Equation

I apologize in advance 

Of what is to come.

For what is to come, I meant to say.

This will all go fairly rapidly, 

No surprises,

But you should familiarize yourself

Now with all exits, now with all ending

Punctuations.

Look for periods as breath gaps.  

They will serve.

Or colons.

The same purpose, I meant to imply.

Here’s a thought:  skip ahead now

To the last line of the poem.

Read it, hold it, and come back

To this point with that thought in mind.

Just a piece of friendly advice

To help you through this ordeal.

Of course, if you are in the awkward position

Of having to listen to this poem,

This advice is frustrating in its oscillations

Between the knowledge

That the last line might mean something

Special to the poem, 

And you do not know it yet,

And the dawning realization

Your chain is most likely 

Being yanked.

On second thought, do not read ahead

As it might spoil the custard,

So to speak.

Pudding, I should have said.

I hope it’s not too late to stop the inevitable.

In fact, ignore everything I have said

(You know what I mean…)

Up to this point.

Divert your attentions elsewhere:

Plant a tree, read a real poet,

Listen to some Mahler.

This is as painful for me as it is for you,

But enough about me and my hopes, 

Let’s start over – 

Well, but wait:  just in case,

Load your pistol, shine your barrel,

As that is the most convincing way out of this.

My own actions will go spectacularly unobserved

If you should decide to take the final fatal 

Pow! Bam! Bloo-ey! 

Step to escape these minor lines.

My own actions, in fact, do go

Spectacularly unobserved, or at least uncared for,

By the general leanings of the hoi polloi,

By the pinko-fascists on the left,

By the Red states on the right – 

Remember when Red was Communist, Chinese,

Bad?  It still sort of is, but

That’s another platform, that’s another

Polemic for another poem to attack.

James Tate should write it.

I have come to think of him as a smart man’s

Billy Collins.  Or maybe Billy Collins

Is a dumb man’s James Tate.

Note that I am emphatically not saying

Only dumb men read Billy Collins.

James Tate once commented, two decades

Ago, on a poem by a student that rhymed

Hoi Polloi with asteroid.  

Maybe it was hemorrhoid.  Not germane

Now and I am sure that Tate remembers

Exactly why he thought it was brilliant.

I suspect it was the reader’s accent,

Some Mississippi twang that frequently

Dropped D’s and mispronounced words

Of Samoan descent.  Asteroid

Is not of Samoan descent, that

I am aware.  

I have gone a bit off-

Track, what with the commentary,

What with the history lessons,

What with the gaze out the window,

What with the sudden fascination

In the particular manner in which my green sock

Is curling under the big toe of my right foot,

Not necessarily causing discomfort,

But then not necessarily pleasant either,

If you see how that works, and

What with the constant feeling that behind

Me is the shadow of Tate and Collins,

Both taking umbrage at my liberties.

Neither of them belong here, I know, but

Here I sit,

Wondering if a working knowledge

Of the works of poet laureates

And Pulitzer Prize winners is fatally necessary

- There’s that word again – 

To the movement of this poem.

Understanding, I meant to say.

I often do not exactly say what I mean.

I meant to say I love you to her this morning

When I left the house.

Words did not come.

I think about these things way too much.

I did not mean to imply that poetry

Should kill you or

Make you want to die, although

I have said it before.

Those were different circumstances

And that sonofabitch absolutely deserved the worst

Death life could offer.  

Poetry

Has to come close to that, the moment

The brain explodes, meaning

Flies in the face of the spoken, the unsaid,

And we barrel over the falls, our pistols

Gripped hard, our bullets shiny,

Fingers on the trigger, 

Note:  this is all figuratively speaking, of course,

And with a great Geronimo-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh!

Over we go, ass

Over teakettle.

Poetry is like love that way,

It kills,

It makes you wish you were dead,

It is an inescapable fall from reality

When one thing is said and

Another meant.

Close the door behind you, please,

We are finished here.

I cannot remember the title,

Much less the line that was supposedly

The critical turning point, the entropic

Center.  Maybe

It was the first time Love was mentioned,

Or it was that red herring of “no surprises”

Or going rapidly.

This is where poetry is not like love;

With poems, especially this one, you beg

Them to end,

And with love, especially ours,

Not.

© 2012 – Mark A. Douglas – All Rights Reserved