I deleted both of my allpoetry.com pennames - effectively snuffing out sixteen years worth of writings started when I was 17 years old. This website, now, is the only place those writings exist and I don't know that I won't someday do to this site what I did to allpoetry.
I told myself I did it for two reasons -
And that should have been it. I should have been done with writing poetry in a public forum. Or timestamping tragedies. Or spreading the most hidden parts of myself open for strangers in the aims of getting a few digital high fives.
Did I quit? Of course not. Because I'm an addict and this is what addicts do.
I'm writing in secret now. I mean. Not SO secret. Here we are. Publicly. Again.
Except this time, it's not about me. I have no idea what it's about, actually.
I
I watch them -
the humans.
How they sit shoulder to shoulder
with no need to guard what they
eat.
And why should they.
Fatbodies aren't known for aggression.
It is a happy occasion when they get together.
They bare teeth and hide everything
else.
Yet still,
they cover their plates around me.
Me. The one known for
aggression.
II
My father worked as a comfort dog
in a children's hospital in the 90's.
As a result, everyone thinks
he's the greatest thing since
McGruff,
but the truth is he's seen The Lion King
way
too many
times.
He told me when I was training in the academy
that I was the only plate he'd never cleaned.
I asked my mom what that meant
and she said that his parents
were hyenas
in Labrador
clothing.
He was a bastard before,
been one ever since.
But at least he makes sense to me
now.
III
Being retired, I now live with a man
and his offspring.
Three children. Two females.
And the youngest, a new male.
Something I've noticed
is that they don't appear to exercise
restraint
when they play with
each other.
The youngest bit the oldest
and, that I'm aware, his testicles have not been
removed.
Truly, a young apex predator, then,
who bites with no intention
to chew.
IV
I had a partner for most of my time
on the force -
an Old English Sheepherder named Clarence.
Clarence was nice, but sloppy.
And not uncut hair sloppy. I mean
impassioned kiss, please-don't-go
sloppy.
Funny, if not a little macabre.
He'd say something ridiculous
like,
"Chicken tastes better than beef"
and always follow it with,
"and I'll die on this hill"
For years he talked like that.
Until the last time I saw him.
He was grayer in the mane. A veteran just passing time.
We'd been called to search a house for drugs
and waited on this little slope
at a park across the street.
I remember he yawned real big
and laid down with his eyes closed.
"You were right," he said,
"about everything, I think.
And I'll die on this
hill."
They threw him his retirement party after that,
but I'd heard not long after the balloons had sailed
that he'd gotten into a bottle of
anti-freeze
and died damn near on the spot.
I haven't quite forgiven him for dying yet.
Something tells me he doesn't much mind.
V
The funniest thing I ever saw
was a duck chasing a runaway hamburger.
Maybe twice in my life have I seen a hamburger
fall and roll on its side like a wheel
having flown off the spinny stick thing in a cartoon
where the cars are bright grey
and the horns go
aOOOOOOOOOOOOga.
If you've never seen a duck run, I'll tell you,
they are like
windup toys that you chew all to hell,
but still, they windup and waddle on
with urgent pride.
If you've never heard a duck out of breath, it sounds like
a flaccid balloon rubbed between
two wet
erasers.
I'd been having a rough day.
A woman at the office
had transferred to a different department.
She pet me one last time before saying goodbye.
She was nice. She called me 'soupies'
which I liked, but don't know why.
I was all in my head about what love might mean
when this burger rolled by,
breathless duck toddling
after.
And if laughing was a thing I could do, I'da done it.
But I couldn't, so I waited for the duck to
give up.
VI
I am old now, but
Occasionally, I dream that I'm back in Kentucky.
Young blood in the arms of my beloved
little girl.
She loved the way one hopes God does,
without expectation or jealousy or lasting
disappointment.
She was never very well, but then
I feel that was
my fault.
I was too energetic. New legs, strong lungs.
A talented nose that served me well in law enforcement,
but often just made more work
for her.
She kept food under her bed. I was bad at keeping secrets.
She smelled like chicken fingers and Elmer's
glue, except sometimes she smelled like stale, wet bread,
and I liked that she always told me she loved me
even when it seemed
really hard to.
I didn't live with her very long.
And that seemed to be my fault, too.
I was a bit older then. Not slower, but. Older.
I finally got around to telling her parents
about that stale, wet smell.
She was growing up.
How embarrassed she'd be
to go someplace and nobody'd told her.
So I told them. And they took her
to some doctor upstate.
Things looked very different
after that.
VII
Allow me to profess my love for blueberries
the way humans profess love to
each other -
OH!
I have NEVER loved LIKE THIS
BEFORE!
exceptthetimebeforethis andthetimebeforethat
andthatonetimethatended incriminalcharges
but THIS is not THAT.
This is A love
unKNOWN -
WHOLE FAT pismo BEACH
and all the CLAMS
WE. CAN. EAT.
Except when I say it about blueberries,
I actually mean it.
Each unique, one can't help but love them
allcapsy.
There is the tinniest bit of resistance
when biting,
like popping a tick between toes.
Sweetness with dressed-the-same orbs of
blue static.
And they are easy to eat several dozen at once
with one gulp, which is a powerful feeling.
So maybe humans do
really feel about love
the way that I feel about
blueberries.
And if so, they need to acknowledge their smallness
as I've seen my fair share of them
choke.
VIII
I can't pretend to understand why humans
think holding their own lives hostage
is an effective means of negotiating.
I was sitting in the back of a patrol car
some years ago.
There was a man on a bridge just tall enough
to cool off a weenie if you dropped it from the top.
And he was saying things like,
"Nobody loves me. I should just kill myself.
Right here. I should kill myself right here.
Nobody loves me. Nobody cares."
How I found out the weenie thing is an interesting story.
Gosh, I must have just moved here from Kentucky
starting my life in law enforcement, rookie from Kentookie,
and I was walking under this bridge when suddenly
these bits of weenie dropped
right in front of me.
I gobbled them up - warm, but not scalding;
dripping with grease like they'd been cooked before falling...
Have you seen weenie grease shine beneath a midday sun?
It is gorgeous. Floral, almost.
Anyways.
What was I talking about?
Oh yeah.
So the negotiator is yelling at the guy,
"YOU DON'T WANT TO DO THIS.
LOOK AT ME. THOM. LOOK AT ME.
YOU DON'T WANT TO DO THIS."
And I remember thinking that part seemed correct.
It didn't look like he wanted to do it.
But his mind was made up.
He stood up on the ledge
and he turned to face us.
He caught sight of me and I swear,
it happened just like this.
He saw me through the glass and pointed,
"YOU GUYS BROUGHT MY DOG HERE??"
Paw on my heart, I never met the guy.
But the negotiator took me out of the car anyways
and assured him he had the wrong guy.
The man softened though, recalling his own dog at home.
He'd be worried when nobody came home.
He pet me. He got in the car and pet me
all the way to the
hospital.
And I think about that guy from time to time.
How it's entirely possible that his life's not improved.
And if he ever thinks that part's
my fault.
IX
I don't often consider my own mortality.
I was accompanying an elementary school field trip to the zoo once
(as you approach retirement in the police force,
they find less dignified jobs for you to do)
and I met a giant tortoise there
who said he was kissin' 90.
I didn't ask him his name, but I asked how long he'd been there.
He said, "I don't believe I was born here, but
I can't remember a time when I wasn't here."
I asked him how much longer he had to go
and he motioned his elephant dick head toward
a tiny door in the wall.
"I eat. Everyday. At the exact same time.
I drink. Everyday. At the exact same time.
I walk. The same length. Everyday. The same things.
And I am 90 years old. They have seen to it thus far.
I don't know how much longer. But they are content to maintain. This schedule.
Forever. And so I think I'll live. Forever.
They'll see to it that I
do."
I've known guys like that. Who will do a thing until they can't.
It seems overly simplistic to put it that way,
but there is a special kind of desolation
that hides behind the eyes of the faithful.
I didn't question him further,
not on that topic anyways.
I'd never met a tortoise before. I asked how him fast he could run.
"Fast enough. To make my getaway.
After fucking.
Your french bulldog mother" he said.
If laughing was a thing I could do, I'da done it.
He walked back to his door in the wall.
X
The man I live with now is a writer.
Having never encountered
any others in my life,
I cannot say that he is any better or worse
than the average 40-something chump.
He is introspective, which is to say
that he talks to himself.
A lot.
The children don't seem to mind his mannerisms.
During business hours, he is largely composed.
Up at 0600. Kids dressed, fed, then dressed again by 0800.
Out the door for exactly the length of one nap,
then back home, to his office,
at his desk,
with the lights off.
We enjoy a happy nothingness towards
each other.
If he died, I might feel annoyed at having
to find yet another place
to live.
I swallowed a lego three months ago,
and rather than take me to a vet,
he assured me that I'd pass it.
Or I wouldn't.
He sits at that desk and he talks to himself.
I will try now to recite one of his favorites:
"What are we doing, Wade?
What are we doing, what are we doing.
Are we going to stay in this office forever?
No. You've got to stay strong for your kids, Wade. Our kids. Christ.
Who are we talking to?"
He makes himself a sandwich and gives me
the crusts.
He drinks one beer and says aloud, "Just one".
He writes until it's time to go - at 1500,
he picks up the kids from
wherever.
He returns with the giggles and feuds and
commotions. Nobody rests until they go
to bed.
He is a different man when they come home.
He leaves most of the lights on.