Blurgh

Seems only appropriate that I should be hung over the day after my birthday--but that the hangover should continue to the day after the day after? That seems excessively punitive of God. (Then again, we are talking about a guy who tends to punish with what might be considered a heavy hand, except that if you point this out to Him, he will not only give you boil-sores unto the ninth generation, but condemn all mankind to the everlasting bonfire unless His only begotten Son volunteers to get whacked with extreme prejudice to save your sorry ass. So, you know, not what you'd call the most fair-minded deity. Gotta love His kid, though--a real stand-up guy, that. Anyway--)

Two celebratory meals in a row--dinner with a lot of red meat, carbs, and booze, then an early lunch with even more read meat, even more carbs, and oh my ever more booze, and my pathetic body, its muscles sere, its bones hollow, just decided that enough was enough and down I went. And remained so all last night. And then after I'd slept nice and late today (praise be to the lengthy vacations bestowed upon us by the semester system), and got up, I found that...I did not want to get up. Or move. Or blink. A two-day hangover??? Oh cruel fate, why do you torment me so--I am like unto Prometheus, chained to his rock and torn at by--what? Stop whining, take some Alka-Seltzer and go back to bed with a book and shut the fuck up?

Well...OK.

January the Ninth

Allow me to make a brief statement on the occasion of my 38th birthday:

God-dammit!!!

Thank you. This concludes my prepared remarks. If you have any questions, you can address them to the trail of Bushmills bottles I'll leave behind me as I slither back under the covers. The world and everyone in it can go fuck themselves with a wooden spoon. (No, not the *same* one--that's time-consuming and unsanitary. Everybody get your own. Jeez, do I have do all the thinking around here?!)

Under Protest

I've been requested by readers--the number has moved from "a couple" to "a few"--to post the goddamned poetry I've been writing. I suspect this request is prompted by the slavering anticipation of entertaining godawfulness. I disapprove, but one must give the people what they want. I will limit myself to two selections, and hope that these suck enough to sate the most depraved of sadomasochistic appetites.

Enjoy/Suffer:

Untitled Sonnet

Where most I love, ‘tis there I must not speak:
To speak, to coax a pledge is to define,
And thus to fix the contract that I seek,
And limit her to be the she that’s mine.
Dull fool, to think to limit with a name
That she whom most you love for variance’ sake.
One moment to the next is she the same?
Or would you fix that which your love would break?
Imagine then the words between you spoke
She laughing soon will fly both term and bed
She doing so, no contract will be broke:
The she that vowed is not the she that fled.
She loves, and this is more than words can win
To make her less to make her thine were sin.

and

I Wonder

Was Lazarus disappointed?
I'm sure he must have been polite about the whole thing.
After all, a favor unasked is still a favor
And what a favor, to be sure--
Made that whole water-into-wine number look like a party trick
(Which, if you think about it, it rather was.)
So he must have said "thank you," and probably more than once
And consulted Emily Post for the appropriate gift for such an occasion.
No doubt she disappointed him, and he had to make do with a nice long letter,
Dictated to the local scribe, because surely he couldn't read or write.
So it must have been flattering, at least. Pleasing, in that sense.
And yet—
Had he been warm? At peace? Coolly detached, like Chaucer's Troylus?
No reason to assume that whatever the other side held, he wasn't allotted the best.
After all, if the Son weeps for you, you must have been worth the tears.
(Oh Dante will tell you a tale of where he must have been
But Dante was a poet, not a scholar
There are no scholars of Hell.
Heaven either.
Or whatever there was before He rearranged all the furniture on that side of things.)
So no reason to think that he wasn't, let's just say it, perfectly happy where he was.
And look what he came back to--
Not that life's not worth living—
But between the evils of the day, and wondering where that daily bread is going to come from
And the aches of a poorly made bed stuffed with husks
And a sun that's either too brutal and bright or gone too long
Clothes that itch, food that's suddenly too salty too sweet too much--
Think of that body, shocked by pricks and stabs that it thought had been left behind
All the old lessons of sense having to be learned again, like a neglected second language
He must have been a bit wistful at times, surely.
And now think of all those people pestering him
With questions questions questions
Most of which he probably wasn't able to answer very well
Any more than you or I could explain that patched and awkwardly plotted dream last night—What was the rocking horse doing there—did it mean something—and why was it on fire?—
I doubt many of them left him satisfied
And so he would have been a disappointment all his (second) life.
A bit of a freak, wouldn't he have been?
Some people, surely, would have crossed the street when they saw him coming
And claimed that they could still smell the tomb on him
And while they must have been happy to have him back—
Wife and children and family—
Wouldn't they even they watch him with suspicious eyes
All their love soured by a wariness?
They'd let go of him once, after all, and that must have been hard
It always is. Nothing harder.
He'd let go too.


So, there you go. Two poems. Now let us never speak of this again.