ivan wayne

my blue-eyed body is the horse
i'm riding through this one-saloon town;
got my silver six-shooter
and pockets full of gold.
horseback up the mountains! away from sand
we'll roam like nature's thieves
and child's dreams.
strike down the bandit barons
and other inconveniences;
drunk with careless chivalry,
splattering hooves nobly pound these
tired dusty streets.
we'll always win, ivan!
and i can tell you why: my gold star uniform,
this indefatigable horse;
such debonair blue eyes
in the slot-shaded stable with the rusting mirror.




11/30/08

The Misconception

       "You don't like it when I smack your butt?"
       "No," she said.
       "Oh."  Sprinting through my head: high fives and butt slaps in baseball dugouts; touches and pinches in movie romances; girls in my youth flirting with me, trying to catch my attention.  "I'm sorry.  Why not?"
       "It's too sudden.  There's no buildup.  It's just--an assault."
       I can't respond to that.  Over by the closet, I'm picking out a shirt.  I need new shirts.  In the last couple of months, I ripped the elbows out of four work shirts.  So it's time to buy new shirts, but I haven't had time.  I'll wear a ripped shirt today with a sweater over it.  The other ones are dirty.  I haven't had time to do laundry, either.  She did laundry yesterday, but didn't get to my shirts.
       Squeezing past her, I say, "How about this?" and pull her hair back, kiss her gently behind the ear.
       "Okay--but don't scratch me with your beard," she commands, shrugging me off.
       I pick out a tie.
       "I think the problem with sex in marriage," she continues from earlier, "is there's this massive misconception that once you're married, sex is just--free.  Like, just because we're married, sex isn't suddenly free now."
       Again, no response.  The idea of free sex rambles through my head.  We have been married almost nine years.  I can see the lips moving on marriage counselors as they extol the sexual attraction generated by doing the dishes.  I do dishes every night, but she hasn't been sexually attracted to me since giving birth three years ago.
       Actually, it's been longer than that--if I'm honest, I doubt she's ever been "sexually attracted" to me.  I used to ask and pressure and beg for sex; now I don't.  I stopped asking for it after the first baby.  I intended to do this as a grand gesture of my love for her, but in fact I often just find myself helplessly regarding it as a significant and pointless personal sacrifice.
       Later it occurs to me that in my romantic idealism, real sex isn't something you can pay for, anyway, because real sex is always a gift.  Theoretically, I give sexual pleasure to her as an expression of my love.  Or I would.  In real life, instead I attempt to suppress my entire sexual self as a more welcome expression of love.
       One time a marriage counselor asked me what she does to express her love for me.  I drew a blank, stammering in embarrassment.  I still usually draw a blank.  It was a very damaging question.  Years later it still bothers me.  I'm still ashamed I don't know--have no idea.
       I am circling a dark drain in my head now (around which I've lately been wearing a deep groove), self-piteously wondering why I'm still here, still drawing blanks, still suppressing this entire aspect of myself, still prioritizing and blindly trying to love someone who has no evident interest in me.  I practice moving past the thought in my head, switching the channel, which is something else I've been working on lately.  Look outside.  Trace the shape of a tree.  Examine the logo on that truck.  Who designed that?
       Last night we'd been in bed for a couple of minutes--me, nude; her, in sweatpants and two shirts--when she said, "Oh, rats."
       "What?"
       "I forgot my vitamins."
       "Oh."  There was silence.  She has been doing this with increasing frequency; two nights ago it was an empty water bottle.  Nearly every night it's a heating pad that needs warming up in the microwave.  In an act of defiance against my nature, I get up every time and do what she hasn't even bothered to ask.  Well, nearly every time.
       "Where are the vitamins?" I ask.
       "In the vanity.  Oh, get some Vitamin D too.  Take some yourself."
       "Why don't you get them?" I'm tossing back the sheets.
       "I'm cozy."  So was I, but who's counting.
       I cross the room, flip on the bathroom light and rummage through the vanity behind the mirror.  "I know why you really wanted me to do this," I tease.
       "Why's that?"
       "You just wanted to see me naked."
       Sarcastically: "Oh, yeah, that's it."  She's blind without her glasses; not sitting up, can't see me anyway.  Later, trying to fall asleep, I try to cuddle up to her, innocent of intent or action.  She flings me away like I've touched her with sewage.  It's happened enough times: I'm practiced.  I avoid her jabs and scuttle off to my corner of the bed.
       Sex is free?  That's the misconception?  I would argue the more basic misconception is that "Sex Is."  Would argue, but won't: we agree on two of three words, which is a majority.  Not worth fighting over.  Anyway, mentioning sex only makes everything worse.
       As I'm putting on the sweater over my ripped shirt this morning, she brings our second son over to see me; he's nine months old and still blinking himself awake.  The sight of me washes his face in a drowsy, lopsided, four-tooth grin that bathes my world in a holy light only I am allowed to see.  He extends his fist towards me with a clumsy flexing motion, his beautiful fingers curling and uncurling, and my wife explains as though I didn't understand: "He's trying to wave, he's saying hello.  You like your daddy, don't you?"
       The misconception isn't sex.  Not in any way.  Free, costly, absent--it's not sex.
       The misconception is that marriage is about me.  Or sex.  Or even us.  It's not.
       "Keep telling yourself that," say the many cynics in my head.  Well, thanks, I will--for as long as it takes.  We're only mortal here; it won't be long now.



March 2017

I don't think people ever fuck unless one person is drugged or coerced in some way (considering the pressure of a relationship to be mildly coercive). Mutual lust is such a goddamn rarity it has to be regarded as insanity, best counted in the "drugged" column. And making love is so different from fucking I don't think it even counts--in fact, I suspect I've never met anyone who's really made love, and I am sure I never have.


May 2017

radio

seems to be stuck on
some tune about not enough
food water and sleep;
so change the dial, charles,
put something else on,
i don't like this song today.
by the way, did you
hear, today jocelyn said,
in my ear, you know,
whispered, "she's not marrying
him is she?" and that's
not bad but just listen how
she said it! the gall,
she probably thinks she still
matters to him! well.
i can't tell you how i loathe
the thought. oh, change it
again, isn't anything
playing with enough
sleep? kids today don't know how
to make radio.
and don't put on the paper
channel, charles: you'll
stress and bore me to tears. oh,
life's a waste sometimes,
worse than you even. would you
just turn it off, please.
i've heard all these tunes before.




11/17/08
five-seven repeating

clever

ah, we often think we are
in the margins between our conversations;
anyway, i do.
even seconds accuse me of conceit,
odd moments praise me for consideration.




11/13

Poetry History & the Sea .

prose

Poetry as she lay dying wrenched, "all this! a ruse for fools!" then bitter peace chased pain's courageous mask, leaking bloodstained tears: my heavy breath knew her fading soul dismayed.

despite his wars, History had never lost so much before, nor ever any better; beside his drooping frame i dripped my gloomy legs into her earthless grave. shallow sympathy: i, with so few years will never comprehend such grief.

perambulating shores excogitating thoughts as deep as nothing: "where will she go?" i asked. then, momentous as such pastel sky, the Sea! took up my dirge within his birds: in haunting, salty cries and beady eyes.

i woke to find such partial men who live whole lives without all three. they never know! lost is the further life, within: as triune silhouettes are these dreams deep within the forest's shade where trees are thoughts! but oft forgot these Three, whence all ancient seedlings sprang.


poem

Poetry
as she lay dying,
wrenched "all this!
a ruse for fools!"
then bitter peace
chased pain's courageous
mask, leaking bloodstained tears:
my heavy breath
knew that her fading soul
dismayed.

despite his wars,
History
had never lost
so much
before
nor ever any better;
beside his frame i dripped
my gloomy legs
into her earthless grave.
shallow sympathy:
i, with my few years
would never comprehend
such grief.

perambulating
shores
excogitating,
i asked within:
"where will she go?"
then, momentous as such pastel sky
the Sea! took up my dirge
within his birds:
in haunting, salty cries
and beady eyes.

i woke
to find such partial men who live
whole lives
without all three.
they never know!
lost is the further life, within:
as triune silhouettes
these dreams are deep
within a forest's shade.
the trees are thoughts!
but oft forgot
these Three, whence all ancient
seedlings sprang.




11/08
10/5/08

Poetry History & the Sea ...

"i would have wept with her," i told the Sea for she was dead! but he unsmiling showed me shores where men learn not to weep.




11/10/08

peter pan

i saw sidewalk face eyeshadow passing and remembered to
forsake all others: a weekend chore, then
pan
pan
pan
pan
pan
ic. why is this
the best or even better
one?
when i was young
i crammed the cupboard full of pots
and pans; slammed the door and listened
to the metal clashing sounding
pan
pan
pan
pan
pan
s. that's how the questions clatter, though much louder,
how my ears inside are cursing
keeping me from listening to--
Stop! no.
imbecile, just love the her in hand
and forget, forget, for
pan
pan
pan
pan
panic isn't how to live!




11/10/08

Poetry History & the Sea ..

since the death of Poetry History has stayed inside his books and shelves, eking solace from the complex carpet shadows. i sat with him today and heard how we have built such boxes for ourselves; the shadows creeping on the walls seemed to agree.

i took a walk to ask the Sea such things: he moves oh ceaselessly and as we surged along he said it's true the saddest thing he ever sees (and i think he must see everything) are shores made not of sand and time but marble stone glass porcelain and plastic metal or convenience: we bottle him and everyone.

then, still-standing in their absence i thought of you, o departed Poetry. you would have had such answers and behind them and around them you would write such slim smiles in your sparkling cavernous eyes. yesterday the world, i'd tell you, it smelled such of bright fall and the deepest joyful death. ah, how the leaves depart this world! but i had wished you would not be the same.




11/5/08

the white dress

well, let’s be clear
since opacity’s so unfashionable—
i’ll be the sunlight breaking
stained glass silence, you
the rafter dust snaking off to sleep with pews:
you dance in me
and we, in the windowless redbrick
sanctuary across those rusted rails and
overgrowth, sighing for lonely history.
graffiti’s in the glamour
scrawled on walls so long unused.
“it’s kind of sad,” she said,
but it smacks of inescapability—
swirl with the arches! your light
flowing gown will contrast heavy
square brick columns in thick shadow: we’ll raise
such clouds, sweeping empty
newspapers in measured steps, dipping
to silent jazz and joy’s
tenacity: through these
musty odors let’s breathe
the sparkling sunlit air.




11/08
7/18/08 - the first two lines woke me up this morning pleading for more, to which i obliged while riding a train from nyc with a young gent who told me i had a gift for writing. but as with everything given to children, i wonder if i spend more time with the cardboard box it came in.

winning

of poets and philosophers
have i made my kin.
and we have no one
to thank or to blame; no one but
winning is having someone to tell
and losing isn't.




11/3/08
10/7/08