Another Way to Play

by Michael Lally

  with you. And not just you, but others too.

  Oh people people let us start anew

  and pledge right now to each other

  that we will no longer take part in any project

  whether business or art or any affair

  of the heart or collaboration or conversation

  or celebration or even thought that isn’t true.

  So let’s start, right here, with me

  & you—& you & you & you & you

  & you . . .

  FORBIDDEN FRUIT

  all the forbidden fruit I ever

  dreamt of—or was taught to

  resist and fear—ripens and

  blossoms under the palms of my

  hands as they uncover and explore

  you—and in the most secret

  corners of my heart as it discovers

  and adores you—the forbidden fruit

  of forgiveness—the forbidden fruit

  of finally feeling the happiness

  you were afraid you didn’t deserve—

  the forbidden fruit of my life’s labor

  —the just payment I have avoided

  since my father taught me how—

  the forbidden fruit of the secret

  language of our survivors’ souls as

  they unfold each other’s secret

  ballots—the ones where we voted

  for our first secret desires to come

  true—there’s so much more

  I want to say to you—but for

  the first time in my life I’m at

  a loss for words—because

  (I understand at last)

  I don’t need them

  to be heard by you.

  BAD BOYS AND WOMEN WHO WANT IT ALL

  I wasn’t bad,

  I was just misunderstood.

  I wasn’t trying to burn down my grammar school.

  I was just experimenting out of boredom,

  to see how much oxygen it took to keep the

  matches going before I slammed my desk shut

  on the flames—and one time I waited too long.

  But hey, that’s how you learn, right?

  I was just bored—weren’t you?

  Isn’t that why you wanted it all,

  while I got suspended, expelled,

  kicked out, arrested, tried, court

  martialed, exiled, 86ed, asked to leave,

  fired, let go, walked out on, divorced,

  broke, hurt, kicked in the ass, the

  heart, the brain, again and again,

  knowing all along it was only because

  I was misunderstood—but I understood

  you, and you understood me, I was

  the bad boy and you were the woman

  who wanted it all, wanted the flowers

  and the poems, the soft caress and

  the sweet sweet acceptance of your

  getting it all wrong every time you

  tried to dress the part or break my

  heart because I was too bad when all

  you wanted was just bad enough to

  make you feel the love was tough

  enough to last and still be passionate.

  But bad boys don’t last, that’s

  what makes them bad—you can’t

  depend on them for anything but

  not being there when it gets too

  square and you want square too

  because you are the woman who

  wants it all—the lawyer and

  the biker bum, the guy who never

  leaves and the guy who only knows

  how to run. And you think you might

  see that in me because I’m slowing

  down, I’m learning how to clown

  around with the bad boy image

  before it gets sad ‘cause a guy

  ain’t a boy no more. I mean bad boys

  are one thing but bad old men—

  that’s something else again,

  even when you’re the woman

  who wants it all.

  ATTITUDE, GRATITUDE, AND BEATITUDE

  The news all seems bad—

  just like it all seemed good only a year or so ago—

  the money isn’t where we thought it was—

  neither are we—

  How does it work?

  Does anybody know?

  Where did the music go?

  Did you see Michael Jackson’s video?

  I did this thing I do—I saw this woman and

  felt the need to give her all my power—then

  I couldn’t think of anything but her & getting

  her to be my mate because I needed her because

  she had the power.

  “So what,” they say, “that’s nothing new.”

  They think I did the same with you.

  I know, it’s true that

  recessions come & go, like wars, conspiracies,

  & music you can really listen to.

  What’s permanent is—what?

  That’s what we all would like to know.

  It isn’t attitude—thank God that changes

  as we grow. It isn’t gratitude—sometimes

  it comes too slow or not at all—& what

  the hell is “beatitude” anyway?—another

  fancy word for feeling good at nobody’s

  expense? I call that “love”—the only

  guarantee of happiness, & not for me

  coming from you but coming from me

  for whatever, if I can let the fear of

  loving go—you know—like how you feel

  when you just love that song or pet or

  painting or book or person or job or joke

  or all that stuff you loved so long ago—

  or not so long ago. Do it again—let

  the fear of loving go—no matter what you

  know—because you know this too—that

  it is the only way to go to go.

  MORE THAN ENOUGH

  there’s more than more than more than

  more than enough so why isn’t enough enough and where is it

  written that enough will never be enough except

  in the amazing arrogance of societies and

  institutions and governing bodies of immune deficiency

  allowances of tabloid mentalities that breeed breeeed

  breeeeed breeeeeeed breeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed infinity when

  all we are asking for is food.

  all we are asking for is enough space to live a life of

  enough space to enough space to live a life of gratitude

  when all we are asking for is no more hope no more dope no

  more ways of being anything less than the stewards of all

  that god has created including each other which means

  caretakers which means taking care of which means caring for

  each other and every other living thing and everything is

  living from that star that is supposed to have died so many

  thousands of years ago and yet still shines in your eyes to

  that grain of sand in the shoe of the man sleeping on the rock

  of all our past discouragement—

  I’m talking about the reason we are here today

  to look at each other and say what can I do for you

  to help you get through whatever lack is causing you pain or

  sadness or fear or anger or feelings of victimization—

  there is only one nation, and it is the nation of

  love, we weren’t wrong in the ’60s we were just too

  self-righteous about it thinking whatever made us shout

  also gave us the clout to have it all our way so I ask

  today for the humility of the saints and the bodhisattvas,

  the courage of the martyrs and the Kama Sutra the love of

  every god who ever gave solace to any lonely soul like

  mine and y
ours, I am reassured by that love no matter how

  many tanks and guns and chemical weapons our collective

  greed has ignited in the hearts of even lonelier souls who

  have no recourse but belligerence and death to satisfy the

  myth of their invulnerability—

  we are all vulnerable, today’s success stories, tomorrow’s

  homeless, let us all be warriors for love as if we were

  sent from above to heal these wounds of neglect, because,

  hey, guess what—we were.

  IT TAKES ONE TO KNOW ONE

  One what?—

  Nigger, kike, wop, honky, paddy, redneck, frog,

  cocksucker, bastard, bitch, motherfucker, dog—

  punk, nerd, dweeb, sissy, jerkoff, creep,

  queen, faggot, bulldyke, Republican sheep,

  right-wing, leftist, Trotskyite, capitalist pig,

  facelifted faketitted phony-in-a-wig,

  impotent, premature ejaculator,

  stand-up comic, poet, actor,

  waiter, chauffeur, screenwriter, masturbator,

  sibling, in-law, spouse, kid, victim, manipulator,

  codependent, alcoholic, addict, abuser,

  liar, cheater, thief, quitter, loser,

  photographer, reporter, lawyer, dealer,

  doctor, chef, model, hair-stylist, healer,

  quack, booshie, commie, jock, gambler, gangster,

  fuck-up, greedhead, homie, rambler, prankster,

  hippie, yuppie, beatnik, artist, freak,

  monster, asskisser, cartoonist, geek,

  hoser, dickhead, wanker, slant-eyed dwarf,

  fatso, pasty-face, nothin-but-soft,

  sexist, racist, ageist, whore,

  Buddhist, born-again, sober bore,

  white, brown, yellow, red, black and blue,

  he, she, them, us, it, me, you,

  rocks, mountains, clouds, trees,

  rivers, valleys, inlets, seas,

  birds, horses, whales, kittens, bees . . .

  Hey!—

  This could go on forever,

  when all we really gotta say is:

  Everything and us—

  Us

  and

  everything—

  from the smallest quark

  to the biggest galaxy—

  it’s all the same,

  and it only takes one

  to know one.

  One what?

  MARCH 18, 2003

  (Libellum 2004)

  from MARCH 18, 2003

  I don’t have any answers,

  just some questions:

  Who’s gonna win the Oscar for best actor?

  Was Bush sedated at that press conference?

  When innocent people die is it worse

  than when the guilty do?

  Guilty of what?

  Can you define dry drunk?

  Are you as tired as I am

  of these right-wing fundamentalists

  trying to reverse what little progress

  we’ve managed to make in our attempts

  to create, as Che once said, a world

  where love is more possible?

  Are some kids more precious than others?

  [ . . . ]

  Do my relatives in uniform support Bush

  because the right-wing fundamentalists

  are really that good at manipulating the media,

  a media mostly owned by them

  but which they continue to attack as liberal

  in order to debunk any questioning of their tactics

  and actions by the small percentage

  of media outlets that are halfway independent of them?

  You call this a poem?

  Are the Arabs to blame for their problems?

  Are Native Americans?

  Are Irish Catholics in Northern Ireland?

  Are the Tutus? The North Koreans?

  Patty Hearst? Muhammad Ali?

  Chris Reeves? The Jews? The Tibetans?

  Southern Baptists? Hollywood?

  Wall Street? Enron? Ford? Mariah Carey?

  Crispin Glover? The Catholic priesthood

  The Chechens? The Colombians?

  The troops in Kuwait and Iraq?

  Are we?

  What makes me think I can wait till the last minute

  to write a poem about how humbled

  I am by the idea

  that poetry can do anything to stop

  the carnage anywhere—except in our hearts

  however briefly?

  Wasn’t I the only veteran on the stage,

  the night in 1966 when I took part in my first

  anti-war poetry reading?

  If Bush wins in Iraq and Osama is caught and

  the economy rebounds enough to give people

  some hope is his reelection inevitable?

  Is it inevitable anyway?

  Should those who voted for Nader be forced

  to apologize to the innocent victims of Bush’s policies?

  Or for his renewed attack on the environment

  in the hypocritical but seemingly successful guise

  of a man who actually cares about clean air?

  Why are Democrats who are smart enough and

  tough enough and good enough politicians to play hard ball

  with the right-wing pricks so rare?

  Do we only care about war

  and the innocent lives it takes

  when Americans are at risk?

  Isn’t it obvious that wars never end,

  they just move?

  What good did our pointing out that Malcolm X

  and Martin Luther King were only assassinated

  after they stopped talking about race and began

  talking about class and the rights of poor people do?

  Isn’t it obvious these right-wing fundamentalists

  are still pissed off about what FDR did for working folk

  with social security and tried to do with health care

  and other programs that they’ve since managed to

  dismantle or are still attempting to? Isn’t it ironic

  how much they hate Carter for being a true Christian

  and showing them up for the hypocrites they are?

  Do these right-wing fundamentalists really believe

  that the founding fathers were born-again Christians

  who believe, like Bush, that only they’ll go to heaven

  when “the rapture” comes,

  when the framers of the constitution

  barely believed in organized religion

  and none took the Bible literally?

  If the right-wing fundamentalists

  really believe we should all follow the Bible’s

  directions, why wasn’t Newt Gingrich

  buried in sand up to his neck and stoned to death

  when he cheated on his first wife with his second

  and then on his second with his third?

  Can you get more hypocritical than to try and impeach

  a president for adulterous sex with an intern

  when you are doing the same exact thing

  at the same exact time?

  Is it true even Newt thinks this attack on Iraq is ill conceived?

  [ . . . ]

  In the past, wasn’t the vast right-wing conspiracy

  always on the wrong side of history—

  for the king, against the revolution,

  for slavery, against the eight-hour day,

  for child labor and Jim Crow segregation,

  against votes for women,

  for legal discrimination, against immigrants

  and Catholics, Hispanics and African Americans,

  for treating corporations like privileged

  individuals, and individuals like

  corporate privileges?

  Or is history still on their

  side with that one, as corporate power
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  grows and equality slows, at least the kind

  based on the chance to make a living?

  Isn’t it true that during the fabulous

  fucked-up fifties they pretend to be

  so nostalgic for, they ignore the part

  about how ordinary citizens won the war

  and came home to a nation tired of

  depression and built unions strong enough

  to give a working man a chance to

  own a home and keep up with the Joneses

  if not the Walkers and Bushes?

  Wasn’t the difference between liberal capitalists

  and conservative capitalists summed up best

  by JFK’s old man during the Depression—

  when he said he was willing to give up half of what he had

  to keep the other half while

  the conservatives aren’t

  willing to give up anything?

  Wasn’t the first thing they protected after 9/11

  offshore banking and headquarters for corporations

  and wealthy individuals to avoid paying the taxes

  the rest of us do even if that’s how and where

  the terrorists and drug barons hide their money too?

  Wasn’t the next thing they bailed out the airlines

  because of all the fuel they use and anything that

  helps make unconscionable profits for oil companies

  is their first priority?

  [ . . . ]

  Didn’t the CIA overthrow

  the democratically elected leader of Iran in 1953

  with the help of a Nazi collaborator

  who immediately set up 25-year leases

  on Iran’s oil for three U.S. firms including Gulf Oil?

  Didn’t Kermit Roosevelt, the CIA head of that region,

  retire shortly thereafter to a

  vice presidency of—Gulf Oil?

  Didn’t the CIA back the coup

  that overthrew the democratically elected

  president of 1950s Guatemala because of his proposal

  to nationalize some of United Fruit’s vast holdings?

  Didn’t Walter Bedell Smith,

  the CIA man in charge, within a year

  become a member of the board of directors

  of—you guessed it—The United Fruit Company?

  Does anyone see echoes of that today

  in Cheney’s connections to Halliburton

  or Bush’s to Enron?

  Isn’t it true that this shit has been going on forever?

  Isn’t it also true that our government,

  which usually means one of the secret agencies

  with secret funding for which the Constitution

  never allowed,

  trained and paid the leaders of Al Qaeda

  in the Afghan proxy war with the Soviets