Another Way to Play

by Michael Lally

creased I thought what’s worse, to see

  me back down or drop dead on the spot?

  So I stopped arguing and stepped back.

  The man, almost spitting by now let his

  wife pull him away, and as they backed

  down the street he kept yelling for every-

  one to hear that I was racist scum and so

  on, me wanting, and maybe even trying

  to yell back that I walked these streets

  fifty years ago with my black love and

  got beat up and spit on and run out of

  town for it and now smiled every time I

  saw a racially mixed couple stroll by as

  though without a care because now they

  could in this town, and I felt I’d been

  a part of what caused that change but

  now was being blamed for the opposite.

  STRING THEORY

  I wasn’t good at a lot of it—

  but there were things—

  strings connecting me to

  music—jazz & r&b mostly—

  I could play piano—I had a feel—

  soul some said—(like poet

  Ralph Dickey who had more

  keyboard technique but lacked a

  certain swinging intuitive

  rhythm)—and words—mine—

  not maybe most original—

  but originally mine in ways

  that favored reverence for

  a truth I never found any-

  where else—and movies—

  or those serial movies that

  are TV—in my time I

  made a contribution—whether

  anyone noticed or not—

  I tried to step back, like

  Lao Tsu says, but found it

  complicated—more complicated

  than I knew how—simplicity

  being my mission—my love

  for the boy I couldn’t protect

  in me back then but vowed

  to stay connected to—do you

  hear those one-syllable words?—

  they’re the ones that trip me

  up since they removed that

  foreign object from my brain

  that explains my poetry now—

  though it always did—

  from SO AND

  jasmine—Tunisia

  —how evocative

  like ’40s films

  black & white

  yet fragrant &

  bursting with life—

  vital in a way

  that’s filled with

  the more subtle

  colors light

  and shadow

  provide through

  skills no longer

  needed or applied

  —extent—is that

  what I meant?

  [ . . . ]

  I know I haven’t done

  enough—oh sure I’ve

  stood by my core beliefs,

  thank God, most of the time,

  haven’t you? and often

  paid the price for telling

  the truth, even if it was

  inconvenient or impolitic

  at times, or made myself

  look not so good—even

  genuine heroics I’ve had

  my part in, as I’m sure

  we all have at least once

  more or less—but I confess

  I didn’t fly to Liberty

  Square in Cairo to take

  my place among the heroes

  of this season, like I hitched

  to places all across this

  nation in the ‘sixties &

  beyond to stand up for

  the truth of our common

  humanity in the face of

  racism and war—more

  bullying confronted and

  sometimes the victim of

  —love, I thought then

  was the answer—as so

  many of us did and I

  still do—not just like

  anyone who wakes up

  in an operating room or

  just before they go in

  feels all that matters is

  their loved ones—but

  too the love of all our

  commonality even when

  wired differently so that

  simplified slogans can

  sway one wiring this way,

  the other that, to see the

  spirit of love in all things

  not just creatures like us

  and those apes over there

  staring into our eyes

  with a look that is so

  tired of the lies about

  our differences, their

  “inferiority” they

  know intuitively isn’t

  real beyond the deal we’ve

  made to behave like it is—

  I still talk to rocks, let alone

  trees, and they always talk back,

  mountains and clouds and

  meadows and shadows

  and the glories winged

  cousins bring to any view—

  the choice we always

  have to get as close as

  we ever will to the truth

  in the heart of all things,

  even the despicable bullies

  holding Weiwei hostage

  as we meet here tonight

  to celebrate our love of

  all creative attempts

  to fulfill our humanity . . .

  I wanted to write

  a special poem for

  this night like I

  sometimes have before

  to tell what I know

  as well as I know

  my heart’s scars

  but my brain’s scarred

  now too and it doesn’t

  work as well as it once

  did, nor do the connections

  between my thoughts

  and the fingers typing this

  (I know I should move to

  voice activated programs

  so I don’t have to go through

  the hassle of retyping

  and retyping and retyping

  until the word I meant

  to write is finally on the

  screen—but I’ve been

  using my fingers to

  express myself in so

  many ways, on the

  keys of the old portable

  typewrites of my tough

  (I meant to write “type-

  writers” of my “youth”

  and would normally

  make the correction

  but both words make sense

  for that period of my life:

  “typewrites” and “tough”)

  and electric typewriters

  of my thirties and early

  forties and computer key-

  boards ever since, or

  the keys of pianos, upright,

  grand, electric and acoustic,

  or organs or Rolands or

  Rhodes or whatever was

  available, but I can no

  longer do with the same

  facility I once had—I know

  a lot of folks have the same

  problems who didn’t have

  brain surgery—but the way

  it happened for me was sudden—

  before the growth affected me

  I typed and played piano as

  fast and as accurately as always

  —and then one day I didn’t

  anymore, and that’s still the

  way it is tonight—I can never

  get it right the first time, but

  have to try and try again until

  I do, like a child just learning,

  again, but now who understands

  so much he never did before

  because too much came too easily,

  and what didn’t I usually ignored—

  but t
hat door—the “easily”—is

  closed, if I want to enjoy the

  pleasures writing and playing

  piano always gifted me—

  I know musicians much younger

  whose injured wrists or elbows or

  arms or vocal chords or other

  physical restraints have caused

  them to face the same crisis of

  inability, I’m not comparing

  myself or complaining, even

  if it may sound that way to

  you, I’m explaining because

  that’s what I do, I say “this

  is the way I’m experiencing the

  truth of my life right now and

  what I see around me, and you?”

  the bright bursts of yellow

  announce a spring still

  struggling to arrive—forsythia

  and daffodils followed by

  the eye-opening white blossoms

  of the dogwood tree in our yard

  or neon pinks of the cherry

  blossoms in the nearby park—

  the more exotic blossoms on

  the screen or page when I

  try to write, here’s some

  uncorrected typing:

  and oc cour se it’s allsi

  fucking meningliess oh

  what thrtwa thy asportiaons

  ame upont this whatever

 

  yes, we all noticed how

  the force of “fucking”

  somehow survived intact—

  but that’s not all

  that’s moved on

  [ . . . ]

  what happened

  was I went

  but I came back

  I did it but

  then I stopped

  I knew but

  then I forgot

  I was but

  now I’m not

  now it’s old news

  the blues I play

  never come out

  right ‘cause

  that connection

  between the keys and

  fingers and brain

  ain’t, like I said,

  the same anymore,

  but when a door closes

  for now or ever as always

  a window opens and

  new synapses replace

  the old flashes with

  bold distinctions—

  like how I always found

  Meryl Streep and Anette Beining

  unattractive, no matter how much

  I admired their talent, or

  Mitzi Gaynor’s girl-next-door looks

  so abrasive—

  I liked the darker

  beauties and

  their darker arts—

  then they removed

  that part of my brain that

  wasn’t supposed to be there

  and where once having been

  born in the Swing Era

  made it always about

  rhythm & tone, now those

  old ideas were gone and

  whenever Meryl or Annette

  or Mitzi’s image shines

  from old movies on TV

  I feel actual glee at

  their presence in my

  living room, overflowing

  with desires I never knew

  I had because I hadn’t

  until now & this rewiring—

  the Meryl-Annette-Mitzi-

  attraction and affection

  connection—so that when

  they aren’t beaming from

  the small screen I swear

  I feel no attraction or

  affection for them at all

  but when they are—the

  mysteries of what I always

  believed was me

  but now know as merely

  electric impulses in

  the thought battery

  that’s the hybrid

  of my brain . . .

  the smell of

  rain here—

  or the way

  here smells

  when it rains

  don’t fight

  the goodness

  in you or

  anyone else—

  Hubert Selby Jr.

  taught me that

  you know how

  long it took me

  to type

  and retype

  and retype and re-

  type until all

  the words were

  actually the

  ones I intended?

  of course a lot

  of what comes out

  is more “poetic”

  in some sense—

  like “tough” for “youth”

  or “angels” for “angles”

  and “tripe” for “type”

  “sea age” for “message”

  “meadow” for “Meryl”

  and line break for

  apostrophe and

  frustration for

  accuracy and bottomless

  self-pity for stamina and

  perseverance—timidity

  was never an option

  although it ruled

  so much of what

  appeared as bravado

  —am I making sense

  and why do I feel I

  should—do I repeat

  myself and in so less

  exiting ways than

  Weiwei does—man

  I admire that guy,

  his presence even

  just in photographs,

  and then in films,

  you can see his spirit

  and its generosity and

  acceptance of what is,

  then using it for what

  can be—

  I’ve never been

  humble enough—

  I wasn’t tough

  or noble or good

  enough to shine

  at sports—but

  I was smarter

  about most

  stuff than anyone

  I grew up around—

  and I had a pro-

  found respect

  for originality,

  of which I thought

  I had my share—

  when it didn’t

  seem to get me

  where I thought

  I should be—I

  made it known

  in ways that put

  the onus on you

  for not doing

  enough to bring

  justice to my

  cause—my due—

  my getting through

  the obstacles I

  knew were there—

  where others

  seemed spared

  from the reper-

  cussions I drew

  fire from—come,

  let’s kiss and

  make up, like

  Nina Simone

  always wanted

  then refused

  to do—original?

  she was—as is

  Ai Weiwei

  who surprisingly

  looks up to

  Andy Warhol

  who risked so

  little, although

  maybe not—

  he got shot

  by a woman I

  knew, that’s right,

  Valerie Salinas,

  when she got out of

  the hospital for the

  criminally insane

  someone dropped her

  on the steps of my

  “commune” as we

  called them in those

  days—the women who

  till then had been big

  admirers became afraid

  once she moved in—

  they feared her constant

  pacing and muttering and

  rage at those she thought

  had taken advantage of

  her—like the time I came

  home to find the upstairs


  toilet plugged because

  she’d ripped up the house

  copy of her S.C.U.M.

  Manifesto and tried to

  flush it—then left it,

  as they all did, for me

  to plunge until the

  pages all came out

  and the toilet worked

  again and my kids could

  use it and when I went

  away for a reading in

  Boston with some friends—

  Ed Cox, Tim Dlugos,

  Terence Winch—the

  women in this radical

  lesbian-feminist “commune”

  —don’t ask—told Valerie

  I didn’t want her there

  so she moved out and

  when I got back and they

  told me I was dismayed—

  I got along fine with her

  and kind of enjoyed the

  way she made all visitors

  so nervous with her smoke

  filled pacing and muttering

  in our communal living room—

  I liked a lot of her ideas too—

  she was the first person I knew

  to explain the differences between

  men and women by the nerve

  endings in their genitals and

  taste buds on their tongues

  and olfactory absorbers in

  their sense of smell, and color

  recognition facets of their eyes—

  men are simpler, she’d explain,

  they have so much less of all

  of that they just miss a lot—

  it was one of the reasons she

  said she didn’t mind having sex

  with them for money (she

  became a hooker for a living

  after she left the house we all

  rented and I moved out of not

  long after this) because they

  were so easy to satisfy, so

  simpleminded and biologically

  formed, but she only loved

  women and preferred their

  bodies and complexities,

  though she found the ones

  in our supposedly revolutionary

  commune chickenshit—

  you don’t know

  what you’re missing,

  people I love

  get ignored or

  forgotten, poets

  artists, actors

  musicians

  I don’t always

  know what I’m

  missing

  the trees always

  talk back—

  Valerie thought the solution

  was electricity, to somehow

  make men more sensitive,

  like the women she loved,

  they needed to be wired

  with more electricity—

  I understood in those first few months

  after the operation, when I couldn’t

  read and then only out loud and then

  finally could, well enough to pass—

  what it felt like to be a child with

  learning disabilities or an adult with

  rightwing simplicities or—and this

  was maybe the most difficult to

  accept—blissfully contented with

  only the capacity to eat and drink

  and hold conversations with one

  person at a time, sublime satisfaction

  sometimes I’m still overwhelmed

  by too much stimuli, a crowd, a TV