SOMEONE'S BEEN SPIKING MY TEARS

SOMEONE’S BEEN SPIKING MY TEARS

 

Someone’s been spiking my tears with fire.

Someone’s been shading the truth

like a sin of omission

in the negative space of a liar.

Yesterday I was on my knees

begging for mercy from myself

in front of a thousand Virgin Marys

all strung out on their rosaries

like the skulls of the lovers they used to be

before they bubbled their brains down

like rocks they brought back to earth

after their long spacewalk

to get high on the silver

in the ore of the moon

that keeps changing them like faces

no one can recognize

as the calendar they once knew

before an interrogation room ran their afterlife

like a mugshot through the keyhole of a clueless afternoon.

And I am so sorry I wasn’t there to care.

But I ran out of highways on the way back

to the doors I never passed through

because you were you

and you never let anything out

that wasn’t either a talk-show or an issue

I could ever do anything to resolve

because the point was

to go on suffering like a celebrity

no one had ever heard about

with problems no one could solve

who wasn’t you.

You were in the passing lane of evolution

and I was always a revolution too late

to overturn the head of state

for a kinder kind of emergency

without all the hysterical urgency

of a fire that couldn’t be put out

unless you were crying like a fire hydrant

about all the snakes in your hair

with minds of their own

that turned you to stone

everytime you looked in the mirror.

Fear of anything has never been

the beginning of wisdom

for anyone

and little queen

and you were no exception

in your bulletproof limousine.

The elastic years may have snapped back on me

like a hairpin turn in time

and my donkey-cart of a heart

plunged into the abyss again

as it always did in my vain attempts

not to lose my footing at the top

of your cosmic view

of how far I had to fall

before I was demonic enough to love you.

Things may have changed,

pages turned

bridges burnt

stars gone out

grief grown bitter

in a one room urn

trying to identify its own ashes

and the questions we both asked

that used to bunt their heads like baby birds

on the ancient rocks below

grown feathers enough to fly away

or softer ways to knock

without demanding an answer

you didn’t have to live your way through

like a corpse on the pyre

of everything you ever knew.

I sighed for you.

I cried for you.

I died for you

many more nights than I ever

sat down alone with myself

and crossed off all my full moons

like so many corner shots

eight-balled in the pocket

as I watched you sink the table like Atlantis.

Now I forget how many years it’s been

since I was finally convinced

there was nothing I could ever do or be

that wouldn’t somehow shadow your shining

and in a timeless moment at the airport

that winter night I said good-bye

and took off with ice on my wings

death went on forever without a destination.

But I still remember

how cool I thought I was

before your creative intensities

went off like a destructive universe

in my boundless mystic immensities

and things heated up for the worse.

I’m more spaced out now than I ever was

but the funny part is

it’s not so cold anymore

and things are beginning to feel

a lot more like home

and the darkness is sweeter and deeper

than I can ever remember it being

and there’s a place I’ve discovered within myself

where parallel lines do meet

and I lie down there with you often

without the sword between us

and say those things I would have meant

if things had been different.

 

PATRICK WHITE