Memorial Day Post for My Father

My father did not turn out to be a good man.

He was a brilliant child. He got fabulous grades, could play the guitar by ear and, by the time he went to high school, he was a champion runner. However, somewhere between his horrific childhood home life and his time serving as a Corpsman during the Vietnam War, he did not, as I said, turn out to be a good man.

With a false glee, my dad used to tell the story of how, coming home one day after a high school track meet—that he won and that none of his family attended—he found his family had moved without him. At sixteen, he wandered the desert streets of California’s “Inland Empire” for six days looking for them. When he finally found them—his raging alcoholic father, his promiscuous mother and all eight of his siblings squatting in some rathole by the tracks in Fontana—they laughed at him and told him he must have been very stupid to have taken so long.

My mother tells the story of my dad enlisting in the Navy and, in the process of getting all his papers together, he found the last name on his birth certificate did not match the last name of the abusive alcoholic he had grown up thinking was his father. When he confronted his mother about this, she acted nonchalant and said, “Oh yeah, your real father’s last name was Wyss—he worked at some tire plant, I think.”

Then, in the Navy during the Vietnam War, my dad served as Corpsman, traveling with the Marines seeing to the wounded and dying. Once, when I was thirteen, he dug his duffel out of the garage and showed me his gas mask, his boots and, most proudly, his white tunic still stained with the blood of some Marine or other whose name, face and fatal injuries he had long since forgotten.

All of this is to say that my dad had every right in this and any other world to be completely and totally screwed up—and he was. His depression kept him from ever holding a steady job. His anxiety led him to a devastating Valium addiction. His outwardly acted, self-hating, power-needy PTSD led him to violence, degradations and the alienation of both his daughters. All of these things together led him to die alone on March 1, 2009.

My dad was a brilliant, strong, heroic young man who valiantly served his country and the many, many young soldiers to whom he attended. I tell this story not to detract from the honorable things he did, because they are many. I tell it to make a plea to the Gods of war and healing, and to any of you who may know and/or love a similarly brilliant but tormented young soldier, that you may help them to heal, that their brilliance and honor may not turn into madness and ignominy.

And for those, like my father, who have already passed, send your prayers with them that, in whatever afterlife there may be, they will be welcomed as the heroes they are and given the courage they need to fight one more battle in that place—the battle to reclaim themselves from the terror they knew and had become.

-M.

*I originally wrote this piece several years ago and, ever since, have made a habit of revising and reposting it every Memorial and Veterans' Day so that it remains a living work and refreshes the prayers in my own heart. 

Self-Elegy

Poets can be rather indulgent in self-elegy and, from time to time, it goes spilling out all over the place. I never understood when professionals told a younger me again and again that being a poet is as much about writing as it is a way of “being” in the world. I always thought that sounded terribly pretentious and maybe it is, but now I realize it isn’t aggrandizement at all. In fact, most days it’s just a giant inconvenience—nevertheless, a giant inconvenience without which we would grieve and be lost.

-M.

Post-Rape Genius the Women Say

Genius is smart enough
to know better.
Genius can’t handle herself
in the world.
Genius could stand to lose a few
pounds.

Genius likes to be
manhandled.
Genius fucks
in a collar and heels.
Genius rolls
for her men—counts blows,
blows promises, puts her suit on happily
over the marks.

Genius shouldn’t have been
walking alone.
Genius lies—she probably
took cash.
Genius deserved
what she got.

-M.

Our Letters

became simple—liquid affections
poured out on the asphalt
of a desert pleasure park.

-M.

Contextomy LXXVII

So, it was me--
applying more sideways
to the hieroglyphics.

-M.

First We Loved As Children

and when our twisting lives led us
to meet again, we found the instinct
of our innocence drove us still.
We slipped the clothes of adulthood down
from each other’s tired shoulders and,
weary of intimacies whispered
to any bodies but these,
we healed each other instead
with open-mouthed kisses
pressed to the wounds of battle
and lonely.

-M.

Abandon All Hope, You Who Are Lured

here,
in the most beautiful chamber in Hell—
wallpaper of gold and pomegranate,
white primrose petals scattered
on the bed,
mirrors set at east
and west reflecting
the dim and flattering light
of eternity.

here,
by the most beautiful hands in Hell—
dark and nimble at delicate undoing,
gentle against the cheek,
around the neck
and closing
over the mouth.

here,
lured by the most beautiful promise in Hell
I will never allow anyone 
to hurt you, except me 
and always. 

-M.

Why Poetry? Nobody Cares.

That's my tortured poet face. See? 

As  per usual with me, it's mostly hair—and blur—but mostly hair.

How odd to settle into the writer thing. It is terribly unglamorous. And a literary writer at that. Nobody gives a rip what you do and can’t really understand why you do it. I remember my poet and professor, Kate Daniels, at Vanderbilt and her first question on the first day of the advanced poetry class. She said, “Why write poetry? Nobody cares.” And she is absolutely right. Absolutely. Nobody cares, but then, if it’s in you—if it’s really in you—then what else can you do? There is nothing else and the fact that nobody cares is something we all just have to grow up about and live with.

Even other poets don’t really care, often too concerned with their own work to pay attention to yours beyond what they can learn (read pillage) from your craft. It’s predatory, really, but this is the weird little world in which we bury ourselves.

This isn’t to say poetry isn’t important. We are exposers of epiphany—truth and vision. Also, historically, poets have been responsible for keeping and, when necessary, rehabilitating the language, but the credit often passes to novelists and journalists and orators. Ah, well—lament, lament, lament. Maybe all this “nobody cares” business is part of the fun of poetry. We do love having things to sorely lament and tear our hair out over and swoon on our swooning couches about and loudly bitch with other poets concerning.

More than the poetry itself, that’s probably why nobody likes us—gorgeous, important, language-keeping, epiphany exposing, short-attention-span-having, precocious, pretentious assholes that we are.

How I love us all.

-M.

The "Push Me" Love

We were meant to dance,
     I think.
This is how the Push me, 
Push me, love rounds
into something like sway
with the long ache and,
Hold me up.
     Hold me up.

-M.

Contextomy LXXVI (haiku)

Sixteen, seven, thir-
teen is not a haiku, ba-
by. Good effort though.

-M.

Contextomy LXXVIII

collaboration with A.M.

Calm down.
You don't understand.
What I said was, "Hooray
for lazy bitches."

-M.

What is poet? Am I?

So many young poets concerned with what it is to be a poet -- worrying it to death into some romantic, prophetic figure. I did it myself.

I wish I could convince them early to be still -- be still and pay attention and work -- always work. I also wish I could have convinced myself early -- or that, in the middle as I am now, I could convince myself to stay convinced.

-M.

Video Reading: Love Scenes for May to December

I've decided to start experimenting with video readings of my work so as to develop a presence on YouTube as well, (read: expand my evil empire). This is my first effort and, although there is certainly room for improvement, I'm rather proud of it and would love to get some feedback. 

Come on, you know you want to watch it. I even chose a love poem to start and, after all, who can resist the sultry, sultry voice?

-M.

view on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YvwmCH7uqY

Love Scenes for May to December

Aged, olive-skinned hand
over the pale pink fingers
of wounded youth’s retreating--
squeeze, hold and release
in time with the stilling pulse
and luxuriant long exhales
of decades lost 
and two bodies ravaged 
near empty and unrecognizable.

Aching from a posture of almost 
cowed and kneeling, one knee 
comes to complacent rest 
against another
ruddy with war wounds
and unfaded scars.

Thigh to thigh is pressed--
a flesh-blurred line.

By clandestine peace inebriated
lips needy of the human want
wine-touched go mumbling
the soul’s soothing fictions fulfilled. 

The heat kicks on--lulling 
white noise and dry warmth 
of memory to drown out a chill 
blowing the curtains 
and bringing in birdsong. 

Some Clever Poet

I sit on the bed and finish up the bottle—
a wine called cleverly, “Mischief Maker.”
Some clever poet wrote that, I’m sure,
some clever poet who goes around like me
with no pants on complaining in the night
about the cold that isn’t really cold, yet
won’t do anything to correct it
like throw a blanket over
or put some damn pants on 
or close the window
or love
or write something meaningful
to stay warm with.

-M.

Tools of Potential and the Salt-Corroded Jar of Young Poets' Tears

I had occasion again today to tell my cherished stories of the fabulously mean teachers and professors I have encountered throughout my academic career: My first poetry professor at Vanderbilt, Kate Daniels, who threw my work at me, (not to me, mind you), several times across her desk and would narrow her eyes saying, "If this is the best you can do, then you need to find another class,” or my second poetry professor, Mark Jarman, who would pound his fist on the table and insist, "You will write in American English. You will write in your own goddamned American English!" or my early English lit. professor who told me I was doomed to write dreck forever because I didn't know Latin, or, progenitor of them all, a teacher I had in high school who would read my convoluted essays and say, "This isn't Sartre, Michelle." 

In telling these stories I am reminded again how grateful I am I received my education where and when I did because, as I understand it from several of my friends who received theirs elsewhere, the kinder, gentler education standard that is so pervasive would probably never have permitted my dear, mean professors to throw things at their students and rattle the tables with their demands the way they were free to do at my schools and at other similar schools where, for some of them, their rubric for teaching excellence was based in part upon how many students left crying during office hours.

This is not exaggeration.

My fiction professor once told our class that he loved to keep his office door open when the department head had his office hours because, lined up on the cushy humanities couches, there would sit all the would-be writers, literary critics and academics waiting for him with their pride trembling--going into his office brash and leaving in a crumpled heap. The department head would then lean out his door and call, “Next,” like spider says to fly, and the students would nervously eyeball each other to see who was next up to slaughter. 

And, oh, my fiction professor said, he would sit in his office and laugh and laugh. 

This wasn’t exactly how it worked with me. I would rather sew my tear ducts shut with a dull needle than let them know where my tearful goat was tied. I always had the opposite reaction to that sort of thing. With me it was, “Oh, well, we’ll just see who’s the tougher one here and whose paper is trash, and who won’t know what because she doesn’t know Latin, and who’ll cry uncle first with all the extra work. Pile it on, you rotten so-and-so, and we will just see,” which is equally as reactionary as crying but might have been the rising up for which they were hoping, though for others they had to cross through the veil of tears first. And writers, even writers-in-training, are all such punks, (I suppose all late teen, early twenties know-it-alls in every discipline are). We all deserved it. We all needed it desperately. What a mess our academic and professional lives would have been without the rough stuff. How our raging, unteachable arrogance would have taken all our hopes of progression away. 

Although I am quite formidable and take it as a solemn duty to thicken the over-precious artistic skin, I, myself, have never thrown anything at any of mine, yet, (though this is often a sore temptation), nor do I measure my success by how full I can get the salt-corroded jar of young poets’ tears I keep under my desk, (still, there is the jar, or at least the myth of the jar, which serves my purposes just as well), but I’m also not as wise in the craft or as long in it as they were and I suppose how “spider to fly” I eventually become will depend on how many years I put in, how much I love it, how hard I work and which permissions are granted by whichever institution employs me, (brave bastards). 

I hope the young ones coming up appreciate the biting insistence. They have no idea how important it is in life to learn how to receive and rally to the challenges of those who respect them enough to demand excellence of them--and how important it is to know that the ones who don’t do that, don’t do it because they do not value them at all--and those are the ones--the ones that constant billow the smoke and sunshine--those are the ones of whom they should be most wary, because those are the ones who will be the most crippling to them in the end. Those are the ones who will give them every excuse to sit still and indulge the stupid fantasy of the level playing field. Those are the ones who will hand them a greasy mirror and tell them that the obfuscated shine they see there is the light for which they should strive, when the real light is far removed from that place. And because of this they will never learn how to charge uphill in their strength, or how to take a fall on the downslope and get back up on their bruised feet again. 

The ones who do respect them however, will break the mirror, stir the stillness, murder the excuses where they lie, disillusion the level fantasy, direct the attention toward real light and be the ringing voice that calls for the uphill push as well as the will to shake off the inevitable, unceremonious fall. This process is often unpleasant. It is always unpleasant to discover you've been had, been lied to, and that you were never the hot stuff you thought you were, but the unpleasantness is a small price to pay for being given the tools to meet your potential. 

These tools are: Steel in the spine and work in the hands. Let them hold this like a prayer to that noble thing inside them that is worthy of prayer. 

The steel in my spine and the work in my hands.

Let it be so.

-M.

Three Things About Being Bassackwards Psychic Predictive

1. After whatever piddly thing comes to pass, you think, “Damn, I should have precognated myself a pony instead!”
2. After you crawl out from under the precognated pony that fell on your head, you think, “Damn, I should have believed I saw that coming!”
3. We are all bassackwards psychic predictive. Aim high. Believe in yourself. Watch out for falling ponies. 

-M.

Some Fantasies You Keep Only for a Day

like the one about the red blouse 

several sizes smaller, 

the silver quill pin, 

the sunglasses,

the black shoes with red stitching--

meeting for the first time, again, and 

being able to walk on his arm

in the bright sun without stumbling.

-M.

Graveside Cake

We are at peace digging—

pocketing shiny rocks
and dirt clods from childhood.

We are at peace picnicking
by the open holes,
chewing mystery 

meat, sour milk and cake,
perched laughing on virgin 

headstones for a better view 

of the sunset, for a better view 

of the fireworks, for a better view 

of black smoke rising--

for delightful sacrilege,
for mocking friendly warnings,
for inhaling all the ash.

-M.