfolding before us, as I was, and even as Hunt was.

Even though I had been watching his every move, every muscle twitch, intent, the cock of the trigger made me twitch. Hunt motioned for me to take the cool steel from his hands, come on boy, take it. My only response was to stare at the gun, then at Hunt, then at the gun again, not blinking once. Take it. Shoot the dumb dog. My breath was a little shorter now, haggard and uneven. I couldn’t even bare to look over to the dog again, though I felt it breathing sharply too. The only one who seemed to be able to remove himself from the crippling sense of pulsation that linked us all, was Hunt.
No. I whispered softly at first. Then slowly shaking my head back and forth, no, I said again, a little louder this time, the shaking of my head gathering resolve and I myself committed to my decision. I would not shoot this dog. Perhaps it would have been more humane to do so, but I would be no part of this. I would not shoot that gun, causing the surrounding smaller birds to flutter out of hiding, followed a razor sharp silence. I would not help Hunt lug the carcass to the back of the truck and then dump it in the river. But neither would I run away, I would not close my eyes as I rode in back with the mangled dog, and I watched Hunt struggle to lift the dog and heave him into the faster part of the river, watched him struggle on the dirt and roots and pebbles that lined the bank. I watched him nearly lose his balance and did not make a move to help.

When we got back to camp, I must have told my friend. The reality of the sound, the shot, while not unexpected, had been so final, a promise, a death sentence that made me nauseous. I could not understand how this day had turned so quickly. I must have tried to tell him, of my disgust, the revolt I felt as I watched a grown man struggle, my nausea at my own helplessness. I must have returned home and laid on my bed, staring at the ceiling for hours until night officially fell, until I passed out, fully clothed. I must have continued at work, as if nothing had happened, finishing that last week before school would start again, and I would turn out for Football and would make JV, and there would be one girl out of the many who I coveted who would talk to me, and let me hold her hand, maybe more, and I would go back to my father’s store and talk to the mothers, and then in Spring my brother would return with scars, visible and not, and then the next year I would graduate high school and we would all grow up and marry and have children and our parents would die but our children would be growing and we would hope good things for them as parents do, and I would only pause very rarely to remember that time. How that last week I would have slyly scrutinized Hunt each evening, as I was storing away the tools, but he stared off into the distance just the same as ever, just the same look at he might have ever had, gazing at the nothing just past the evergreens and the setting sun.

This page has the following sub pages.

• NaPoWriMo 2009
• poetry