The Unpublishables

by Steve Lavigne

  So, I’ll make a cup of white pine tea

  With the fresh green needles,

  But first I’ll ask permission

  And forgiveness for her unintentionally enclosed

  And intertwined life with me-

  She says it’s okay,

  She’ll live many generations beyond me-

  And with hope, she might be a two hundred foot tall

  Giant awing the puny lives of men.

  I hope they don’t cut her down

  But there are so many people with saws

  And fewer and fewer humans who know

  And love the tree people.

  Ah, my white pine tea is done,

  Migwetch, many thank yous, amen.

  In a deserted field, I write this song,

  A hymn to melancholy man,

  That neither beast, bird, nor tree can e’er bring

  This simple man to understand;

  For city bred I am with ore

  And wheel and lock the grinding gears of song,

  From whence my family ne’er could feel

  Any loss except to belong,

  But now I sing with joy in voice,

  A belonging they’ll never understand,

  A voice of bees and starry skies,

  Now twice to sing a melancholy man.

  Dig, dig, dig like a mournful clicking clock;

  Lay waste grim face, such a weedy forsaken spot;

  Tear it down to build again, then mock

  Your towers once more, and like as not

  You’ll try again, your mind begin to plot,

  Nevermore in naturalness ever to rock

  In the sweet depths of your Earth Mother’s arms.

  City Autumn

  Leaves rustle then scrape city stairs,

  Gear upon gear they bluster down,

  ‘til rift and flutter they alight

  the air, lifting my soul to fall.

  City Park In Autumn

  The park, which leaves her rustling garb

  Deposited on a bedroom yard,

  Releases a juicy fullness

  In exchange for barren wholeness:

  A harlot’s wrinkled line of houses

  Between cakes of cracked make-up douses.

  If neither age, nor name, nor date were known,

  And these the only lines that e’er were writ,

  Not thy smile, thine eyes nor thy wit would show

  Though the wide wondering world might think it fit;

  Nor would the love I hold for thee be shown,

  Nor indeed thy love for me, though limitless,

  And though fain would I have of all thy loves writ

  (A lifetime of making and two lifetimes grown),

  I’ve not time and still thy love would not be met,

  For thou hast greater love e’er left unknown:

  A love of the divine encircling time,

  A life without lines, a joining, all things combined.

  What is love? Can those who love freest

  Love best? While others pine for love untrue

  Do merry soulmates hop from bed to bed,

  Pleasure begetting pleasure instead of dread:

  Dread that all pretty words are petty lies,

  That use and abuse, self esteem denied,

  Makes the puritans’ possessive demands-

  A failure to let himself expand.

  Liquor is the fixer

  Which keeps thee from me;

  One syllable’s distance is too far,

  Though comfortable it be.

  Sled dogs hanging tongues, lolling, lagging

  Over rubbery lips,

  Wetness over cold,

  A gliding skimming sailing of ships.

  Part Six

  The Pain Will Out

  Weak tonight

  The side aches dull,

  The body knowing

  What the mind’s forgot

  Or withheld.

  The pain will be known,

  It will out

  One time or another,

  One way or another –

  Dull knowing is no substitute

  Razor jagged edges

  Will out

  And if not let out

  Will sacrifice

  The very beast it rides

  So that in agony

  On death’s cement stoop

  We’ll scrape our chest

  And bloody our knees

  Scrambling for death

  To let us in

  Till quick and bright

  We see the pain,

  Who led the way,

  Too late

  And cry out to the darkness

  “if only I’d known”

  but this too

  you’ll know

  you knew

  too late

  for the pain is there

  was always there –

  the pain will out.

  A finny slipped further reaching thought

  Life and death has always been as easy

  as casting a line,

  the slow reel,

  quick hook- as they bite

  ravenous,

  or maybe just curious,

  and some unlucky ones

  getting hooked by just passing by

  till knowing widens their eyes

  and this hoped for savory

  is bitter as gall and they sprawl rigid

  as if that spread eagle stony grip

  clawed and water breaking

  gasp could stop the slow reel

  and guttural praises as the net hauls

  the last of your flopping back

  and forth on board.

  They’ll roast you over a campfire

  and tell half truthed stories of the

  breakers of lines -

  no one knows what happened to these;

  in the stories, some live from generation

  to generation breaking lines perennially,

  and maybe here and there

  there’s a scaly ascension

  or a finny resurrection to liven the time

  as the son of the great dog fish

  rises again to break another line,

  but the fishers of fish

  and the fishers of men

  know what everyone knows:

  every fish has an end

  and feeds the eaters of death,

  there’s no such thing

  as dying

  of old age.

  The wind

  stalks her back,

  just out of

  sight,

  a whispering

  here,

  a nudging

  there,

  an escalating

  tingling up

  then down

  her spine,

  until, like an unholy thing

  it reaches

  under her skirt

  and tightens her walk;

  she scurries fast,

  and like a mouse

  to a shadowed corner,

  she retreats

  inside her door,

  and sits trembling,

  still tingling,

  in the dark with the unknown

  of this groping,

  following

  dread.

  I remember the night you

  Tossed the red, mangled mass

  Of your tampon to the cat

  And said, “Here kitty, kitty,

  Get the mouse”.

  And it did.

  Your gleeful smile, wide

  Vacant eyes,

  Were you possessed?

  The constant tap, tap, tap

  Of shuffling feet

  In an unheard dance,

  A song continually playing

  For you alone, reverberating

  For days now, behind that silent,

  Somewhere else glaze.

  “God,” you said,

  you were in religious ecsta
sy.

  Who was I to stop you,

  Even if I was your husband

  And we glanced off each other

  With force fields of different beings –

  I guess the loss of the house,

  Your clothes, our pets, anything

  Like the normal life we’d come to expect,

  Made me depressed

  But you, you left,

  And a stranger screamed at me,

  Calling me strange names

  In a biblical tongue

  And I was running out the screen door

  With shame and a razor blade

  Coming after me.

  Then the cops picked you up,

  Don’t you remember,

  We rode together

  In the back of the police car;

  You didn’t remember the incident,

  You were gleeful for a vacation –

  A ride with your huge bible

  In your upturned hands;

  I sobbed quietly like a child

  While you babbled in tongues pointing

  Out bible passages,

  Until the cop in the front seat

  Turned around and said,

  “Hey, you don’t have to worry.

  She’ll be all right.

  We do this all the time”.

  Thirteen Ways Of Looking At A Checkbook

  I

  Amid blue, green, purple and pink,

  Myriads of innumerable packaged things,

  All that stood between his

  And desire

  Was the checkbook.

  II

  I do not know which to prefer,

  Making the kill,

  Or stalking the prey,

  Writing the check,

  Or just before.

  III

  I was of one mind,

  Like the man without his checkbook,

  Who waits in line

  With a cart full of groceries.

  IV

  In all that cluttered apartment,

  The only negative

  That could be less than zero

  Was the placid looking,

  Peacefully consuming

  Checkbook.

  V

  Who made thee checkbook?

  How differently alike are its answers

  To a lifelong executive

  And a homeless thrall.

  VI

  The checkbook is a symbol

  Of the symbol of money;

  Is it in the bank,

  Ecuador,

  Poisoning a river,

  Planting a field?

  Who knows,

  And who cares?

  VII

  What separates

  US

  From

  THEM

  Is the checkbook.

  VIII

  In the third world,

  One or none have the checkbook;

  In the first world ,

  A few more do.

  IX

  Glassed pine boughs,

  Freezing drizzle,

  Bitten fingers and toes,

  The only thing between

  Cold and death

  Was the fragile flame

  Of the checkbook.

  X

  With this one check

  And a flick of the wrist,

  I have neatly sliced

  The neck of a pig

  And splattered its blood

  With a wriggling squeal.

  XI

  The man without a checkbook

  Finds it much more difficult

  To hold a pig down

  While killing it.

  XII

  In all the world,

  There was only they

  And the checkbook,

  And one wasn’t Real.

  XIII

  A blackbird looks down and

  The river is flowing;

  One does not need a checkbook

  To live.

  Please Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London, Consumer Activists Urge Or On a refusal to cry out while having bamboo splinters shoved underneath fingernails

  Never since the clichéd hanging slap yelp

  Of the red slimed newborn,

  Step on a rock indentation,

  Blood dripping prick of a pasture rose,

  Never since the first child’s first ever lack of need,

  Never since,

  “it don’t make no reason to cry,

  you ain’t special,

  get down on your knees and pray”;

  I am oblivious to pain,

  Your pain,

  The rigid, horse tongued dead

  Of mustard gas,

  The quick incineration of the atom

  Lightening flash

  (what shadow feels pain, that’s all that’s left you know),

  lying for days under machine gunned

  concentration camp prisoners,

  afraid to breath

  but more afraid to die,

  “pain has no meaning for such a person,

  it is a condition lived through and with

  for the rest of their lives”;

  never since the first heard

  agonizing death cries,

  “it’s only bodily pain,

  and pain can be transcended”,

  even someone else’s pain,

  “we are not our bodies alone,

  the greatest worship we can give

  is our unacknowledged pain”,

  or was that accepted and released

  pain, is there any difference

  when you’re tied down,

  a razor blade cleaving you a forked tongue.

  When the Chinese overran Tibet,

  The monks were in ecstasy

  Because they were trained

  To transcend the pain,

  Tortuous deaths

  Were the ultimate claim

  On a life well lived,

  Or died;

  You know, they would have had to transcend

  In more mundane deaths,

  fires are as unforgiving as

  Trained assassins,

  So quit making a big deal

  Out of everything;

  Yeah, right, like after the first cut there is no other.

  Part Seven

  The kid from the cat in the hat in therapy

  God damn cat! After that first taste

  it was cake on a rake

  my childhood in that little house

  balanced above me – dropping

  away, always falling

  you with that stupid grin

  and me on my knees, hands

  reaching, grasping

  my world collapsing, crumpled in a corner

  just like you knew it would.

  I never told and I don’t think Sis did –

  we hardly ever spoke after that -

  thing 1s and thing 2s,

  could'ves and would'ves,

  all of our dreams in pieces,

  everything scattered -

  everything swept away

  so fast.

  Tell me what would you say,

  what would you do,

  tell me what if that cat

  and his stupid hat

  had come to your house,

  what if he had come looking

  for you?

  I lie

  in luxury

  my illness forgotten

  warm heating pad snuggled tight in

  the bed.

  The bed

  is, oh, too cold,

  please, lay down, no - no clothes

  inconsolable, just awful

  I lie.

  Black shoes

  like frayed feathers

  blown under the dresser

  by your visit – the flight of some

  stray bird.

  Stray bird

  eyes like onyx

  searching, circling under
/>
  windows, ruffling covers for lost

  black shoes.

  Angelfish being acclimated to an aquarium

  Angelfish floats,

  An anchored sliver of a galleon,

  Prouder than eight pinta’s as it surveys,

  Or swims,

  A furrowing sailboat through liquid air

  Til bow lips and stern tail meet the plastic

  Globe harbor and press for open sea.

  At the end of day,

  The sunflower droops

  His head with the fullness of seed;

  The cricket chirps her evening

  Song and listens

  For a distant reply;

  And I, I feel the fullness of the moment,

  My mind still,

  Silent in a savoring

  Of this symphony of all being,

  My vision soars

  And all that I long to be

  I am.

  My breathing, the ocean,

  They come and they go,

  My hands, a sun speckled salmon,

  I release it … slow.

  Aid’s Dance Therapy

  Johnnie’s going home to die;

  He wants to be with his mother and father and brother

  The house he grew up in to slowly give way in.

  It’s not going to be long now;

  Tonight is his last night at dance therapy

  And we know it, we know it all too well.

  Johnnie could be Barbara, is Tom, maybe Robert

  Maybe me when my time comes

  But now is Johnnie’s

  And tonight’s dance therapy

  Is a dance of support and of upholding;

  Some of us are weak, some are strong

  Ancient rhythms guide the knowing motion-

  Drums beat in an ancient healing

  In a moving guided

  Empathetic sharing knowing;

  With my arms at his shoulders,

  We walk together, circling the room.

  I am legs to support

  Others are walking, others are leaning

  Soon we are chanting, then dancing

  Faster and faster, carrying the weak waist high,

  Embracing holding head high

  Uplifting over head sky high

  And glorious release to know another

  Cares, I care – I support you- hold you

  Till the dance slows- and I must lessen

  We lower you- gentle you - to the earth,

  To the ground and chant, “Home, Home,”

  “Home, home peace at last”

  “Home, home peace at last”.

  My death sits on my head and shoulders

  like a leaden veil;

  it stands before me and behind me

  like a second skin;

  it waits to the right and to the left of me

  like a brother and a friend.

  FAT

  Fat

  isn't soft;

  it's hard

  hard as constriction,

  your belly, a bloated boa,

  writhing as you bend,