Misery
(rough draft 4B)
by Jeff Hall
Misery, like a pin, comes to a point
where all that is balanced upon it is punctured.
Loneliness is a lie you tell to someone you love,
or even half-tell, being revealed to a room of people
you consider beautiful and love - ex-lovers and relatives
to whom it is relevant, to whom it is important,
like the sudden news of a sudden death.
The mood is tense.
The exposure satisfies tiny, quiet vendettas,
like the death of a harmless enemy,
spattered across the wallpaper by a whipping motion of the hand
like Pollack or another artist fucking with us, artistically.
Or is it more a ringing of the hands?
Wiping from them all guilt,
all memories of her, whoever she is?
The veins of her departure billow out like a tumor,
like orange iodine in a glass of water,
a parachute that pulls but fails to save me.
In Deluca's Market, the butcher says,
"You've got that hungry college guy look."
Yes, I say, How are you? "Good"
Good, I say, chicken salad sub, please.
He slaps the salad onto the bun, splat!
Sloppy, like Stucko or white kindergarten paste,
the kind everyone ate but me, the 5 year old straight edge.
No paste, no thumbtacks, no teething monkey bars,
or eating cat food.
I step out onto Charles Street.
A dalmation with a red leash is tied at the door.
It startles me, not with a bark, but in whiteness
against the maroon bricks, everywhere,
and the rusty October dusk of streetlight wispy triangles.
The proud, spotted creature caught me by surprise.
The autumn night, cold on my asthmatic throat,
fills my mind with memories of high school football.
Under Friday night lights that set the stage for collisions,
brief in time but stern in remembrance,
my team squares off against a rival.
When writers speak of football, they write of a war between two squads,
the attack, and the flags, the kettle drums.
But like a real war,
something I know much less of then football,
the truth of it is in the tiny wars unique to every soldier.
The small challenge that you overcome or do not overcome,
which shows up on the game film 1 time out of 20.
I look to the dalmation with the red collar.
Hello boy, I say, and pat the dog on the head
because I am lonesome.
I think of the day I helped my father move
from the motel he lived in for 4 months
after my mother kicked him out of the house.
He'd lost his job 3 days before the police came.
He did nothing wrong.
My mother was greedy and cruel to him and had a shark lawyer.
That's all.
While he was at the motel, he befriended the owners dog.
My father had a box of treats that he would feed the dog,
whose name I don't recall.
My dads name, Charlie, was written on the box
on a piece of vanilla masking tape with a black sharpie.
The day I helped him get out of there,
he waited for the owner to fetch the dog
so he could feed it another biscuit
and say goodbye.
"Goodbye Charlie," said the owner once that was done,
"Hope you won't be needing our services again soon."
Thanks, me too, said my Dad.
I thought of all the meals my father had eaten alone.
I waited until I had moved him into the new apartment,
and until I was back at mine,
to collapse into my lovers arms and cry.
I felt guilty for having her to hold,
for having her to hold me back from doing whatever it was
I felt like doing that night.
Some of us are more used to it then others,
the most important things we feel, we smother
in the arms and elbows of our transitory lovers.
I am turning the corner onto Beacon Street.
I see a plane flying low towards the Prudential tower,
and I think and fear
exactly that which you think and fear
when I tell you,
I see a plane flying low towards the Prudential tower.
I am also thinking about the word, misery.
I'm thinking about the book by that title which I never read,
but in which I understand a woman takes a sledge hammer to a wounded travelers legs
so that he cannot leave.
Someone or something has been doing that to me slowly,
if it's possible to do such a violent thing slowly.
So I stop, the sandwich wrapped in deli paper underneath my arm,
the dalmation thirty yards behind me, and I think of that word, misery.
I think of where it fits in the existence of a young man like myself
with food, a roof, and education.
Breath by breath, I live this young life in discipline and moderation.
Thought by thought, tonight I stop on Beacon Street to listen
as the last poems of my youth take shape.
I am holding them close enough right now to hear them split
like the first cracks in a baby chicks egg.
I crack my knuckles.
The cold air makes me cough, wheeze,
and then step forward again into the Autumn breeze.
Again into the night, I move.
Loneliness, like a lie, stays with you
when you get where you are going.
It stays with you when you figure out why you told it,
when you figure out why you left your home,
your father, your town.
A whistle blows.
The umpire's elbow drops in a thrusting motion.
Coach Slason looks up from his clipboard.
The score-keeper, a young man with acne,
starts the clock.
The numbers made of huge yellow bulbs
begin to tick away.
War paint beads with sweat.
A childhood ends.
The night grows colder around us,
first in our toes and then in our fingertips.
Beneath the aluminum bleachers
a dog wrestles with its leash.
My father stands near it and the expression on his face is hard to explain,
but from a distance, I watch his eyes.
I understand at last,
he has no stage.
He has no fingertips.
He has no war, and no wife.
He has no knuckles.
He does not lie.
Lying is the job of sons,
and gentle lying is the duty of mothers,
whereas their sons may live to write and lie,
and learn to cry in calling for their fathers.
A young man runs as hard as he can,
warm with youth into the night.
(rough draft 4B)
by Jeff Hall
Misery, like a pin, comes to a point
where all that is balanced upon it is punctured.
Loneliness is a lie you tell to someone you love,
or even half-tell, being revealed to a room of people
you consider beautiful and love - ex-lovers and relatives
to whom it is relevant, to whom it is important,
like the sudden news of a sudden death.
The mood is tense.
The exposure satisfies tiny, quiet vendettas,
like the death of a harmless enemy,
spattered across the wallpaper by a whipping motion of the hand
like Pollack or another artist fucking with us, artistically.
Or is it more a ringing of the hands?
Wiping from them all guilt,
all memories of her, whoever she is?
The veins of her departure billow out like a tumor,
like orange iodine in a glass of water,
a parachute that pulls but fails to save me.
In Deluca's Market, the butcher says,
"You've got that hungry college guy look."
Yes, I say, How are you? "Good"
Good, I say, chicken salad sub, please.
He slaps the salad onto the bun, splat!
Sloppy, like Stucko or white kindergarten paste,
the kind everyone ate but me, the 5 year old straight edge.
No paste, no thumbtacks, no teething monkey bars,
or eating cat food.
I step out onto Charles Street.
A dalmation with a red leash is tied at the door.
It startles me, not with a bark, but in whiteness
against the maroon bricks, everywhere,
and the rusty October dusk of streetlight wispy triangles.
The proud, spotted creature caught me by surprise.
The autumn night, cold on my asthmatic throat,
fills my mind with memories of high school football.
Under Friday night lights that set the stage for collisions,
brief in time but stern in remembrance,
my team squares off against a rival.
When writers speak of football, they write of a war between two squads,
the attack, and the flags, the kettle drums.
But like a real war,
something I know much less of then football,
the truth of it is in the tiny wars unique to every soldier.
The small challenge that you overcome or do not overcome,
which shows up on the game film 1 time out of 20.
I look to the dalmation with the red collar.
Hello boy, I say, and pat the dog on the head
because I am lonesome.
I think of the day I helped my father move
from the motel he lived in for 4 months
after my mother kicked him out of the house.
He'd lost his job 3 days before the police came.
He did nothing wrong.
My mother was greedy and cruel to him and had a shark lawyer.
That's all.
While he was at the motel, he befriended the owners dog.
My father had a box of treats that he would feed the dog,
whose name I don't recall.
My dads name, Charlie, was written on the box
on a piece of vanilla masking tape with a black sharpie.
The day I helped him get out of there,
he waited for the owner to fetch the dog
so he could feed it another biscuit
and say goodbye.
"Goodbye Charlie," said the owner once that was done,
"Hope you won't be needing our services again soon."
Thanks, me too, said my Dad.
I thought of all the meals my father had eaten alone.
I waited until I had moved him into the new apartment,
and until I was back at mine,
to collapse into my lovers arms and cry.
I felt guilty for having her to hold,
for having her to hold me back from doing whatever it was
I felt like doing that night.
Some of us are more used to it then others,
the most important things we feel, we smother
in the arms and elbows of our transitory lovers.
I am turning the corner onto Beacon Street.
I see a plane flying low towards the Prudential tower,
and I think and fear
exactly that which you think and fear
when I tell you,
I see a plane flying low towards the Prudential tower.
I am also thinking about the word, misery.
I'm thinking about the book by that title which I never read,
but in which I understand a woman takes a sledge hammer to a wounded travelers legs
so that he cannot leave.
Someone or something has been doing that to me slowly,
if it's possible to do such a violent thing slowly.
So I stop, the sandwich wrapped in deli paper underneath my arm,
the dalmation thirty yards behind me, and I think of that word, misery.
I think of where it fits in the existence of a young man like myself
with food, a roof, and education.
Breath by breath, I live this young life in discipline and moderation.
Thought by thought, tonight I stop on Beacon Street to listen
as the last poems of my youth take shape.
I am holding them close enough right now to hear them split
like the first cracks in a baby chicks egg.
I crack my knuckles.
The cold air makes me cough, wheeze,
and then step forward again into the Autumn breeze.
Again into the night, I move.
Loneliness, like a lie, stays with you
when you get where you are going.
It stays with you when you figure out why you told it,
when you figure out why you left your home,
your father, your town.
A whistle blows.
The umpire's elbow drops in a thrusting motion.
Coach Slason looks up from his clipboard.
The score-keeper, a young man with acne,
starts the clock.
The numbers made of huge yellow bulbs
begin to tick away.
War paint beads with sweat.
A childhood ends.
The night grows colder around us,
first in our toes and then in our fingertips.
Beneath the aluminum bleachers
a dog wrestles with its leash.
My father stands near it and the expression on his face is hard to explain,
but from a distance, I watch his eyes.
I understand at last,
he has no stage.
He has no fingertips.
He has no war, and no wife.
He has no knuckles.
He does not lie.
Lying is the job of sons,
and gentle lying is the duty of mothers,
whereas their sons may live to write and lie,
and learn to cry in calling for their fathers.
A young man runs as hard as he can,
warm with youth into the night.
claudia:
wow. that was intensely and poignantly beautiful. i was on beacon street last week, as a matter of fact, walking with my ex-boyfriend and talking about madness. there is never an end to the poetry of youth, though. but then i guess it depends on how you regard the word "youth". inexperience and confusion is one part, but then there is freedom and curiousity and passion and idealism on the other. i'm still hanging on to that other with all my might.