september poem

by jesse kendall

let me put the ventriloquist in front of you. the TV dinner man marathon
wheel with the white mouse on. he gets the other piece of meat in from the
smiling white river. a mouse of concern. the way a wrinkle makes my heart
frown, the way i love a muscular shoulder, the feel of Jeffrey's big hand
round mine.

i trance on three raw garlic cloves and hope for future mornings.
meditating together. everyone looking for a new beginning. i work at one.
i get down with my own groove more and more- nothing stops me from dancing
when i get home. i bum rides from somalian refugees. i fall in love with
someone new every few months- i ache for them and ache for them and it
gives me a certain energy in never asking, just going for the quick
get-off in the bathroom where i feel his butt muscles tense so hard as i
touch him as he comes in my mouth as i gag my happiness out and spit it on
the floor.

think of all that has gone before: every joyous life, every pain that is
unhealed, and how it is all valid. the 1960's and 70's, the 1500 hundreds,
the 323 'b.c.'. so many people have gone before; so much life and so many
homes and food and spankings, so much listening to bird calls and ignoring
everything and walking train tracks. it makes me insane and still joyous.
i'll be chalk'd up to a sunny afternoon club mix of deep soulful house so
long as i can see a slant of sunlight from somewhere, even through a
window, and laughter, and sexy talk.

i can’t stop or slow down- i’ve been getting the nasty visions of broken
bones, been walking too fast, been arguing too much, been getting ignored
by too many people. an “atom smasher stalled by electrical glitch.”

i take pics of the river with sun smearing sparkles, graffiti on drab
cement walls, drag queens, a swimming pool, my friend khadra jama; all
that inspires me. i hand print 200 CD covers for my local music community.
i rub my sore neck riding my pink bike with mp3 player headphones in my
ears screaming to a song about blackout curtains, lulling to ‘hercules and
love affair’, dreaming of painting the river-rocks near the bridge blue;
find a horizontal line in their placement. this thin blue line will be seen
by everyone who drives a car though these two towns. yes, that was me.

the "in" BYproduct of wheezing and startling success. i need only an
editor and a benefactor. the drugs will do me when i am sick. i write my
grandmother more, i sleepwalk Howe street, speak to joey gallo too much,
lie on mountain tops with jada caron and shit in the woods. my black n'
mild vanilla stink fills the car and makes my sore throat all the more
raw. lonergan starts up his record label in allston and nothing changes..

i pray for good moments when i do not think of self. i wish a wishing well
into existence, hand out tri-fold pamphlets about my dreams and make
happenings happen by pumping the local media industry. i have innate
art-forms that have to do with alleyways, baby carriages in canals and
cousins who drive me to drink. i spare my neighbors as i pass the city
hall bell-clock tolling 4 o'clock afternoon dullness. i eat the hotdogs
that the vendor vends me and turn that dullness to gleaming gemstone
intent, a certain dance down pine street that wheedles peoples'
imaginations, that churns them up more than four cups of coffee. they
instantly want to dislike me but i move away, not waiting for that
judgment to pass.

we are so afraid to make sense, to get into a real argument.. we are all
so spare, so thin, so sickeningly dull outside- and we know we are so
scintillating in... just no time for it, not enough energy, not enough
brazenness, save it for NASA, save it for space camp, save it for careers,
for movie watching and lap-topping. where's the real unwinding,
confessions on stools, half-despaired late afternoon jukebox-ringing sky,
fallish with the basilica-mounted sheen of rounded air above my sweaty
forehead? only jada knows about that.

taillights on in the truck that's been abandoned in the gritty driveway
for three months. the red sheen gets dreamier as the sun sets behind the
carlton club. the sound of lighted cigarettes and 4 year olds eating ice
cream in dens of sin. i dance anne beal with a drum in the twilight on
summer street. i wish on stars. these are our best performances. that
magic fades when we hit stages, i don't care. i mc everything, not just
nights of art and 'culture'. all of life is improv, that's what lisa
kudrow said. and i believe.

9/08
jessy kendall