Hurling Crowbirds at Mockingbars

Tonight, this poem by Buddy Wakefield expanded my capacity to experience emotion and create art (in less pretentious words, it melted my face off with it's awesomeness). Give it a little listen, or two, or three, or four. More please.

(Caution, some language and a funny looking thumbnail preview...)

If we were created in God’s image,
then when God was a child
He smushed fire ants with his fingertips
and avoided tough questions.
There are ways around being the go-to person,
even for ourselves,
even when the answer is clear,
like the holy water Gentiles would drink
before they realized,

“Forgiveness is the release of all hope for a better past.”

I thought those were chime shells in your pocket
so I chucked a quarter at it,
hoping to hear some part of you respond on a high note.
You acted like I was hurling crowbirds at mockingbars,
then abandoned me for not making sense.
Evidently, I don’t experience things as rationally as you do.

For example,
I know mercy
when I have enough money to change the jukebox
at a gay bar.
You know mercy
whenever someone shoves a stick of morphine
straight up into your heart.
It felt amazing
the days you were happy to see me.

So I smashed a beehive against the ocean
to try and make our splash last longer.
Remember all the honey
had me lookin’ like a jellyfish ape,
but you,
you walked off the water
in a porcupine of light,
strands of gold
drizzled out to the tips of your wasps.
This is an apology letter to the both of us
for how long it took me to let things go.

It was not my intention to make such a production
of the emptiness between us,
playing tuba on the tombstone of a soprano
to try and keep some dead singer’s perspective alive.
It’s just that I coulda swore you sung me a love song back there
and that you meant it,
but I guess some people just chew with their mouth open.

So I ate ear plugs alive with my throat
hoping they’d get lodged
deep enough inside the empty spots
that I wouldn’t have to hear you leaving,
I wouldn’t have to listen to my heart keep saying
all my eggs were in a basket of red flags,
all my eyes to a bucket of blindfolds,
in the cupboard with the muzzles and the gauze.
You know I didn’t mean to speed so far out and off
trying to drive your nickels to a well
when you were happy to let them wishes drop.

But I still show up for gentleman practice
in the company of lead dancers
hoping
their grace will get stuck in my shoes.
Is that a handsome shadow on my breath, sweet woman,
or is it a cattle call in a school of fish?
Still dance with me,
less like a waltz for panic,
more for the way we’d hoped to swing
the night we took off everything
and we were swingin’ for the fences.

Don’t hold it against
my love.
You know I wanna breathe deeper than this.
I didn’t mean to look so serious.
Didn’t mean to act like a filthy floor.
Didn’t mean to turn us both into some cutting board.
But there were knives stuck
in the words where I came from.
Too much time in the back of my words.
I pulled knives from the back of my words.
I cut trombones from the moment you slipped away.

And I know it left me lookin’ like a knife fight, lady.
Boy, I know it left me feelin’ like a shotgun shell.
You know I know I mighta gone and lost my breath.
But I wanna show you how I found my breath to death.

It was buried under all the wind instruments
hidden in your castanets.
Goddamn.
If you ever wanna know how it felt when ya left,
if ya ever wanna come inside,
just knock the spot
when I finally pressed stop
playing musical chairs with your exit signs.
I’m gonna cause you a miracle
when you see the way I kept God’s image alive —

“Forgiveness is for anyone who needs safe passage through my mind.”

If I was really created in God’s image,
then when God was a boy
He wanted to grow up to be a man,
a good man.
And when God was a man,
a good man,
He started telling the truth in order to get honest responses.
He’d say, “Yeah,
I know
I really shoulda wore my cross
again,
but I don’t wanna scare the Gentiles off."

peace,
k.