Sunday, April 23, 2017

Neck Tags

Father and son attend John Prine Concert
Boy I’m going to get you a souvenir, t-shirt?
Dad I would like a medium
Dad returns with two large Spring Tour 2017

Stare at father, “I cannot wear this. It’s too big.”
Father at son, “   “ hands shirt with beer in hand

Sees never-worn fabric on a shelf
As he zips shorts to go to yoga

Son eat the chocolate chip cookie
Dad I do not like the cookie
Eat the cookie
No
Eat the cookie
No
Why can’t you eat the god damn cookie?

Postmodern malaise who gives a shit
Watching Seinfeld junior mint fly into surgery patient
Laughing with father at 1993 Mulva
Nothing matters

Post-postmodernism, some things do matter
Not caring is no longer an acceptable strategy to avoid extinction

Jerry never falls in love, never cares
Meaningless sex, lobster-handed guffaws
Cubans sleeping in a dresser drawer
Big salad munch-munch

Son quit thinking so much
Get out of your own head
Who has time for poetry?
Giving a shit, saying yes to intimacy, presence

What is your story?
Everybody has a story
There are no unimportant people
Son no one man can make a difference

Eat the cookie
No

Reads a poem at his brother’s wedding 2017
Here’s the older brother perform in his natural tongue
Maybe for the first time
Father weeps, sees, maybe?
Truth like a bauble hanging on resonance of poetry is

What poetry can be when one speaks in naked language
Stands behind a microphone and has nothing left to lose
A relentless love, a strident will for a war of the heart
For this world, that there are others willing to do it

Speak truth to power
To leave the cookie on the god damn table
To leave the gun on the god damn table
To listen to the stories of every human

To see inside a bauble of heart this pulsing blood
To connect, to juggle fear and love
To stand in the fire this time
Bellowing into that good night yawping into dawn

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