Chaperons of a Lost Poet

John Vick

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Buffalo, New York

Chaperons of a Lost Poet by John Vick Copyright 2009 Published by BlazeVOX [books] All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without the publishers written permission, except for brief quotations in reviews. Printed in the United States of America Book design by Geoffrey Gatza First Edition ISBN: 9781935402459 Library of Congress Control Number 2009925621

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Tonight, the neighborhood quiet, I dont even hear the little dog across the way and hope hes gone for good. Finals week, the students quiet this Tuesday night, yet I fight the temptation to blast Queen all over the block; Spot on, Johnny Boy--, step way back there and see what is retrievable. Your childhood or that post-adolescent marathon of misbehavior? | The quiet is mottled briefly by a bicycle chain rattling through a gear change. Footsteps in the next room say my dear one is on his way to the restroom, or the fridge. I hedge back and forth between the urge to seek him out or remain in this refuge of multi-media, solitude and privacy. | But where are you headed, John? And if you have no idea, keep the gearshift down to the right. And once more try to get a grasp on your intent. It isnt paranoia to fear you are taken as hilariously (and or pathetically) funny. You never know because you question your insight. What you mean to tell yourself is that besides fearing your country, its forty-third, you hate your passivity. You despise the lack of outrage in yourself and everyone else. You loathe the carte hlanche you give the empowered and wonder if you have authority over yourself. There is a key to your psyches desire to continue on. | Simon and Garfunkel chord book and me at the piano, hammering away without the least rhythm. No leaning toward expression in music. Simply pounding on the keys like a two-year-old beating on a xylophone. And the jinx was there; it was in place and waiting. | To explain the jinx, realize that the others in the room will find you pedantic, or worse,

trying to be pedantic. The best way to handle it is by just wrapping upas briefly as possible, pleaseand leaving the reader with a sense of fulfillment without giving away too much. So, scan the page, try to find common elements, some something there to say: the whole thing happened quickly poems should all be about a single moment? 1 Learn the rules and follow them. There are jinxes to be dealt with and the first is coming up fast. Tick tock tick tock. | I turn on the TV, flip channels for what seems like hours. I pick up the letter, the one from my mother down south, the letter that said thanks for the note and other when the other was a contest-winning poem. Id been so sure shed be proud of me, her status as best-read in the family. What will she do if she ever reads the rest of it, poems which intimate the lives of teenage hustlers on Sunset Boulevard? I never should have sent it to her so hyped up. | So remember not to be overconfident next time you share, and remember the assumption caused the jinx, and there are other assumptions out there. Jinxes you cant control on paper. So, back to this cliff-diving, the selfdestructive loathing of the craft. [Instructional:] Have a bit of sense about that boy in the car the one with the whole Twins thing going on who returned the biggest shit eating grin2

(Summer 1975, Oklahoma): A room, window, chess game, homemade rune stone. A solitary crow lives outside my bedroom window. One scrub oak shades my window and the crow watches there squawking hilariously at my entrapment. I have named him Oscar. I want to be a star, escape. Ive heard the poem is just the poem.
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who recognized a dirty old man the one who smiled so kindly and nodded his head. How were you dressed? Are there black and white photos of your derriere in oversized jeans with fourteenyear-old boy boxer briefs puffed up over your waistline; a gallery photo. |How the quiet set down the rules for the evening. The way I didnt speak until I was two-and-a-half years old. Then, Carolyn, come here! came out of my mouth. And that was then, in the south where my sister mothered. She produced an avant-garde artist in a flighty son. There are envelopes mounted under glass on my foyer wall. They went via post filled with credit card statements, utility bills from Paris to rural America. Each envelope water-colored, spray painted, duct taped. And how compassionate will you be toward your old art? You have a hatred of what you did yesterday, much less a year agoeverything randomly saved here and there. Could you face an audience who had just read your complete works? I sit near the Zen fountain, listening to the water ripple and fall. The garden Buddha speaks softly, I can hear him through the tinkle of wind chimes. He seems to say the same thing over and over.

06/23/68 (up north) Caught playing doctor by Noxzema-face ala curlers. The neighbor girl and Iin awe that anything was amissrelocated to the basement next door.

If nothing is real without your heartmind, is this excruciatingly detailed process of tattletelling on your family and past loves worth the trouble? For one who lives only in the present, you have a crapload of history gushing out of you. And where is the worth in it? You havent gained much. What about that skinny kid from Somerville? Can you bear to tell how you were mean as spit to say the least and scarred him good when you wouldnt let him move in that summer. And what a ride that would have been. | I consider the fire pit, but it is too warm to light. I have a sudden need to play with fire and I am still eyeing the fire pit, but incense will do, and I might as well spark a J, too. Sure, get a buzz-on and see how you feel about yourself. A mutual to-do list (Ill channel). -write excuses -watch that same old DVD -*heart* someone youve never met before -boil craw daddies for the neighbor boy 3 -get into the deep blue valley void of nothing matters -pet a strange dog -track a package from Amazon This is really productive, guy. The list failed. I may have gone too deep into a void. The list is pathetic example of what should be. A list of inanities and the sanity inspection is at three oclock; better get moving or youll be shut down for non-compliance with directives about not littering the horizon with excuses for insignificance. |

June 1970 (up north). It was Old Bay Seasoning. I know because I can taste celery thinking of her with her hair-band like Laura Petrie. There was a line in the kitchen linoleum we werent to cross.

The One About That Skinny Kid From Somerville So he liked me way too much, wanted to hold hands on the subway, as I liked to do when I was his age. (Young and knowing everything there is to know and more. Hustling everyone for the easiest way from A to Zdeedsthe hardest thing to remember once the laundry has been aired and deeds are not within rectifiable reach.) | You make little sense at times, Darlin, and this time you have hit upon little sense successfully. Hold my hand. The most efficient means to get out of your slump is to quit/stop all bourbon, cannabis . . . stay away from red meat. Take your meds at the same time daily. But you ignore your own body and your mood. You live in a world of sad denials and lonesome observations. | It was long. No, I wont bore you with the unpleasantness of it all. There is enough said in saying it was also impossible for him to hide his package on a thin, wispy body. We had one and a half good times. He controlled with his penis. He was the boss of lets wait and we should go out first. There was not a single reason to dislike the young man except that I refuse to be controlled. Romance, when one has what he hasso young 4 with so many years to gois irrelevant until an blind man comes along

May 25, 1979 (graduation): My stuff is packed in the Monza. It is two and a half hours to OKC. My ID says my name is Jim Messineo, I am 24 years old, and I hail from New Jersey. I have memorized the information. The gays are there, in the bars.

and befriends him first, or he becomes what everyone else my age seems to be: a pushover, an easy mark. Step into that other world for a minute, that money job, for some perspective, as its the best collaboration weve done. You dont belong to any clubs or associations do you? Nor do you comma space your name with letters and bizarre acronyms? You dont have a thing to show for yourself and you think its because of your father? Take my hand. Dont cry I know, you cantTry this: acknowledge that your high school sweetheart used you as a sexual object in your formative years. Years you wanted to be with him every minute of the day and you burned up whenever he spoke to another man. Years he was getting around to the eagle scouts on his Casanovesque list of attractive targets. | I really must address this quietness with some music, to drown out the sounds of the garden Buddha chanting, the cats purr, the trickle of the fountain out the window. I hear too much when it is this quiet, and the truth is that kid was obsessive at a time stalking wasnt pop culture so you may be somewhat right, but as far as that kid goes, he pretty much flickered away. | So you arent going to mention the day. The day in front of the Boston Public Library. When he yelled John probably nine, ten times. You just kept on, and you never turned your head or hinted at a smile or nod. You really just chose to be vicious. You really just chose something totally uncool. Im putting my foot down here. You need to reinvent your story. You step into denial too easily. |

The quiet is becoming too powerful. It hits me in the face with all there is and nothing else to go on. Wits argue with the hindering wall of dialectics; the way quiet has me tiptoe across the floor of this otherwise vacant apartment filled with riches which do not belong to me. And I look at the iron-wood water buffalothe one so obviously malewonder of its craftsman in a world where kids die from lack of a twentyfive-cent immunization every few moments or so. |

This is not about this issue of multiple personalities, (because we just cant say s p l i t).

We do possess enough integrity to acknowledge each others place in what room there is left: long lists of pharmaceuticals and etcetera. Nothing shall prevent utterances from this gallery of two, fabulous grandiose ideation aside.

Not unlike that plastic garden Buddha you think is talking to you. Not knowing. The if/whether you know how to improve your emotional weather.5 | The mossy finish on the garden Buddha bronze at the setting of the sun and silver blue at the moon. A career in art beguiles me but I will no doubt fail so I stare at the sunrise Buddha, watch silver turn to gold. And the moon is silent as it moves in largo out of sight. I watched the rainbows of aurora borealis

1965 (down south) The football team was The Tornados. The warning on the radio was for tornados. Under spinning winds I slept and dreamt of tackle after tackle after tackle.

in my Canadian childhood, then we moved back south and they were gone cum red-horizon haze and harvest moons. Sight unseen I bought a circa 1976 Walkman off e-Bay. I have the two cassette tapes a lonely poet sent me. I play them on the bus to work, growing sick and tired. | Yeah, and the Walkman is over next to the 8-Track, next to the hi-fi and LP collection. You are more your fathers dreams and distractions. Remember the grand illusion you created; a sudden revelation overtook your sometime self-centeredness and you forgave, embraced, understood and accepted Pops? I am more capable of Daddys stern reaction and I know you believe it.

| I relish the quiet today. No longer able to hear the whispering Buddha, nor fountain, squirrels rustle, nor distant train. I have concentrated on the wind chimes: if you dont listen to anything, you can hear them sending prayers into the breeze. | Your dream the other night still disturbs: a raccoon in the great woods looking as intelligent as you as it scurries up trees in pajamas and bifocals. You refuse to send work out. Your self-hatred is misdirected, hitting the splashboard in the kitchen instead of the toilet bowl in the john. You refuse to hold my hand any longer than etiquette demands. Are we at an impasse, or do you wish to continue?

A screen door slamming shut sounds like a gunshot in this chilled air when nipples rise out under t-shirts. I feel a feather of sting on my bare ankles. On the low side of balmy. Nothing else happens, but that car speeding off down the street, the young woman singing to herself, mp3s blasting in her ears. | Yeah, right between Phantom Limb and A Comet Appears, and what kind of omen is that my friend? You feel on the downside of some blotter? You feel on the downside of your comfort zone and the hell realm is going to be upon you fast. Indulge silly creature. Go ahead and indulge. If you think these efforts will gain you anything positive, step back, turn around now say Ive hoodwinked6 myself! There, feel better?

Lets start with objectives. You two shall: -understand there is a mutual love of bourbon, accept that -if you insist on smoking; never empty your ashtrays, let your clothes smell like rotten eggs and retired spice Heed and the garden Buddha will become coherent, your nemesis and your ever-developing Polaroid will come to terms of compromise. We will return with the most important thing you should do in your life, once we figure that out.

| My friend says it is a waste to burn incense outdoors but the Buddha in the garden begs for an offering. I smoke cannabis, take advantage of the masking scent of Nag Champa. The quiet is like a tumbleweed on the dry flatlands. It hits the ground now and thena cell phone ringing a pop tunelumber unloaded in the distanceand when it does, when the sound

04/10/1977 (The Kyrie). On half-an-hour-later knees, ring the chimes slowly three times. Stand up front and look like you have a clue. Pensive is the best way to go. Dont reveal too much. Look easily disturbed.

comes into play, it does not disturb as the cardinal nearby continues to sing. I choose not to hear any of it. I click down to that other consciousness. The writing? Well, you continue on You say, suckers all, so I match you, say, and all of them monuments to your peculiar brand of idiocy. Where is your good humor these days? Why this aggravating introspection? I need you to exist, man. Am I Judas to you? Im not ready to leave or quit. Rubber-necking over the balcony railing, I see the kids coming home from the U. Finals make for quiet and quiet makes for whispers, always coming at me, always trying to interfere with my progress. | You think your whole life has been centered around wanting to be gay, but moreover wanting to be a real man who is gay, and you wonder, the more comfortable you get with yourself, if youre actually losing that battle, cuz you can be quite the queen: cant you count your shoes and shirts, two sizes too small, count how many times youve imagined, but never promised, a return to that vintage couture. | The subtle utterances of walls seem to say I am safe here, and that may be why I cannot leave the quiet, though it torments me. The clouds hang low now, nimbi

1.2e: The cats are not fighting, you see. That is play. Inability to tell the difference plants you on the sensitive side. There is that other side, the one who gets it. A gold metal-mesh evening gown in a shoe-box, stolen and passed down from drag queen to drag queen. The box; your gossip, your exclusive information. You are critical yet never criticized. You are trapped with him.

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