Crise de la Vingtaine

I

the bitter grind of the sun's turning crank

spins 'round to sourness on my thick tongue

where rocky-flick language falls not from my mouth—

my eyes are wide upon a black-ash desert

where even the birds are afraid to fly

because their wings become entangled in the enormous grey;

my sights become entangled in their wings.

i back up, my feet reaching behind,

hoping to make the grayscale photograph shrink

smaller and smaller until a silver frame (a lining) appears

around the land and the grey sky fades out

into a white plaster wall—

but the desert gust expands farther and farther

and my eyes grow wider and wider

until the ash overtakes them:

columns of temples where a faceless statue stands,

the shape of supple breasts, twisting thighs

and a swollen belly—her hands caress her sweeping curves.

i reach out mine and place them on her

and when my fingers touch her unborn babe

the columns crumble, a swarm of black ash and dust

boom around me. the statue's belly breaks apart

while a smooth stern face appears

with closed eyes and firm lips; a clenched jaw.

the ash settles, the grey returns in my sights,

her body still there—once again i back away

slowly

until a silver frame and white plaster walls appear

and i can close my eyes.

II

a cup of Columbia and a roll of Drum—

a leather-bound notebook and a dying pen

resting on a white saucer; a sip

and a puff, fire in my lungs and on my tongue

but none upon this glaring page.

i straighten my necktie, sit up straight,

run my smoke-stained fingers through my oil-smooth hair;

my ticking silver watch should be my meter and rhyme—the band is tight

so i can feel the blood pulse through my fingers

as they run over my neck and down to the table.

i have a sonnet made of coffee spoons

and a terza rima of rolling papers—

if blankness made verse i would have an epic by now.

III

i've heard my sisters giving birth

outside of hospital doors:

my father sternly watched a television screen

while i cringed with every howl

from my sisters' protruding lips (which we share)—

i watched my father, still unmoving;

for he has seen it all already:

three times he heard my mother wail

under a haze from a needle—

i heard stories of others remembering their births

but mine was lost in a swirl of colors

and sounds: not of my mother's shrieks

but of the winter whirling in the room.

i was born in whiteness, inside and out—

my father drenched my birth

in white noise.

my nephews were born in wailing

and i wonder if it causes their own—

i was born in white noise

and i wonder if that causes my silence.

IV

i am not Prufrock—i am not half-dead

with rolled-up pants and thinning hair on my head.

i am still too young to face the dread of tea

sipped out of flowered porcelain cups; i am free

for i have only lived for half as long

as the man who Thomas depicted in his song.

i know not of beaches, i know more of sleet;

and mermaids were not the visions would keep

my lusting wincing through to the hells and tomes

of a series of ranch-style homes;

my visions of beauty were tinted by the rains

from ugly smog from flames of jobless pains

so any girl that could take the water

was one that flamed my poetic fodder.

i do not scuttle—i tread where i walk;

but still i seem to prance more when i talk.

i am here—i cannot come and go

for if i go, my grave will let you know.

because i've got a mane so thick upon my head,

i am not Prufrock—i am only quarter-dead.

V

for you, God, i give a face and voice

because i was told you have none.

how sad, truly, that i can see Mary or Christ

on the engravings above the door to my childhood bedroom

but i can only speak to You through a German

in gaudy silk robes—

i would hope that You would not want a Youth

to speak for You—for Your sake i do not listen:

i am an archaic leman and i want to hold

only You in regard—i'd kiss Your face if You had one,

but my mother said i'll have to kiss my grandfather's cheeks instead.

she told me Your face appears in the blue sky

and Your voice in the flowing streams—

but in the winter the sky is grey

and the streams are frozen over.

i see You in the faces of certain men

and i hear You from the same—

i sacrifice my words to them

because i have no lambs or sons.

i wished for You not to be a specter:

my Father cannot be a ghost

because i do not believe in them.

VI

my heaven (if alive) will be fourfold—

a quadruple outlay of my new and old

within my mind, the culmination

of my boyhood dreams that maturation

decimated in its bursting wake—

i hope this four-pronged heaven lives for my own sake.

first, a heaven full of sprouts and buds

of grasses laced with differing muds

from Spring—a blooming tree atop a hill

and through my acts of playful will

i shall climb that mound,

close my eyes, listen to the ground

take its pregnant canto and begin a birth

to awaken the newly-infant Earth.

then i stand atop the hill, look out and see

my second heaven, another realm for me.

i trek across the plains of lively Spring,

approach the sands where i hear the tides sing—

a crisp-blue chorus with soothing song

upon the shore—so warm, so white, so long.

i see the horizon, the sun is bright, unbland,

and rises and falls with word of my command.

across the beach, i gaze and rise again,

approach a wood, untouched by hands of men.

a beaten path, the axis of my third space

where a gentle breeze shall kiss my face;

each branch above sheds itself so bare

as each little leaf rides upon the air.

the path is dry, leavened not with life,

but i can thrive in Autumn's brutal strife.

i tread along the beaten path, unbright

until i see the bricks covered in white.

alas! the fourth begins with pavéd streets—

so slick and black with ice on my uncovered feet.

the lights from windows illuminate each flake

as it falls to the ground for winter's sake.

in the middle of the town, a Christmas tree stands

that i reach out and kiss with chilling hands.

i trek the streets with every note i sing

and walk around until i re-enter Spring.

VII

i'll pay my debt to the earth in lilacs

that sprout from my buried body—

i shall let my self be carried in their stems

and through the leaves until my body sees the sun

yet again.

i want to be buried without a coffin so that my flesh

can be fed right to the soil

and each little flower around my grave

will have a bit of me

within its core:

i want to give the little worms a place to play.