I call the ashes

I call the black silt on the sill,

I call the wrinkled coal-like

nuggets of black flies,

I call the screen, the smog haze

Of what is touched,

I call the sand against my fingers,

I call the woman home, I call the trees and red lights

I call the hatred, the hawks

Out of chuckholes in the asphalt, I call them to shake off

Their wet sparks and ignite my shirt which is wet

I call the mouths speaking new myths

Full of waxed paper and styrofoam cups, I call all the dead

And living confusion together into my mouth

The tires and residue, the indigestible trash

I call my voice to burn it all in purification

And I am senseless with its quivering impulse: 

I call my fingers on these keys

The mothers of my cries: I call this room to open it

I call something from nothing

I call spasms and sputtering plugs full of rage and violation,

I call this nation. How deep can the seams be in the skin?

Sometimes I feel like Frankenstein just after they sewed him 

together

And I stumble for simple recognition like a drunk fool full of need

Because I'm so much ignored,

I feel like a tender pool inside

I see the fear in their eyes which tells me I'm crazy

They see the skin breaking apart, they think it's leprosy

I pretend I'm a nice guy

A coward, an evader, a dreamer, a thief

I pretend I don't know what I'm doing

I touch people and won't accept what that touch tells me

I'm afraid I'll scare them and then they'll kill me

I can see everyone's got a gun in his mind

I violate them and I violate me

I say I can't possibly fight all the injustice I see and feel

I ignore my way, I'm driven to literality by hysteria, I live

In the city and don't know if washing the dishes is more important

Than writing a poem: I'm possessed

By the paralyzing fear that my gods are down: I can't see.

 

Copyright (c) Gene Berson, 2005. All rights reserved.

Previously appeared in print in Bastard Angel, edited by poet Harold Norse