I.
I think we’ve met before.
Maybe it was in the rain, dark and cold and scared,
Or perhaps it was on that sweltering day, when the skin burned and the sun glared.
It doesn’t matter all that much; I know you, that’s the point,
I think we made a deal one day, and now for twenty-five to life I’m stuck in this joint.
II.
I was the poet and you the muse.
I was the bum and you refused.
You were the spoiled child asking for some sweets,
I was the starving infant in
I was the death row prisoner awaiting the executioner’s guillotine,
You were the blind GOP, thoughts always consumed by green.
I was the star athlete, just looking for that extra boost,
You were the poisons I consumed, never willing to accept a truce.
You were the Hitler and I the Jew.
You were the father that I never knew.
You were the answers written on my hand,
You were the conquistador in some faraway, “savage” land.
I was the naïve mother, thinking her son was okay,
While my son was at your place, trying drugs I don’t think even existed in my own day.
I was the confused old man, Alzheimer’s ruining my brain,
You were the invading disease, coming through like a freight train.
III.
It wasn’t some slum in
It wasn’t Bedford-Stuy;
It was a modest 3 bedroom on Walpurgis Street
Cyclone fence and unkempt lawn
Where matriarchy appears to be patriarchy
And the rooster doesn’t rule the roost.
Where “Dad” is no Dad: he’s gone before sun-up and home after it falls
And Mom is just trying to keep fastened the bulging seams of that thing they call a family.
Where lunch money is meted out carefully
And leftovers are a weekly meal;
And it’s never about what we should have but rather what we can.
It always was about the money, wasn’t it?
Never what was right.
Washington, Lincoln, Madison, Jackson, and Grant
Not just Presidents we learned about in school.
The Almighty Dollar, what happened to Almighty God?
Oh right, just an excuse for the meek.
IV.
And it was on that premise that we met
Just wasting time away, Stones blaring,
Just as every cop is a criminal and all the sinners, saints
As heads is tails, just call me Lucifer 'cause I'm in
need of some restraint.
Summer
after senior year, on a road leading nowhere
With
Gretchen the girlfriend pregnant out of wedlock
And nothing to support her and nowhere to
go.
Scratch,
Scratch, Scratch on the front door,
Pleasure
to meet you, I’m here for your soul.
Well
come on in and have a beer.
Where
did you come from and where do you go?
From
a place of nothing to a world of nothings,
And everything in between.
And what in return for this soul, this
soul of nothing?
Everything.
Running,
running through my head,
running out the door,
running into the clinic where she waits for
three hours to be seen by some imbecile because private pays are seen before Medicaids
running
into “Dad’s” hell, that 9 to 5 which means 5 to 9 where he just wants to get
out but he can’t because he’s so far in,
running.
And I think, why not?
It
can’t get any worse right?
And
then the blood is flowing and the deed is done
Nothing
more to say now, just wait for it all to come.
V.
But
how would this everything come?
Everything
was not in a FedEx envelope,
Everything
did not rain down from the sky in a storm,
Nor
did it arise from a fissure in the ground.
Everything
came in kilos
Everything
came in grams
Everything
came in pills
Everything
came in powder.
Sell
it, smoke it, shoot it, swallow it.
Suddenly
I saw more of Jackson, more of Grant than I had seen in any
But
Gretchen saw the same doctors,
“Dad”
still went to work.
And
I was nothing.
Soul of nothing.
Meaning nothing.
VI.
So
what’s the point?
What
did it get me?
I’m
done with this.
I
won’t do it anymore.
Scratch,
Scratch, Scratch on the front door,
Police!
Open the door!
Apres moi, le deluge
Cold
steel on wrists and on soul
Metal
bars, fluorescent courtrooms
Guilty.
Visits
from the baby,
No
longer a baby,
She
doesn’t come to visit anymore.
My life, full of space.
Everything for nothing.