The Drawers

The drawers are full of despair
And the dead have your tongue
Splattered on clots of paper and ink.

The heated missives still declare
Phantom passions sung
As we plunged over the brink.

We struggled in a spectral time
And loved as only we could.
The gentle vicissitudes of youth,

The years of articles and rhyme
No longer serve a greater good
And lack the ring of truth.

The Throne of History

The throne of history,
Cheapened by concessions,
Governs in mystery
And lauds its digressions.

Its alien address
Seizes the fluent seat
And presides with finesse
In glorious defeat.

With all I can muster
I will seek to depose
The fierce, regal bluster
I forever oppose.

I covert no new speech
To quell the mind of man.
The throne is out of reach,
Silence smothers the land.

The Moon

If I were the moon, I would be cruel
And flatten men with my milky fist
Until they can come to concede
The reason I exist.

I would breathe to fill cradles of beauty
That imbue our days with meaning.
I would live to summon daily redemptions
With a mammoth hand of dreaming.

If I knew the moon, I would linger
Over limpid lips that persist
In spurning my every advance
And spoiling every kiss

And So Goodbye

Written for a class and my first attempt at writing a theater piece in over a decade. It's crap, but it documents development... of some sort. Inspired by a one act play written by Tennessee Williams entitled Steps Must Be Gentle that depicts a dialogue between the poet Hart Crane and his mother in the afterlife.

Cast of Characters
Thomas “Tennessee” Williams, a son
Edwina Williams, a mother

Scene: The characters are ghosts. Thomas has a Southern drawl as thick as molasses and, in many ways, is the prototypical Southern gentleman. His sense of humor has a caustic edge that can be shocking to some. Edwina is one of those people. She is a woman of great pretension, very fussy with her appearance, and her sweet criticism of those around her hides a reflex to belittle others. During the play, they move slowly and, as one talks, the other will sometimes stare off into space. They stand at each end of the stage facing one another. The set is some netherworld beyond our own. There are no props, per se. As the action takes place, the stage lights change colors constantly against a black backdrop at the rear of the stage. A thin mist occasionally fills the stage.

They enter from each side of the stage when the play begins.

Thomas: (flatly) Mother.

Edwina: Where am I? I don’t know where I am. Who are you?

Thomas: It’s me, Tom.

Edwina: (sternly; primps her hair a little) Is that you, Cornelius? I’ve got nothin’ to say to you, Cornelius.

Thomas: (smirks) It’s me, Tom, your beloved son. Dad isn’t here.

Edwina gazes around the stage. A baffled look in her eyes suggests she is trying to comprehend her surroundings.

Edwina: (hesitantly) Tom… am I dead? Are we –

Thomas: (interrupting) – dead? Yes, we’re both quite dead, I am afraid.

Edwina: Is this heaven?

Thomas: (smirking) I find it inspiring that you, of all people, should assume that, being dead, you must surely be in heaven amongst the angels.

Edwina: Such an insolent, disrespectful son, even in death. I endured the… impurity of bringing you, your brother Dakin, and your sister Rose into the world, I endured the revolting behavior of your father, and this is my eternal reward.

Thomas: (unaffected; speaking calmly) How funny that you mention impurity, mother. Our hearts can be impure and we can commit foul deeds. But I have found that the lack of forgiveness has its own impurity. We are meant to forgive. Even here, in this place.

Edwina: (fingers her hair nervously) What is it that you want to forgive?

Thomas: (his face softens with emotion) Not what… but whom. You, mother.

Edwina: (genuinely surprised) Well, I don’t understand. Forgive me? What for, Tom?

Thomas: For our broken Rose… how you failed her. The terrible crime you committed against her.

Edwina: Tom, I don’t –

Thomas: (becoming emotional) The mutilation –

Edwina: (horrified) Stop it now! I will –

Thomas: - of her brain!

Edwina: (whispering, almost hissing) You don’t know what you’re talking about! You’re crazy, just like her. It was my cross to bear. Cornelius and his progeny, none of whom would appreciate the refinement I sought in life, and all of whom would come to hate me for merely aspiring to higher things.

Thomas: (amused) Such as submitting your daughter to a lobotomy because she has “scandalized” you? Is that among the higher things you aspired to? I never knew your zest for life was so… versatile.

Edwina: She was full of filth. She behaved in a filthy manner, she said filthy things, and she harbored filthy thoughts. The doctors told me and your father it would stop it all and she would be peaceful.

Thomas: Peaceful? Yes, peaceful, and completely broken, but for what? For expressing her desires! For taking pleasure from life and delighting in her body! If she became dangerous, it was because you drove her to it. And what about me? I was something you loathed and could never discuss. A homosexual.

Edwina: (stiffens) I don’t wish –

Thomas: What you wish is immaterial right now.

Edwina: (indignantly) It was always immaterial, my son. I was a minister’s daughter and I was raised to respect a certain way of life. But my husband brought me nothing but grief with his drinking, card playing and philandering and then my children brought me nothing but crushed hopes! A daughter who changed before my very eyes! You can’t imagine what it did to me. You’re too concerned with yourself to see it!

Thomas: Oh, the indignities you suffered! Your daughter spent her life in institutions, you witch! I kept her comfortable, but it was all I could do. And… I had devils of my own to contend with. (laughs darkly) Promiscuity to ward off despair. Drugs – pills to sleep, to wake up, to shut down, to work, to stagger through the rehearsals and rewrites. The liquor, the endless, brainless gallons of liquor I washed down to bury the promiscuity to ward off despair, the drugs to sleep, wake up, shut down, work, and get through the day. While I was being a brother to what you deemed to be undignified, I lost my way. My glorious life ended alone choking to death on a pill bottle cap in a New York hotel room. I should have died with Rose at my side so I could tell her how I loved her so. The indignity you couldn’t love!

The colors on the backdrop behind the actors begins to cycle through different shades of blue. The stage lights dim slightly.

Edwina: (visibly shaken): Our lives were disasters, it seems. Perhaps I shouldn’t be forgiven. This world is lit by tears and I haven’t paid for my crimes yet. My son, don’t forgive me. Not yet, not even now. (she extends her arms out towards him) I am sorry though. Sorry for the disaster of our family, and I’m grateful for the good times we had. Search for forgiveness, but it doesn’t matter if you find it for me, I’ll be sorry for all of this into eternity, Tom. And so – goodbye.

Bloomington's Best Betrayal

I didn’t want to be there
In the dishonest fluorescent glow
Of a Steak and Shake parking lot
Fanning the fires of another.
After flirting over milkshakes,
Her mouth was convulsive and tart.
I relished the taste of her tongue
With the knowledge I could transmute
Bitterness into desire, on the fly.
But I swear,
I didn’t want to be there.

I wanted to be with you,
But we drank our coffee too.
Bloomington’s Best Betrayal
Served by a disinterested college girl
Who lacked the aplomb
Of her televised counterparts.
I thought of you.
Believe it, ‘cause it’s true.
Your home was two miles away
And I wondered if my scream
Could cover such a space.
I would shout
You pushed me away.
It’s your fault that I’m here.

I followed her home
In a cloud of unknowing
And though I didn’t want to be there,
I took her nonetheless
Into an icy thread of unsparing lust.
As she thrashed wildly with me,
I hissed there would be no other
Until that frozen thread unraveled
And its murky promise dissolved.

I didn’t want to be there,
I wanted to be with you
And wept in another woman’s bed,
You can believe it, ‘cause it’s true.
We lay awake until the dawn,
The stain of betrayal between us,
Like grudging penitents
Discovering the scope of our sin.
And since I didn’t want to be there,
I would not see her again.

Bring me another coffee
To thin the filth and bile
That inflames my stomach
When I recall my guile.

This is the poem for when all else fails
To blacken my tears
And the paper cross I climb
To show my love of nails.
This is the flavor of my betrayal
That I still taste when I insist
It was you who left me in the end.

The Deceivers

The deceivers take on a shine
In our affairs
And we too often bask
In the nimble larceny
Of their desire.

We are what we cannot love
And search for what we cannot find
In ourselves.
Our frightened, fitful dreams
Are fodder
For foul tongues
That will not yield
In their brazen approach.

Honesty is beaten.
We are drunk on sublimation
Disguised as selflessness
And all too willing to exonerate
The brittle survey of our love
So that we are not alone.

Groping Towards Grace

I have been groping towards grace.
Anguish has dogged my pursuit
But I cannot rest.

I must command the space.
By my hand I will uproot
My gnawing distress.

There are roads in the hearts of men.
There are journeys towards joy
That I could never master.

Nothing will stop me ever again.
But the despair that I destroy
Can fall no faster.

This has a plodding magic.
There are no loud wonders
To bless the day.

My trials are rarely tragic.
Miracles disguised as blunders
Show me the way.