November be Damned
(Rough Draft 1B)
by "JR"
The yellow leaves of November
are pressed to the concrete by rain
like a wax paper crafts project.
Since McDonalds opened, there is always litter,
especially in the rain, a hamburger box
sloshing around in a puddle, floating down a little river
to the curb like a child's toy boat.
A woman from my class walks by and does not say hello.
She thinks she is a bike courier. So does her boyfriend.
They roll their pants halfway up their shins like knickers
whether it is raining or not. The metal in their faces
reminds me I must buy a knife set.
I hate knives.
I do not trust myself with such things -
knives or hand holding
or holding knives -
gripping anything, breathing or not
that can hurt me.
Ballerinas who cut themselves be damned.
My eyes in the wind,
I count the window flags,
the vehicle flags, the flag shirts
made in China.
Last year, Scott said, "Watch how long it is
before a flag in every shop is something we get used to.
Just watch," he said.
Six years ago, my high school history teacher, Mr. Desorgher,
told our class the story of a French exchange student
his family was hosting who asked while driving
through our town, "Why do you have so many
fascists in America?"
What do you mean? asked my teacher, aghast.
"In my country," the boy said, "the fascists
are the only ones who fly flags on porches and homes."
Perhaps he meant nationalists,
my teacher explained.
Perhaps, I thought.
Four years ago, a friend from England
was visiting me and said about our flags,
"You don't really see that in London."
Why? I asked.
"Because we understand what it leads to."
What's that, man?
"War," said my friend, Adrian.
Oh, I said, and not much more.
Six months ago, three men tried to rape my friend
Anna behind my apartment building.
That night, after she maced them and ran,
her Navy boyfriend would not open
the door to his frat house for her because
she was late, and had been with me.
Anna sobbed and beat the door with her fists.
He played a video game upstairs, ignoring her.
These three stories all met at some sort of point last night
in the wet dark as I walked towards it,
and into it went the night
and the meaning of jealousy.
In my walk and in the windows,
and in the eyes of the tiny birds pecking at the dirt,
the truth of it bubbled up from the pavement
like the sound of a cello.
The dark spoke to me in the familiarity of neighborhood
and walking home, "I'm not sure who I am,
but I know who I ought to be," and I agreed, and I spoke,
and I was heard by it, the dark neighborhood.
There are lots of things you don't need to know
to keep yourself alive, and in that spirit,
I had a thought that looked like an airplane.
I had a desire to make love to the woman I'd been painting
like a bulldozer, having made her limbs aluminum and gear-like.
There was a huge loneliness spread out before me
in the small white arches of her legs.
What these three stories and
this girl from Ohio have to do with anything,
her glasses and small hands and all,
my first time with a girl with freckles,
I don't know.
There was a truth that rested,
quietly, like one of those birds
on their own little reptilian feet,
on that point, where they met in the dark before me,
in the dark wet air in my mouth.
On one planet there were mice with
microphones and banjos,
amplifiers and coke habits.
On another, there was my father,
a second chance, wet leaves,
a giant puddle and a toy boat
abandoned by a child, bobbing off to
death or heaven or a Pixies reunion
concert, whichever came first.
The boat from which I walked,
pacing into the night, as always,
like time, had no rush to answer
any of my questions Jesus had no need to
answer, not then, not now, not on the
metal bar of the bench, beaded with city rain,
as I tried to shiver to sleep at 16.
Ohio girls who walk the plank of heroin be damned.
Freckles, all of them, on each inch of her, be damned.
Leaves under wax paper,
yellow leaves under my wet sneakers.
Collectors and cutters and lovers
and all but the truest shades of
loneliness be damned.
I haven't time to deal with
such things now.
Constellations made of knives
and knit together like a spider web in the night,
one you wake to find above you,
spun by the blue yarn of jealousy, be damned.
McDonalds is closed.
You don't call once I'm home.
The needles begin to click.
The tiny boat comes to a stop at the sewer grate,
the little river moving past it.
There is a bridge in Medfield, Massachusetts
under a canopy of golden leaves.
When I was young I would toss a stick
over the rail and run across the street
to watch it emerge and move on in the current,
around the bend to Mill Pond.
Such it is with these walks.
I trust the night to deliver me
like the brook or the river
to the other end of something,
perhaps jealousy.
The next day, she steps through the door
the same way she would step from the shadow
of a large iron bridge.
I ask questions like,
Who is your school friend?
Where have you been?
Where are you going?
Where did you sleep?
All of them knife-like,
and at her.
(Rough Draft 1B)
by "JR"
The yellow leaves of November
are pressed to the concrete by rain
like a wax paper crafts project.
Since McDonalds opened, there is always litter,
especially in the rain, a hamburger box
sloshing around in a puddle, floating down a little river
to the curb like a child's toy boat.
A woman from my class walks by and does not say hello.
She thinks she is a bike courier. So does her boyfriend.
They roll their pants halfway up their shins like knickers
whether it is raining or not. The metal in their faces
reminds me I must buy a knife set.
I hate knives.
I do not trust myself with such things -
knives or hand holding
or holding knives -
gripping anything, breathing or not
that can hurt me.
Ballerinas who cut themselves be damned.
My eyes in the wind,
I count the window flags,
the vehicle flags, the flag shirts
made in China.
Last year, Scott said, "Watch how long it is
before a flag in every shop is something we get used to.
Just watch," he said.
Six years ago, my high school history teacher, Mr. Desorgher,
told our class the story of a French exchange student
his family was hosting who asked while driving
through our town, "Why do you have so many
fascists in America?"
What do you mean? asked my teacher, aghast.
"In my country," the boy said, "the fascists
are the only ones who fly flags on porches and homes."
Perhaps he meant nationalists,
my teacher explained.
Perhaps, I thought.
Four years ago, a friend from England
was visiting me and said about our flags,
"You don't really see that in London."
Why? I asked.
"Because we understand what it leads to."
What's that, man?
"War," said my friend, Adrian.
Oh, I said, and not much more.
Six months ago, three men tried to rape my friend
Anna behind my apartment building.
That night, after she maced them and ran,
her Navy boyfriend would not open
the door to his frat house for her because
she was late, and had been with me.
Anna sobbed and beat the door with her fists.
He played a video game upstairs, ignoring her.
These three stories all met at some sort of point last night
in the wet dark as I walked towards it,
and into it went the night
and the meaning of jealousy.
In my walk and in the windows,
and in the eyes of the tiny birds pecking at the dirt,
the truth of it bubbled up from the pavement
like the sound of a cello.
The dark spoke to me in the familiarity of neighborhood
and walking home, "I'm not sure who I am,
but I know who I ought to be," and I agreed, and I spoke,
and I was heard by it, the dark neighborhood.
There are lots of things you don't need to know
to keep yourself alive, and in that spirit,
I had a thought that looked like an airplane.
I had a desire to make love to the woman I'd been painting
like a bulldozer, having made her limbs aluminum and gear-like.
There was a huge loneliness spread out before me
in the small white arches of her legs.
What these three stories and
this girl from Ohio have to do with anything,
her glasses and small hands and all,
my first time with a girl with freckles,
I don't know.
There was a truth that rested,
quietly, like one of those birds
on their own little reptilian feet,
on that point, where they met in the dark before me,
in the dark wet air in my mouth.
On one planet there were mice with
microphones and banjos,
amplifiers and coke habits.
On another, there was my father,
a second chance, wet leaves,
a giant puddle and a toy boat
abandoned by a child, bobbing off to
death or heaven or a Pixies reunion
concert, whichever came first.
The boat from which I walked,
pacing into the night, as always,
like time, had no rush to answer
any of my questions Jesus had no need to
answer, not then, not now, not on the
metal bar of the bench, beaded with city rain,
as I tried to shiver to sleep at 16.
Ohio girls who walk the plank of heroin be damned.
Freckles, all of them, on each inch of her, be damned.
Leaves under wax paper,
yellow leaves under my wet sneakers.
Collectors and cutters and lovers
and all but the truest shades of
loneliness be damned.
I haven't time to deal with
such things now.
Constellations made of knives
and knit together like a spider web in the night,
one you wake to find above you,
spun by the blue yarn of jealousy, be damned.
McDonalds is closed.
You don't call once I'm home.
The needles begin to click.
The tiny boat comes to a stop at the sewer grate,
the little river moving past it.
There is a bridge in Medfield, Massachusetts
under a canopy of golden leaves.
When I was young I would toss a stick
over the rail and run across the street
to watch it emerge and move on in the current,
around the bend to Mill Pond.
Such it is with these walks.
I trust the night to deliver me
like the brook or the river
to the other end of something,
perhaps jealousy.
The next day, she steps through the door
the same way she would step from the shadow
of a large iron bridge.
I ask questions like,
Who is your school friend?
Where have you been?
Where are you going?
Where did you sleep?
All of them knife-like,
and at her.