Whose Life Is It, Anyway?
A dingy ladybug just slammed
into this split-ended web of grass
as if shot from an organic cannon
for a miniature net. Nonplussed,
she has seemed to decide
to climb to its frizzy top
and fling herself,
to no applause whatsoever,
toward the sharp tip of a taller,
naked shaft nearby—
there, to re-form and sway
in the slightest breeze.
I say she has seemed
because
I don’t know whose life it is,
anyway. It’s all about me,
of course: earlier,
I found myself atop
a mental mountain (you know,
surveying the lesser peaks?),
then flung myself for this poem,
fluttering into the snare
of choosing this or going with that
as if I determined all my decisions
all along the live-long day.
But I know me: soon enough
I’ll fold my wings
to re-form a spotted shell,
and it will seem I’ve decided
to head down that one long blade,
then, to no applause, up another.
On Purpose
What was I thinking
when, while dictating
my will
through an interpreter
(since at the time
I was all alone in
northwestern Bayonne,
where interpreting is
interpreted as being creative)
I bequeathed myself to
the earth?
I was thinking of Walt
Whitman,
of course, whose
solipsistic report—
it’s small objective
being simply to contain
everything—makes
bequeathing in general,
let alone of the self
to the soil,
sound sound.
What was I thinking
then when the only
aspect of me
to remain ungiven,
and therefore in the
long run unplanted,
was my BMOC key to the
campus, i.e.,
my key to what didn’t
really matter?
I was thinking it
should matter,
of course, which
would’ve been welcome
relief regarding how
I’d spent
my life, but frankly
Ivan Ilyich
and I had at least
this much in common:
we’d always thought
we’d always
been doing it right.
What I wanted
was to discover after
the fact
that the return on my
investment
in the song of my self
had created a rabbit
hole
of an opening, a view,
some self-esteem I
could live with.
And if I was instead
found loitering,
like an early Christian hanging
back before the
crucifixion,
then I wanted to be
able
to drum up a good
excuse
uninduced by some
rooster
fore-ordained to
reveal three times
the he’s-only-human
truth.
What I didn’t want
was to stand on
ceremony,
especially at the
bitter end
under the trees and
next to
the squared-off shrubs
just outside the
stone-cold residences
of our rather common
ancestors.
—after
Jack Myers
Dear Consciousness,
and you are, you know.
I know, I still curse you
in the cynical night, in my
stumbling through the numbing day,
calling you out, indifferent hex
on homo sapiens.
You’re why
I can’t rest in a shower, or
in the cool cavity of my skull. Not with
the world’s open sewers, polluted alleys,
those impossible bellies and the flies
plying the sweet corners
of children’s mouths.
You’re why
the soft, inexplicable give
so satisfies and why the take,
abrupt as a thought, snatches
the calm of veiled being,
a permeable haven, after all—
what we didn’t have to feel
to be salvation.
But horses
run for being muscle and horse,
and birds, even in cages, sing
for a sake all their own,
and I
am you. I am the knowing
to anticipate my sons’ returns
in joy, my sons’ returns
in the skinnings, the exiles
of their own lives (a throbbing
knot in my throat
in either case),
and their one day
not returning.
Wired
What was I thinking
when, without qualifications,
except for being as cold
as anyone all last season,
I ran to get elected
County Commissioner of Winter Heat?
I was thinking of warmth,
of course, the irony involved
in commanding the motion of electrons
within a fifty-mile radius of my
two-fold ignorance: geometry
and electrical engineering.
And what was I thinking
when I yearned to prefer
the official wire required
for the job rather than
the under-the-table imitation
available for a little gift of graft?
I was thinking of the Second Coming,
of course, that seek-and-ye-shall-find
system of irrevocability, how
I would want a seat up front.
What I wanted was
inclusion, to be connected,
wired if you will,
to the universe of painlessness
unavailable to those in pain,
by which I mean everyone.
And if I gained favor
by following the ritual
of water-into-wire
then you could count me in,
count me among the sheep,
not those goats also spoken of.
What I didn’t want was what Mugsy
got: jolts at inexact intervals
from an on-going present eternally
separating him from any wire at all.
—after Jack Myers
World Lit. Postcards
1. from S. Beckett
Salut, cher idiot.
This place is a brain.
The weather ended some time ago.
The folks are bottled.
I’m feeling something might happen.
I spend my time scuffing between high
windows.
I need another gross of non sequiturs.
I’ll see you with whitened eyes.
Give my regards to your fleas.
2. from M. de Cervantes
Hola, well-meaning
amigo.
This place is like a prison.
The weather never closes.
The folks are brown and dusty and dull.
I’m feeling sardonic.
I spend my time inventing the novel.
I need the Flying Circus.
I’ll see you singing and adapting on
Broadway.
Give my regards to Sister Juana.
3. from E. Dickinson
Dear postmodern co-dependents.
This place—a Grave.
The Weather—like an organ.
The folks line up for miles.
I’m feeling discovered.
I spend my time imitating tiny birds.
I need steel-toed shoes.
I’ll see you in Daddy’s study.
Give my regards to every little thing.
4. from L. Pirandello
Ciao,
Baby.
This place is multi-leveled.
The weather matters unpredictably.
The folks are dearer than you’ll ever know.
I’m feeling, really.
I spend my time cataloguing possibilities.
I need you to see me.
I’ll see you in more ways than one.
Give my regards to Fellini.
5. from F. Kafka
Hello, fellow exoskeletal.
This place is a two-hole shitter.
The weather doesn’t symbolize the abyss.
The folks are finally happy.
I’m feeling somewhat not myself.
I spend my time under the couch.
I need inflating.
I’ll see you after the recital.
Give my regards to the manager.
6. from Euripides
Greetings, festivalites!
This place is less patriotic.
The weather favors me over Aeschylus.
The folks are finally openly barbaric.
I’m feeling existential.
I spend my time rifling local mythology.
I needed you.
I’ll see you in hell.
Give my regards to all the other gods.
—after
Ron Padget
D. R. James, retired from 40 years of teaching college writing, literature, and peace studies, lives with his psychotherapist wife in the woods near Saugatuck, Michigan. His latest of ten collections is Mobius Trip (Dos Madres Press).
https://www.amazon.com/author/drjamesauthorpage
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