january 2013
my entire self was made of
church pews and
children’s choirs and
teary prayers and
priesthood blessings and
without all that cloying weight
crushing down on my tired body
i was
too afraid to sigh
for fear that i
would breathe in the devil
but with my first
church-free
baptism-free
handsy-sweet-bishop-
free breath
i felt lucifer in me and he
was the silent cave in my gut
that dripped and echoed
the splintered phrase
“what are you made of now?”
this is what’s happening when you say “what” and I reply with “nothing”
How can I possibly tell you what I’m thinking when
you look at me like that and my mouth
decides it can’t speak English and
it’s like my tongue
forgot how to move
and there’s no hope for
any of the words that are trying to come out because
they’re all tangled now and I swallow them rather than
blab them out in a tangled wad of
incoherent nonsense
because you
wouldn’t understand and you’d turn your head like a
confused cocker spaniel and
call me silly and instead of saying
what I think I just
mumble I love you and
you whisper ditto right back at me and
of course I
can’t reply at all when you do that you cute little
dorkweed how can I when
your eyes make me feel more seen
than I’ve ever been and
your hands speak to me more than your words do and
your lips are just lips but they still
send me soaring when I press
my own to them and I melt
like molasses in the sun
even now when I should be used to you but
I’m not.
Ground Control to Starman
"I don't know where I'm going from here, but I can promise it won't be boring." ~David Bowie
While Starman was waiting for him in the sky,
David was painting a lightning bolt across
His kaleidoscope eyes
And clifflike cheekbones,
Humming to himself about Major Tom,
Outer space, aliens,
Ziggy Stardust and of how
He wanted to be more than human.
In the Labyrinth
As the Goblin King,
Dancing with Jim Henson’s puppets
All covered in glitter
He found his
Superhumanity.
In the drugs that
Lit up his mind,
Kept him thin as a whittled stick
And spit out words for his lyrics
He discovered enlightenment and the
Superlative beyond.
In his LSD-chromatic clothes,
Dyed-scarlet mullet
And sonorous voice, he uncovered
A skin for his invented character.
But in the cancer
That ate his liver
And dried him into a husk
He realized his mortality.
He found it in the radiation
That burned his flesh,
Poisoned his cells
But couldn’t devour his murderer.
And what of the Starman
Waiting to blow his mind?
Was he just a Sputnik up above,
Sucking him into space?
Or maybe he was his own Starman all along,
Singing his origin story
To us tiny humans below,
As if he were an alien from Mars
Who could only communicate
Through song.