The Devil’s Birthday

The old couple

strolls down the riverbank,

staring at the Charles

in amazement of its new glory.

This is the Devil’s birthday.

There is an over-ripe orange

hanging low in the sky;

the Charles river

is bleeding.

A man who’s body

is in the midst of a civil war

peers out of the apartment complex,

at the reddening river,

at the strolling couple.

He knows it is the Devil’s birthday.

Somewhere in the red coating

reflected on the river

are the rippling dreams

of the man split against himself,

of the elderly couple

nearing divorce,

of all of us.

This is the Devil’s birthday.

A few red ripples on the water

flare, then disappear,

as red turns orange,

and the dreams in your heart are stolen.

Dawns comes late

and the old man can’t

look at his wife,

and the sick man

groans himself awake.

The devil’s birthday has

come and gone.

The sun is the sun again,

and whatever was invisible

inside all of us

is that much thinner.

whistle dawn, Portland-

My heart rises with your sun;

So, I never left.

————————–

lumbering winter,

stroll down Congress Street and leave.

follow me, winter.

—————————–

Poor Preble Street blues-

can’t get a fix or a meal.

the street  leaves me not.

———————————

Hate and love simmer,

betrayal through words and deeds-

it’s all a set up.

————————————

pavement has no heart-

doesn’t care about anything.

but at least it stays.

——————————

My heart aches so bad,

all the trees look thin today.

why can’t love be real?

—————————–

losers are good folk-

they just feel too much too soon.

my mind sinks at dusk.

I am the ends

of untied shoelaces

slapping against cement

with every step.

I am the umade bed

of the tired old man,

who plays checkers

with an imaginary friend

late at night.

I am the water

the drips out of the faucet

after you thought

you turned it off.

I am the unremitting weariness.

I am the seagull,

demented with age,

can’t find his flock,

and meanders the beach sky,

lonely as his voice’s cry.

There is great passion in suffering,

and the seagull is guided by the unseen hand

of the wind,

and the old man finds a friend to

place chess with.

And the great touch of God,

bends down slowly,

with all the care of a tropical whisper,

and ties the shoelaces

that have kept me falling for so long.

So many things.

There are so many things I want to do

but my body stands in front of me

and won’t let me by.

It’s breath is heavy

and moves slow as a cement truck.

So many things.

I tell my body that I want to live,

that it’s important for me to pick up the phone,

get out,

study the sky,

write it all down,

be a reporter for God.

So many things.

My body stares at me

and pushes me back with its eyes.

Cloaked in black,

it stands in my bedroom,

and a hoarse whisper blooms

with black smoke.

“You can’t get past me. I am not going to let you live.”

The figure of my body,

is hunched over,

jaundice-yellow eyes

staring out the window.

I can’t get past him.

How have I become

fractured,

furiously dismembered,

seperated from my body, from the spinning center of the Universe?

The room smells like crab apples and cold memories as I plan my next escape.

A lit window across the way lights a candle of hope in my heart.

What grave wrong

have I done to

cause an internal

civil war

in which both parties

of self perish?

The body guards the door of the room.

There is a hiss as my body wraps it’s cloak tighter.

I will live.

I will live.

With, or without, my body.

The car slipped

down 95 south

at the eggshell break

of dusk.

I couldn’t stop screaming.

She kept driving,

pulling over often

so I could get out

and scream at the sun

because it wasn’t there;

so I could hunch over

into my pain

my belly.

And off we’d go again.

I punched at the windshield

with my lips

that were on fire

with the rest of me.

My father,

my dear sweet father,

half Army Colonel,

half angel,

met us at their apartment in Waltham.

The burning sun in my gut grew into a gruesome dawn.

He embraced me and off we were to Saint Elizabeth’s.

I didn’t know it was possible to scream so loud,

to hate your body so much,

to be so open to the lights above the barren trees…

Two Doctors. They are middle eastern

and I can’t answer them-

hell doesn’t have thin walls.

Finally, when I ached for the end,

for the center of me to finally stop spinning,

I found a softness in my mouth and said it.

“Thank You, Jesus, for healing me.”

I smiled, and the pain ran away.

One doctor stood there and stared at me for five wordless minutes.

The other? He shook his head and left the room to find my father.

And every time the burning apple in my center would start to flare,

I’d say those words again, and smile, knowing

that Jesus is carrying this cross for me.

I