Sometimes you just need to jump back in, get going on a project. So I worked on two different poems today. This one, as Valerie told me, "is one of your sad poems." Yes. That's true. But it mostly a riff on a Stafford poem. Though his is way better.
The Boy with the Birth Marked Face
The boy with the birth marked face
struggled for friends. His haunting want
evolved into a desperate meanness.
He shot beebees at our backs,
launched rocks and blackcats.
His face a 100% blush with want.
The summers were worst, while
the rest of the boys would ride
their endless bikes on endless loops
from house to fort to store to pool
to pops to cones to lunch to dinner
until the violet alarm of dusk,
the boy would ride behind all day
a half block, like he was always
going the same direction, to the same place
as if he had a parallel life and
we had only started earlier.
But he didn’t, he’d just wait
with voice reach, for us to call out
“we need one more for the game”
“oh, there you are. our friend.”
Yet we never did because
youth is cruel and exclusive in its moment.
The red boy disappeared like an angry ghost.
And I still remember his name
though I’ve lost all my summer friends’.
Someone said he heard he’d gotten surgery
but I hope he didn’t
become one of us faceless unremarkable
bastards.
I'm into this one a lot. It makes me think back and realize that kid culture and adult culture really aren't that different.
ReplyDeleteAgain, thanks for making me feel something... uggghhhh