Apology in a Complex Mirror & other poems |
by David Hadbawnik |
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I’m old and I want to feel things.
Apology in a Complex Mirror I’m sorry to have to say it that way. “Daily accumulation of face” aging. What did I not say. Relative depth of waiting, angle of having waited having said. Of force. Roar of crowd at particularly lucky shot. So we wait beneath our faces, sorry for having to say what we couldn’t not say, aging. Song of the Has-Been I’m old and I want to feel things. To say what I want to say using whatever I’m able to find. There was an example, but I lost it. In words to feel what I never felt. My mouth a butterfly flying. Wanted to say “rubbed.” Forlornness of dish suds. No evidence of time receding. “Objects are already sorted in the womb.” Moral dilemma of whether to use “a” or “the.” The Procrastinations 1) Reaching behind something to feel some warm soft thing. 2) At the supermarket, a woman smiling, obviously smitten. At the end of the health food aisle and then later coming around the corner of the aisle with soft drinks and bottled water. Walking a little behind, smiling with her eyes. 3) Some titles: Bare Ruined Choirs, The Root & The Bough, The Jew in American Sports, The Dictionary of Angels, Granite on Fire, Am I a Murderer? – Bowing, The Liturgy Doctrines, Dhima Swarga, Dictionaire de la Betise, The Contemporary Parallel Bible; Virtue, Success, Pleasure, & Liberation 4) The moment before sleep and what comes after, which is not sleep and does not “come.” Running Diaries i. Think of the pills I forgot to take, on the sink in the kitchen. How one says “on,” means “beside” or “in back of,” at any rate fixed there, but that’s no help. I’m trying to place them as one might a face but in this heat the houses all shut, quiet. Some men asleep in their bodies, empties around them on grass. Hamstrings sore, I run through my own thoughts and lose interest in them, my mind goes right off the edge of the page ii. Usually about here I get hungry, unless I forget. What about that. In the middle of thought, no thought. A simple line that I follow like any dog till it turns, a whiff of barbecue cooking. The excitement of one who in Shakespeare’s day would’ve run into rooms breaking news: Marlowe’s dead, etc. It occurs to me what would go down real smooth here is a mimosa. Take that cloud. iii. Take that cloud. One could think it away. Running’s the motion of reaching into the body. This field of dry grass. A good time to break with myself. The mind widening to encompass manzanita and ash, dragonfly, lots of things. The word “things.” Blaze of gravel and faces run through. Not this face. I wouldn’t wish it on a dog. Not “losing face” but the extreme lack of faith one faces. Wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. |
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