I Love to Write

Use the mood music. It enhances the read. :)
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCfstaGuUaQ]

Ups and downs
Cities and towns
Smiles and frowns
Kings and clowns

..

As the main doors are flung wide
To release the mass of
Screaming children
The sun was in my
Eyes
Which blinded me
To his approach
And I didn’t
Know
I was leaving school
To be kidnapped

My smiles were bright
My spirits as eager
To take
Flight
As the rest
Of these
Innocents

He had a layer of greasy
Unease
Upon his skin
Which was taut
From hunger
For his
Fix

His gaze is sometimes
Terrible
Often
Unfixed
Addressing
The ghosts
Of his need

His mother’s apartment
Had bright, white walls that
Contrasted
The feeling of
Darkness
Those walls
Held
Father had beaten her
Some days before

She lay prostrate
On the bed
And then
The floor
As she attempts to rise
And make it to the bathroom
Door
She doesn’t

She soils herself
Laying there
She gasps
For air
With which
To weep
For her pain
And shame
Are equal
And deep
He doesn’t notice
Either

The ransom for
My life
Was
Whatever money
My mother had earned
That week
In her job
As a barkeep
And the title
To her car
She didn’t hesitate

I am returned
Safe
To grandmother’s house
Where
I find out
He had threatened
To take me
To murder
And dump my body
Back weeds
Where I would never
Be found

They had tried to beat him
To the school
Grandmother coming so close
In such a desperate
Race
That she fell on a
Raised
Bit
Of concrete
And broke her ankle

Her foot looked like a giant
Q-tip
But the pain that pinched
The eyes
Closed
Behind those
Coke bottle
Glasses
Was nothing
Compared to the
Flood
Of tears
Of relief

He had his
Drugs
They had their
Child

So it’s
Ups and downs
All around
;)

I was nine years old
And could comprehend
Little
Of what was happening

..

Two and a half hours or so
To reach her
Drive out
East
On Interstate 10
North
A good piece
Up Interstate 85
She is eager
For me to
Arrive

I am eager to
Meet her
Eyes
To taste her
Mouth

I stop at a phone booth
When I get off
At her
Exit
My fingers
Tremble
As I dial
Her numbers
It has been fifteen years
Since
But still I
Remember

We drive
Late
Into the night
On the return
Trip
She falls
Asleep
With her arms
In a tight
Grip
Around my
Right
And it’s
Alright
No need
To shift
Into park or
Reverse
On a long
Drive

Lights slide off her
Angelic
Face
Streets
Glide
By

The car whirs
It’s many
Gears
And wheels
In centrifugal
Motion

Everything is
Perfect
In the
Quiet
Stillness
Of this
Beautiful
Night

I enjoy every detail

So it’s
Cities and towns
All around

It all holds together
For now
And so
When we get
Home
I carry her
Inside

..

I am 26 years old
I am in my fourth year of college
When she
Leaves me
For a man with
Money
He lives in
San Diego
Buys her
Beautiful
Objects
Across the
Internet

I walk into English class
In a haze of
Grief
To a hail of
Applause
I have won
A collegiate award
For poetry

I am thirteen years old
In the 7th grade
So it is an oddity
And an alien
Thrill
To receive mail
Two pieces, no less

My mother hesitates
A pallor creeps over her
Face
She hands me the first envelope
It is from a contest I entered
In a magazine
I have won my first award
For poetry

A child’s elation
Washes
Over me
My mother’s smile is
Wane
She has opened the other
Letter
That has arrived in my
Name
It is from my father
Somehow
He has found us

She waits, days
To explain
That he was sick
And wanted
To see me

We discuss it
And decide
Against
Three years
Hence
And yet
The fear of his
Violence
His
Madness
Remains
Fresh
In memory

I am thirteen years old
When he dies
From aids
Emaciated
And blind

I keep his letter
In a drawer
My award
In a frame
On the wall
Above

He dies
Without seeing
His son
Without saying
Goodbye
Without expressing
His remorse
Or his
Love

So it’s
Smiles and frowns
All around

..

In this soulless metropolis, where I ache in absence, surrounded by similarly separated souls, where our brothers sleep on streets, in hollows of weeds, under the boughs of trees and our daily routine demands that we look away from them and their needs, which are often little more than a bit to eat, a blanket, a smile of acknowledgment. A handshake. A simple greeting. Yes, brother, I see that you are suffering.

In this bloodless land of concrete, where all and each, suffer individually, it becomes an astonishment to learn, that I also, have lived a life of joys and sorrows, each within the tangled grasp of the other. Not terribly different from yours. Oh my sisters and brothers.

Forests are whittled into another cookie cutter shopping mall. Nature retreats from these faceless walls, blank and staring into nothing. Where lives are placed in numbered boxes. Where children are stacked by name and height into classrooms and school photographs. Where silent steel drones are building vertical bridges to nowhere.

An orange corona flickers and blooms in the thicket, the stink of crack wafts out and I know somewhere in that hollow of filth there is a soul not unlike my own, seeking a momentary refuge.

I find my own respite, in moments of passion and clarity, when all of life unfolds before me, like the petals of a flower, delicate, gorgeously fleeting they are, soon to wilt, which makes them precious, all the more.

A subtle vibration of sound, a tremulous motion of wind, a sunset awash in sibilant skins of colors and for a brief moment, countless lifetimes are one. And in that moment, I remember everything.

I am forty years old
And comprehend
Far more
Than I can comfortably
Relate
This eternal destiny
This foolish flesh

So it’s
Kings and clowns
All around
;)

..

I am ten years old, this day. It is my birthday and I am playing in the street outside my grandmother’s house. The sun is shining, the air is cool and sweet on a perfect October afternoon.

I see him coming, this time, at the far end of the avenue. He is smiling, the light is reflecting off his glasses, which burn like twin ovals of sun fire. He is carrying something in his hands.

Panic grips my heart. I remember the incident, just weeks earlier. How my mother wept. How she trembled as she held me in her arms. The surprising strength in her desperate embrace, to have her son returned to her, unharmed.

I remember the countless days and nights of terror. Glass smashing, blood fountaining out of his arms as he laughs. Hours spent in the aftermath, wiping it up with towels. And many other horrors, too many to recount.

I flee in the opposite direction. I catch a single glimpse of the smile falling from his lips as I turn. I will never see him again in this world. He was bringing me a birthday present.

It has been thirty years. And still, I burn with the memory.

Ups and downs
[i]I answered, casually[/i]
Cities and towns
[i]I drove through[/i]
Smiles and frowns
[i]I witnessed[/i]
Kings and clowns
[i]I have been[/i]

We have each been
Everything
Each other
And everyone in between
Oh my sisters and brothers

[i]I have been
Everywhere
I remember
Everything[/i]

..

This Soulless Metropolis
By
Daniel Christensen
[image]Photo is my father looking over me in the crib. :)

Copyright © 2017 by Daniel Christensen. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher