Sometimes a ladder falls
and you move one way or another,
not realizing until afterwards
that your instincts or your luck
saved you (unless, of course,
you were on the ladder).
The relief your split-second decision causes
is strong, but will be replaced at some point
by questions about the next ladder,
for all the laws that govern these things,
probability, fate, circumstance,
cannot be tempted or relied upon.
What will happen to us
and how much worse would it
if we knew?
What we see
in the dark light
persuades us that our fears
know of matters
we know to be not.
Dark matters
born in heavy weight
that will not matter
come the morning.
There are no known dreams
just a belief in the unknown
and the silent universal sounds
it makes for each of us.
Only the dogs
of our selves hear them
and each is unknown
by any other unknown.
At forty thousand
The blood thins or thickens
While the heart constricts or
Like the shopping bag of a poor man
Swings empty
Something like that
One or the other.
At forty thousand
The Atlantic still stretches beyond sight of land
Water to water and all of it cold and far down there.
Some of us fear what lies beneath when we are on the surface
Others, the surface itself when we are far above it.
The day begins early
the bags all collect
as here in real life
we are left to reflect
that kids go to camp
and then off to college
in a thirsty pursuit
of some kind of knowledge
while their parents stay home
mourning the crime
of the days that are stealing
the passage of time
(on the floor there were pillows
backpacks in bunches
clean water bottles
overstuffed lunches
now there is nothing
but carpet and dust
and a cynical prayer
“In the driver we trust”).
I read of a man
killed by another man
who cut out his eyes
and then went to visit a third man
to prove to him that the first man
was dead for after all
look here here in my pocket
here are his eyes.
There are no other available details.
We have butchers in this country.
I suppose if you were a butcher
it might not mean so much
to cut the eyes out of a dead man’s body
a job of work a skilled trade.
Did he carry the eyes in something?
An eyeglass case or a can
or a simple bag plastic or otherwise?
Did the man he showed them to
recognize the man who had been killed
from his eyes as they were proffered?
Was there anything distinctive or particular
about them when they had previously been in use?
Did the Sheikh (because he was)
when shown the eyes
think fucking hell
I didn’t mean his actual eyes?
Or not.
Was there a gift involved then?
What do you give the man who brings you
the separated eyes of your enemy?
Many questions details
but more than anything
the emptying of the word disbelief
for it doesn’t meet my incapacity
for understanding any of it.
Or the sharing of this world
with any of three men involved in this story
two of whom presumably are still living
and perhaps even now considering
what might be available in the refrigerator
because it’s gone four
and I have to pick up my boy from school
(the day’s gone by so quickly)
and we’re going to buy art supplies and a burger
some dry ice for his science project.
It all starts out somewhere.
She said
but you love me
for all the wrong reasons
snow in July
the worst of all seasons
and what’s going to happen
if you should fall down dead
and leave all my worries
here and unread?
There is and was a story about a man, this was in eighty-two or three, just after The Falklands War, who was sitting on the couch in his house in England one late Saturday afternoon, maybe early evening. He was drinking tea. A cup and a saucer. And perhaps distracted a little from his immediate surroundings by the television and whatever was on there. It was a normal couch or it must have been, not set against the wall as is more common now, but out in the middle of the living room.
He had a daughter. Six years old she was then, something like that. Her dad had been away. Quite a while, especially to a child of that age, off at this odd war (not that she would have known that, the oddness or the war). He was a soldier. Tough man. Not to his daughter, but still. Hard business. Must have been odd in itself (not just the war), being back home. On the couch on a Saturday. Drinking tea, cup and saucer.
Our own boy gets sore legs. He must get it from me because I used to have just the same. A terrible aching and in the middle of the night. Nothing to look at but it hurts a lot. Helps when you’ve had something someone else has got. Otherwise you can think a little that they’re making more of a fuss than’s needed. Although he is a good sleeper. And ten. At ten you’re not thinking of being up at three for the fun of it. Not if you’re a good sleeper.
She came up behind him, she must have done, of course she did. Maybe had seen it on a film on the television. He was probably watching for the football results. He’d been in The Falklands doing something or other, but not the regular soldiering. Member of the Special Air Service, SAS, top of the tree, very particular operations. Of course it’s violent. It’s war and fighting, it’s all violent. Killing and dying. Fucking terrifying whoever you are.
She was at the back of the couch. Behind him. Quiet and light footfalls being small, probably in slippers. On a carpet. She reached out her hands and put them around his head, one either side, and onto his face. Like she must have seen. That thing where you say Guess who? Often a lover to another. Husband and wife or before that.
I woke up because my wife was speaking and then he was talking, the ten year old, but for the first second or so I didn’t know it was him or anyone at all. Was dark and three o’clock. And I felt adrenalin before I knew what it was. Someone in the room. Middle of the night. Wife was saying something in her voice.
He hadn’t even turned around before the tea cup, nice china, almost delicate, thin handle, was smashed and shattered grinding into his daughter’s face. Full on and in and with no stopping. More than thirty years ago now. Broke her nose and a cheekbone, blinded her completely. I always wonder if she still lives at home.
There are three distinct noises you can hear,
not Father, Son, nor Holy Ghost by any means.
There is a low tone which is all of your thinking,
an intermittent note, your heart beating,
and a hundred thousand chemical termites
for every worry and lust particle,
every rapidity, every hope that still remains,
there inside your otherwise perfect head.
It is a simple collection
accelerating towards its conclusion at the moment you do.
Gods who survive in our cities are known by many different names.
Let us not confuse the sectarian with the secular, it may be unwise (or even dangerous) to do so.
Nor the men with the women, nor the sheep with the goats.
We cannot name the unnameable, nor look upon the truth of our own face.
We must not take another’s knife to bread for fear of being cut and thereafter becoming the unclean.
We must count our days very specifically, dress and undress as per instruction only.
We must not seek citrus, nor call down upon ourselves the dreams of our fathers.
We must permit others as we ourselves would be permitted.
Take no common stone into our mouths nor cause common stones to be placed wantonly into the mouths of others.
There shall be no prospect of forgiveness for those who wear the skirts of the unforgiven.
Ponder the wisdom of your own born skin and let the beards of the women be not cut.
You shall not be unkempt without purpose, nor unwashed without design.
You shall not ride or be falsely motorized, nor accept gifts of unbraided hair.
Walk no lines unless upon a day set aside by those with days to spare.
You will take it upon yourself to be calm yet also at all times full.
You shall wake and cause others to wake also.
You shall count not the fingers of the broken, nor consider your own dexterity but a gift from Him.
If at the coast turn inland, when close to the harbor maroon.
In times of weather revile shelter, on each night of winter cast off your cloth.
When late begin again, when early do not wait.
Do not crop upon the planted, do not weep for the dry.
In the clinics of the lost make every effort to remain unfollowed.
Do not look out of that window, do not seek the means of your own control.
Honor those who sit quietly and your uncles particularly.
Never leave until the breath has stopped.
Promise faithfully instead you will not forget
me.
In the prison cell he’s thinking
there are so many kinds of sickness
and finds himself looking at a Mapplethorpe nude,
looking at a hand with the veins stuck out like string burns.
He remembers trying so hard to get a needle
to go quietly into the base of his thumb,
making holes along his wrist and arm.
Drinking breakfast tea,
he pulls back his shirtsleeve
and sees the one last dot remaining,
a pink tattoo of other days.
He smokes the last of a rolled cigarette,
feeling sure the inside of his chest
is quite certainly all black by now.
He puts aside his mailbag and begins weeping.
At last Lorenzo comes across to his bunk
puts an arm around his shoulders,
and holds on so tight.
[alternate title: Introduction to memento mori]
Johnny Goodyear 