Another Way to Play

by Michael Lally

  we get to that time when we can be

  friends, as if I didn’t already have

  enough beautiful women friends in my

  life who once were lovers until they

  discovered I’m not the man of their

  dreams, I’m just an old guy in jeans

  who talks like a kid because he never

  did get it that all everybody wants is

  a man to decide what should be done

  and then to go ahead and do it—

  not sit around and write poems about

  how empty the bed is without you—No shit.

  I OVERWHELMED HER WITH MY NEED

  I couldn’t help it.

  This feeling in my chest

  of more than emptiness,

  like a vacuum sucking my spirit, my soul,

  my personality, my character,

  my life away . . . without her.

  I placed my life and my will in her hands,

  turned them over to her care.

  The same mistake I always make,

  because the rush is always so incredibly

  satisfying when that first fluttery

  female response at being dug so deeply

  is expressed . . . but then, then,

  it looks like pressure, like being

  crowded, like maybe you ain’t mister

  perfect mister right mister fairhaired boy

  mister cool mister strong and handsome and

  the answer to her prayers after all.

  You might just be mister weak sometimes,

  mister needy, mister let me love you

  every heartbeat for the rest of your life.

  And they choke on that, they lose their

  breath for the first time in a scary way,

  not that orgasmic exciting ecstasy way,

  and they don’t want it,

  they want to push it away

  so they can breathe, because

  they don’t need you that bad,

  they can’t afford to: this is the new world

  and they are the new girls

  and they got some better things to do

  real soon with maybe better people

  and you’re less-than again,

  you’re not-good-enough again,

  you’re the sprinter who passes everybody else

  for the first few days and then

  can’t keep up, get weak and wobbly

  and need somebody to lean on,

  only love ain’t about leaning yet,

  it’s got to be going on for awhile,

  or maybe it just can’t be that way anymore,

  it’s too much to ask in the modern world,

  we’re talking financial insecurity

  and career moves and confidence and

  courses in ways to become the best you

  you’ve ever been even if that means

  leaving some people behind,

  you’ve done it too, all your life,

  maybe it’s karma, maybe it’s nostalgia,

  maybe it’s what goes around comes around

  as you watch the guys on top

  pursue her too and all you can do

  is float away on the flood

  of your own self pity and lack of control

  ’cause those feelings in your heart

  are part of what makes you honest,

  only they don’t want honest

  they want righteous they want better-than

  they want stand up and be a man and

  get your emotional insecurities under control

  and out of sight for the duration,

  ’cause this is war boy

  and we got a lot more battles to fight

  and if you’re gonna lay down and whine

  and ask for mercy and stroking and

  semi-adoration like you got from those

  lesser girls, you’re in the wrong outfit,

  you belong behind the lines

  not out front here where they make heroes

  out of guys who don’t succumb

  to the fear and fatigue and frustration

  and false interpretations

  of a reality nobody will ever really know

  let alone understand anyway . . .

  Know what I mean?

  I’M AFRAID I’M GONNA START

  crying & never stop—

  I’m afraid I’ll never cry—

  from FOOLS FOR LOVE

  and light and music

  fools for God and essences of lives

  fools for

  food and sex and highs inexplicable

  fools for lavender and shades of gray and

  billions of whatever can be counted that way

  fools for missions improbable, ventures into

  the unknown of each other’s wills

  fools for gladiolas and roses and ferns that grow

  like weeds and are weeds for all we know

  that can be said to be

  the fools we see when we begin to see

  as only bargain hunters do

  when on a spree in some far-off commercial market

  for the wares we spared our hearts when what we wanted

  was to be the fools of a love

  so grandiose that most people would die before embracing—

  but we aren’t most, we are the rest

  that were left to be the fools I grew up loving

  when I thought of Saint Francis and his love

  of poverty and every living creature and was known

  for such overtures to nature that

  no one understood but were impressed with anyway

  even me—even when I dropped away

  from all things Catholic I had grown up with

  he still figured as my mentor in some unarticulated way—

  “God’s Fool” they called him, as I wouldn’t mind being called

  today, because I see this God as the spirit of the universe,

  and how much I’d rather be a fool for that force than

  for the ones that force me to stoop to places not beneath me

  but beneath the floor of discards that has been our undoing,

  I mean the fool in the Tarot deck was who I always identified

  with and the court fools and tribal fools who were always

  granted the liberty to point out the foibles of emperors and

  chiefs whose clothes were nonapparent like those at

  the Oscars last night where I took so much delight in

  Satyajit Ray’s acceptance from a hospital bed in Calcutta

  and his getting back at Ginger Rogers for not answering his

  fan letter when he was young and still impressed with

  Hollywood the way we all are when we’re young and I

  never don’t want to be, not with the schemes and cynicism of

  the bankers and their pimps but with the dreams and humanism

  of the fools for love who would use the magic of the tribal

  screen to imagine for us who we might be or become

  even those of us who have no time to be because we are

  so lost in others, even us fools for love which is just

  another way of saying poets to my mind and heart and

  way of starting over in the poem that has always been my

  safest haven where a home can always be found for the

  fools for love we might all be if we were left alone to be

  whoever we were before they got ahold of us—

  [ . . . ]

  LOST ANGELS 2

  The angel of fear and the angel

  of self-consciousness, the

  angel of never enough and the

  angel of too fucking much,

  the angel of nicotine and the

  angel of caffeine, the angel of

  New Jersey and the angel of

  Colorado, the angel of nakedness

  and the angel of covering up,

&nbs
p; the angel of discontent and

  the angel of serendipity, the

  angel of loose and appropriately

  sexy female energy and the angel

  of overly flirtatious and

  inappropriately seductive male

  attention, the angel of too many

  jokes and the angel of repressed

  resentment, the angel of feeling

  safe in the relationship enough

  to make you think she might

  leave it for you and the angel

  of talent gone unrecognized,

  the angel of no talent and

  the angel of knowing how to

  make money on that, the angel

  of the unrelenting love jones

  and the angel of music too

  loud and acoustics too stupid

  to hear someone sitting at

  the same table, the angel of

  being alone in the same old

  crowd of other lonely people

  and the angel of wanting to

  be naked and turned on by

  too many unavailable people,

  the angel of not enough sleep

  and the angel of too much

  competitiveness, the angel

  of unappreciation and the

  angel of pride, the angel

  of lost causes and the angel

  of perfectionism, the angel

  of communism and the angel of

  children of ’60s communes,

  the angel of deceptive quietness

  and the angel of deceptive good

  looks, the angel of you can’t

  judge a book by its cover and

  the angel of too many books,

  the angel of rap and the angel

  of funk, the angel of Aaron

  Copeland and the angel of Elvis

  Aaron Presley, the angel of

  business enthusiasts and the

  angel of Harley self-righteousness,

  the angel of civilians and the

  angel of the too hip, the angel

  of geography and the angel of

  pollution, the angel of lesbians

  who like to be sexually dominated

  now and then by politically

  correct men and the angel of

  gay male jocks, the angel of

  unproduced scripts and the angel

  of unknown history, the angel

  of once where we all had been

  and the angel of never getting

  there, the angel of honoring

  ones path and the angel of

  divine dissatisfaction, the

  angel of you and the angel

  of me and the angel we run from

  when the angel we become is

  the unacknowledged star of

  our universe and our universe

  is changing too fast to grasp

  with so little as the love we

  forgot we had for all the

  lost angels that watch over

  us even when we don’t believe—

  LAST NIGHT

  I got into a lot of fights

  when I was growing up—

  a couple a week until I was 22—

  then I got married

  to a girl I hardly knew—

  it seemed at the time

  like the right thing to do—

  but until then I was so afraid

  that you all thought I was afraid

  that it filled me with a rage

  so deep and blue nobody ever knew

  who I was going to throw through

  the nearest window—me or you—

  a lot of broken glass in my past—

  a lot of broken past in my glass

  back then too—some of it wasn’t

  even true—like when I’d tell some

  stranger all about you, and we hadn’t

  even met—in fact, we haven’t

  yet—even though last night I felt

  my tongue slip through your lips again

  until it found your tongue and the doors

  of the universe shut behind them leaving

  them all alone to do their tongue dance

  and my brainwaves got lost in all that

  sensuous darkness while somewhere outside

  it I could smell your hair and feel your

  solid softness filling my arms until we

  were so close I could see out the back

  of you and into the eyes of some buddies

  I grabbed your behind to impress even

  though I already knew there wasn’t anything

  more than kissing that we were gonna do

  because that’s all I wanted to—and it was

  enough, like back in the ’50s when I tried

  so hard to be tough, even in my dreams where

  I was always the star of all the teams and

  won all the games for you—now the games

  don’t mean so much to me, but you still

  do, only I always wake up wondering, who

  the fuck are you?

  ATTITUDE AND BEATITUDE

  ah, it’s a melancholy,

  melancholy, melancholy

  race I come from—

  with “Sacred Hearts” all

  suffering hanging over

  our childhood beds and

  even the redheads in our

  past—grandma Rose

  McBride from Tyrone—

  or the red blood streaming

  from my finger today when

  I cut the flowers sent for

  my birthday from a man

  I hardly know & not

  the woman I—my kids

  are grown—I’m home

  alone on my 48th birth

  day watching—what?—

  not you—you’re dead

  and all that’s left are

  these pictures of the people

  you knew who I never

  cared about—and the

  kids who I did—and

  me and you—that

  blonde keeps getting a

  little loaded and telling

  me I’m white as if

  I didn’t know that—I

  knew that long ago—

  I’m so white the skin

  on my stomach gives

  off the glow of newly

  fallen snow—as if I

  might be cold or no

  longer alive—but I

  am—you aren’t—or

  all these things from

  some earlier version

  of my life—or someone

  else’s—oh tonight,

  tonight, I wanted to

  be alone—and I—

  you can’t even phone—

  remember how we did?

  there was a home there

  once—I called it you

  & you were so in love

  with the gentle side

  of what I remember

  as rage—huh—that

  page has crumbled—

  it fell apart in my

  hands—little spots of

  red from where I cut

  off the tip of my

  finger with the

  scissors I use to trim

  the rose bush in

  front of this house

  where I live like a

  widow on a small

  pension that’s running

  out—and her?—I

  haven’t seen her since

  before you—but

  she’s alive I’m sure—

  back home in Costa

  Rica with—I miss

  her too—I miss you—

  differently—and how can

  they ever know what we

  knew—or how many

  dead there are inside my

  heart & head to fill

  this bed I still laugh

  when I come in—and

  the women sometimes

&
nbsp; find that strange—or

  scary—thank God some

  find it nice or sexy or—

  no—who cares—I laugh

  to find out once again

  I’m still alive!—me—

  of all of us—I made

  it all this way—my

  forty-fucking-eighth

  birthday—the lady

  I laughed with last is

  half my age and likes

  it—why?—because I

  don’t demand too much—

  because I have that

  slow and gentle touch

  I learned with you—oh

  oh oh—sometimes

  it’s too slow—with all

  the memories crowding

  in between breaths—

  God, help me make it

  through the days—

  the nights are easy—

  I can be whoever

  I am then—when

  the lights go out and

  so do I—stay up

  tonight and keep my

  spirit company—

  alone again on purpose

  but without delight—

  I want my due, God,

  from this world of

  people I have nurtured

  and inspired—I want

  them to understand

  how tired I am and

  forgive me if I sometimes

  seem distracted or

  forgetful or pissed off—

  it’s only because I’m

  thinking of you and

  you and all the yous

  I knew so intimately

  who have passed—all

  thinking they’d be

  around long after me—

  but see, I had to raise

  my kids—and now I

  want to watch them

  go out into the world

  and find out who they

  are and maybe have

  their own—so let me

  stick around until my

  kids’ kids are all grown—

  if that’s possible to do—

  and let me be the eyes

  and ears and consciousness

  of you, who went

  before me & never knew

  how life might have

  turned out—this is how—

  TURNING 50

  It’s like turning 21

  only in reverse

  —a milestone

  not a millstone,

  it could be worse,

  I remember my

  21st—my friends

  gave me a big party—

  I was the only white

  guy there—by

  the time they got

  the cake together we

  were all so wasted

  we couldn’t find the

  candles, or light them,

  or blow them out—

  one of the guys

  started to

  cry & when our

  hostess asked him why