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if there is a light, it will find you
Category: Writing and Poetry
IF THERE IS A LIGHT, IT WILL FIND YOU
I.
The Persian carpet makers had the right idea
the single flawed stitch
an errant star
a raw scar
obscene by naked eye standards
You see,
they knew too much perfection was a mistake
masterpieces made by human hands
should not be mistaken for divine
and only an abject fool declares himself immortal –
up to a point .
The gift finds you, you don't find it.
II.
I was late arriving at the poet's inaugural reading.
He was a good six poems in (not counting the haikus)
wheezing like a punctured tire through seven
lucky charm rhymes
broken window symbolism
the wheel as a great metaphor
you know, the usual stuff
pony bottle of sparkling mineral water
sweating at the podium
head down like a shamed Pomeranian
a shaved, sober monk in prayer.
His support group was there too –
fellow sweat shop poets
with self-inflicted haircuts and merlot colored ascots
counting his syllables like sheep
nodding and smiling
all the chairs were taken
I had to stand
there inside this austere café
where the paintings go to hang themselves
still wet
yet already up for sale
beside botanical teas and candied coffees
new age forever delayed.
He was struggling,
seemingly up on crutches
trying to be the next Lizard King
sans breathless wet leather
and/or mini-mart Dionysian decadence
hardly the new gelded Bukowski
the others were trying desperately to be.
He lived in a city
full of lacerating beauty
bright end of the night avenues
electric women with gazelle graces
and faces that once started ancient wars
yet his words were ugly, cold,
almost emotionless –
forced –
written for an audience rather than himself
it was embarrassing,
a cop out.
Then, at last, it was over.
No ketchup-grade tomatoes were thrown.
The support group clapped
the same soft, polite clap (spring rain golf delay)
they'd give Rimbaud, Morrison,
or some other feckless fraud
that writes cock odes at pained length
and/or sticky epistles
addressed to the back of some symmetrical sylph's kneecaps.
I got the hell out of there
before he could ask me what I thought
with his devouring eyes and need for validation
I just didn't have the heart
he was an alright kid after all
power hair/perfect teeth
an innocuous Aryan
never once got kicked in the ass
while on the ground
never once saw his mama
naked with a shiner
never once was rejected
by the same woman
thrice on the same night
he'd get asshole gaped
by the long hard truth in time
sans lubrication
some editors would find some use
for his tied tongue
a cub scout apple bobbing
in a Roman lion's den.
III.
Villon got it
so did Jeffers
the gift found them.
And Hem was right
when he said, and I paraphrase:
if you don't remember writing it
then it's worth keeping.
Hem probably remembered every syllable of
"Garden of Eden".
Now
about the process…
it's not painful,
if it is
you are probably forcing it
you'll give yourself a double hernia
or a prolapse that way
it's not child birth
it's not even an efficacious metaphor for it
(just ask your mother)
For me it's purity
that doe-eyed waif in the white dress
with the crystal skin and the good manners
before the dance, before the tears
and the bleeding, the regrets.
It is unmitigated joy,
the second greatest feeling
I have ever known.
Creation.
Watching the pen take my hand,
wondering what will come next…
hoping that it can be
at least half as poetic and beautiful
as my non-neurotic Siamese cat
stretching and yawning in a silver spot of moonlight
on that gracefully flawed Persian carpet
or…
seeing the woman I love
naked
in the morning glory blue light
just before dawn
breaks her golden yolk
she thinks I'm still sleeping
imagines me weightless, dreaming.
Soon the early songbirds shall raise their voices
explode into flight
eclipse all of this
as I open up my eyes.
Copyright © 2008 William Crawford
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