Sometimes I wake up in a room
& don’t know where I am.
My partner’s?
My daughter’s?
Home?
Sometimes I walk into a room that isn’t
even there.
carrying two cups of coffee,
one for me, one for her
and a Sunday Mail under my arm
but that was yesterday.
I’m in the 4th dimension now.
Somewhere in the distance a crow caws, a cat hisses, an old CD
is playing, ‘You’re out of time, my baby’.
I scratch my head, my balls.
How do I get back Where’s the exit door?
The entrance?
Help.
That photo you posted
on Facebook
of her and him
unmoored me
sent my head spinning
down
down
that whirlpool
of memory
the immaculate misconception
of my frail craft
the face in the photo
having the last laugh
“You’re like Lee Chandler,” she said.
“Who?”
“Lee Chandler, the guy Casey Affleck plays in ‘Manchester by the Sea.”
Jackson liked that film but he did not like Lee Chandler, the way he closed himself off from people.
“That saddens me.”
“That you’re like Lee Chandler or that I mentioned it?”
“Both.”
“The reason I brought it up is that I asked you if you’d like to see Anne perform in the ballet from ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ and you said you’d give it a miss though I made it clear I’d like you to go.”
“I know. I’ve thought it over and would like to go see her perform.”
“Because you want to or because you’re afraid of being compared to Lee Chandler?”
“Both.”
It was a little late, Jackson admitted. It would have been better if he’d said so straight off but at least it was a move towards empathy. She would have to give him that.
O
for the ears
of Gilberto Medina,
the 69 year old foreman
of the laundry room
at the Hotel Pierre
who could detect a problem with a machine
by a slight variation
in its hum;
if I could have listened to the hum
of my relationships
like that
I might still have been with my ex,
avoided an eight year trainwreck
I was warned about
attentive to the dangers of the cult I was in
but as it is
what hope had I?
I’ve always had a tin ear.
What’s good about it? he says.
Christ died on the cross.
Everything’s closed.
You’re not supposed to go anywhere.
Not eat meat !
Be morbid and morose.
Good Friday. Huh!
What moron thought that one up?
It’s the stupidest oxymoron in the language.
Under the influence
I wrote copiously
From midnight to morning
Dementedly
A devil held my hand
An accomplice flayed my side
My mind had an erection
It could not hide
All my past spilled out
From the attic of my mind
My pen swept it up
I was writing blind.
Such dark energy
Flowed through me
and out through my fingers
its estuary.
* have you ever been driven to write in the middle of the night that took hours?
Let me in. Let me in, I say.
I’ve been locked out.
Do you know how late it is?
Maybe it’s a mistake. I forgive you.
Just let me in. Please.
I need to get back inside my own body
So I can get to sleep.
* photo by Gina Neri from Unsplash
John Malone 