:

The Male Conundrum

“Sir! We have penetrated DEEP into enemy territory.”
“Good! Excellent!”
“There is just one problem.”
“What’s that?”
“We’re surrounded.”

After the journey in, there is the journey
Out, after he had to conquer like Napoleon she had to surrender
Like Russia, with winter
With unfamiliar and unfriendly and punishing
Territory, non negotiable
Needs that must be precisely
Met for constant
Attention and simultaneously being
Left alone. He wanted
The separation he was tired of being
Domesticated and feminized with all truth
Covered like the commode seat in
Terry cloth, he just suddenly after 30 odd
Years blurted out that he wasn’t happy
And it hurt her but she knew
He was right that they had gone so far into
What each had become to the other
That only distance could heal the silence
Between them, but then he missed
The misery, he missed being told
What to do and never having
To think too much. He got his self back but
It was so damaged he didn’t want to accept it even
If the customer had a receipt as long as his
Middle leg. A concerned friend suggested
The Marital Transitions Study at the U
But that turned out to be
Filling out clinical forms
Getting your blood tested
Being treated like a lab rat, actually
That might have been better
Than putting the experience in a
Meaningful context, ask any successful American
Businessman to do that you might as well
Ask him to smear his face with shit and go sit
In the middle of the freeway during rush hour
By day it was back to the atoms, molecules and
Random quarks of adolescence and by night back
To being a baby in an old person’s
Body and surrounded by traumatic
Memories, the disintegration of
Community, boredom mixed with
Terror, the cries
Of dead selves you
Saw you conquered you
Came and something was supposed to
Happen and now the kid’s been raised
Your purpose gone
What’s left except the leaving
And leave whatever’s left as
Meaning
Be my
Me be your I
You are my
Give me just
The one that cannot be
Two the two that cannot be
One
One, two, three
Start over
The I of me the we of you of they
The it without
the arm around
Anything
That stayed became
Staid

Messages in the old cold wind
maybe you
Could go back and
No
You’re on a highway with no
Exits
Eat
Gas
Motel
Last chance
Take
Have
Hold
Held
Hell connect the
Dots between
Stars
And
Towns rivulets
Of rain running down the badlands of
Your
Face no
Ghost of a kid in the
Backseat still asking
“Are we there yet?
How much longer?” so you
Have to have to
follow
The feeling in and
Out like the first
Sphincter dividing space from
Space from
Space, he decided to just go
On a trip see some
Country, just be
Watch
Ing The thin round
Tire of his bicycle turn
Ing A
circle into a
straight
Line however
Twisted over and
over until you get
To
Something as much
Like
A Place as we
Can
Imagine.


Hotmail erased my email to you. I just don’t get David Aguirre or Linda Haworth, somehow they seem like two of a kind…..David’s magical mystery tour Unitarian wafty wafty fluffy puffy philosophical meanderings on KXCI, Linda’s leave it to the universe, feel sorry for me even tho I sit on my ass & do nothing to help other victims when I could….Jesus I was wondering about that all day today, while having a headache from indigestion from eating a Mango that had turned a little too close to wine, while installing a shower diverter for a gay guy……the first job he gave me was working on a bidet. Now I can’t go over there without thinking about love and shit (W.B Yeats: “for love hath fixed her mansion in the seat of excrement” ….jillions of tiny parts to solder together in tension and they have to be exactly straight and hold water pressure….I was thinking why have I become such a bitter disappointed old curmudgeon? Why can’t I just do my work & let sleepy little towns lie (and lie and lie and lie thru their teeth & their botox) why can’t I just let shit stink and lie there, why do I have to kick it every time I go past it? Maybe it reminds me of me & my lack of investment in my own art? O well a curse on all heir houses (Jesus what a bitter disappointed old fart I’ve become) Here’s something I been working on. A friend & his wife separated recently & prompted this:

The Male Conundrum

“Sir! We have penetrated DEEP into enemy territory.”
“Good! Excellent!”
“There is just one problem.”
“What’s that?”
“We’re surrounded.”

After the journey in, there is the journey
Out, after he had to conquer like Napoleon she had to conquer
Like Russia, with winter
With unfamiliar and unfriendly and punishing
Territory, non negotiable
Needs that must be precisely
Met for constant
Attention and simultaneously being
Left alone. He wanted
The separation he was tired of being
Domesticated and feminized with all truth
Covered like the commode seat in
Terry cloth, he just suddenly after 30 odd
Years blurted out that he wasn’t happy
And it hurt her but she knew
He was right that they had gone so far into
What each had become to the other
That only distance could heal the silence
Between them, but then he missed
The misery, he missed being told
What to do and never having
To think too much. He got his self back but
It was so damaged he didn’t want to accept it even
If the customer had a receipt as long as his
Middle leg. A concerned friend suggested
The Marital Transitions Study at the U
But that turned out to be
Filling out clinical forms
Getting your blood tested
Being treated like a lab rat, actually
That might have been better
Than putting the experience in a
Meaningful context, ask any successful American
Businessman to do that you might as well
Ask him to smear his face with shit and go sit
In the middle of the freeway during rush hour
By day it was back to the atoms, molecules and
Random quarks of adolescence and by night back
To being a baby in an old person’s
Body and surrounded by traumatic
Memories, the disintegration of
Community, boredom mixed with
Terror, the cries
Of dead selves you
Saw you conquered you
Came and something was supposed to
Happen and now the kid’s been raised
Your purpose gone
What’s left except the leaving
And leave whatever’s left as
Meaning
Be my
Me be your I
You are my
Give me just
The one that cannot be
Two the two that cannot be
One
One, two, three
Start over
Without the arm around
Anything
That stayed became
Staid
Have
Hold
Held
Connect the
Dots between
Stars
And
Towns rivulets
Of rain running down the badlands of
Your
Face no
Ghost of a kid in the
Backseat still asking
“Are we there yet?
How much longer?” so you
Have to be him decide to just go
On a trip see some
Country, just be
Watch
Ing The thin round
Tire of his bicycle turn
Ing A
circle into a
more or less
straight
Line Over and
over until you get
To
Something as much
Like
A
Place as
We
Can
Imagine.
We
Can
Imagine.