So Mad I Could Howl

Home Reading Room Poetry So Mad I Could Howl

I’ll sleep when I’m dead

I doubt even that is true

axioms are the mark of the lazy

wide-eyed into the furnace or hole of your choosing

bushy-tailed into whatever

horseshit yarn how I

“light up rooms”

if I were a parrot

it’d be named chip

this year’s Memorial Day

fireworks display and insomnia battle

is brought to you by my childhood©

it’s not the war that keeps me up

the wars are over

we quit

right?

I remember

we?

in my youth

I was a human mascot

for an organization

whose major purpose

was feeding babies

to the military-industrial complex™

I say babies because I remember their faces

rosey cheeks in winter

like a god damned

christmas carrol

determined & sweaty brows in dusty summer heat

I remember their silly questions

does this pin go here?

are you a sir

Ma’am

sergeant?

good question, kid!

thanks for the heads-up

(high fives in future t-girl)

I still see what they have become

LEE

SHIT!

well beyond babies

well beyond my grasp

well beyond my protection

o’ how I protected them

o’ how i would if I still could

when old fruits like me get bitter

throw us at your enemies, Darlings!

day and night for the rest of you

for Cadets I’ll cut extra hours

from the fabric of time and space

and peel the years off the ass-end of my life

when we survived this shit

we knew the only way to protect them

was to let them see

the dark

I wasn’t the only thinker in that school

if I’m Socrates

Plato and Aristotle both agree with me

it’s how I’ve met some of my dearest friends

chugging hemlock-lean

ego-checking a young adult on

choice of branch of service

reading them in on battles won

friends lost

we tell all of them not to go

we adopt the ones that ignore us

that is the warrior way

when my babies saw their friends Columbined on local news and across the hall

when they learned awful shitty facts like

“how much does a folded flag weigh” or

“what do guns taste like?”

explorers all

christ

what did we do?

christ

pick up the fucking phone

Sorry

I’ll try it with a seven next

I’ll try it with a bow-legged pirate in an alley named after cowards

I’ll try it every which way

it’s not that they grew up fast

It’s that we stole their childhood

I have flashbacks of their smiles

a reward for surviving this long is that some of my flashbacks are good

I see glitter

sparkle

glint

blinding

laughing

bursting

the thing that animates the frame

the frame is there

the frame is what we risk and sacrifice and cut away

the thing that animates the frame

the thing that loves

the thing that I love so dearly as a part of mine-own true self

something about morning birds lets me sleep

fuck the promise of a new day

these little beauties are the receipts

they used to be called

messengers of the gods

back before the mean one ate all the others or whatever the fuck the storyline is up to these days

when I say to you, “disposable child”

what does that make you think?

correct!

“tell me more, Tony!” “where can I get mine?!”

tell poor kids nobility is not for them and that nobility is only found in servitude and death

you inherit no land

only swords

wake up every morning

eat your Wheaties©⛧™

punch your kids

do what the fuck you are told

keep that up a few generations and you get what’s known in this country as a

fine family tradition of military service

problem upon problem

we went

while greasy Uncle Fingerfuck stays home

arrow to the knee or some horseshit

and gropes my lady at my funeral

rickety folding chairs fall apart

after so many funerals

she’s her own woman but she’s my lady

family should be shortened to fit on the same shelf a shit & piss & fuck & cock & you get it & maybe you don’t

open close

big ass

little ass

day after day

I still see you little one

running

shouting

gleeful

the only thing with joy in it for a country mile

you ran the aisle and giggled while your mom and uncle looked on embarrassed

but no one dared stop you

no one dared make you of all people stop to stare quietly at your daddy’s casket

run baby

you have his eyes

they don’t need to see this part

flashbacks are so mean

because now

here in this moment

if this is now

I remember another further painful thing

little sparkly baby

funeral light

pall beacon

he’s got to be almost 30 now

see

we want our kids to surpass us

his daddy only got 22

am I the worm or the bag?

am I the barrel or the monkey?

am I the barrel or the gun?

am I the worm or the corpse?

what makes the grass grow?

blood, blood, blood, Blood!

fucking blood

I see you

I see you every day

hiding

the ones who lilt their heads away from the sun

the strangle-gloved garrot-leash holders of Demeter’s bloodhound

I come to you on behalf of my brothers and sisters

and war-dog enbies

these dorks keep poking around the “fuck around” button

and we may have to show them what we’ve already found out

“come and see” says Homer’s Blind Man

“come and see” says the bible’s Angel

“come and see” says Tennessee’s very own Johnny Cash

and We saw

oh, did We see

the almost-too-glorious vain glory of mystified humans

if not mystified

atomized is the better word

vaporized

red

a little white

a little blue

and a thank you for your service from the veal people back home.

unwashed

unfucked masses who sat on their asses and

watched

piss jar proselytizers and a fill of doctors

then had the nerve to click a remote in our

aces when we came home.

“we’re number one! we’re number one!”

we hear that a lot

a lot a lot

‘We’ is an interesting pronoun choice to throw on the front side of the singular number one.

do you mean you’re number one?

one of us is number one?

which one?

send them my way

fight me

that is some of my real intent

to open old scabs and bleed on the pavement again

a fountain of youth

piss and vinegar

cum and questions

war boy, war boy

where did you go?

to the old graveyard

four in a row

no more questions

no more bowing

no more slapped cheeks

fight me

send me your number one

I haven’t met him yet

I met her once and we were in love for an age

I haven’t met a creature I couldn’t dismantle with words or

power tools

let alone an armory or a chef’s block

don’t fuck with us

don’t pretend you know because you cannot

there was this one podcast that said a thing

the bitch from Bones is hella smart

brains get pointier when you freeze them

worms like the refreshing taste of Vernor’s

get all the fuck away from us with that shit

stop thanking us for our service

start thanking us for our sacrifice

you don’t know how we served

I will tell you what all these kids sacrifice

every-fucking-thing

friends

family

money

career

you name it

life

we come home to some Sesame Street ripoff where the puppets have guns

and the kids are in charge and the adults are all down the block

burning piles of money and bitchingabout how kids don’t appreciate what they have

they appreciate it exactly as much as they should

zero🟉

when you have nothing

fuck respect

I don’t believe it or live by it

but I hear it and I see it on the streets

all I can do is nod to these kids because they are right

they just need a better plan

so here’s the plan

on this Memorial Day

pledge to not let my friends’ death be in vain get fucking hurt

you will have to

“If it hurts, it’s working”

so very true

it includes your heart and mind

holy shit, it is rough right now anyone calm-faced out there is a psycho or a sweetie

either way

keep moving and hope someone comes to get them

maybe that’s you

either way

10:1

not odds

kill ratio

they’re doing just fine

but we may not need the stinking badges after all

I’m saying they’re not man enough

as a transgender woman who can tuck it back and still be more man than them

fight me

why don’t we get to fight anymore?

why do I get a gun in my face or a boot on my neck and you assume it won’t be returned?

we will take over then

we’re never out of options but you can always sure as fuck be down to a few

we will not tear down any governments

we will not do anything of the sort

we will apply the expertise developed in the service of this wild and mighty empire

to get you the fuck out of our people’s way

fight me

this is the Jenny Durden Shogunate

but only because Ender wants to be a farmer

you’re so fucking lucky that’s the case

he’s a good Cincinnatus

he’d disassemble you from a throne

not a fucking game

be grateful he likes horses

be careful not to summon my rider

don’t choose violence

don’t choose my darker angels

get the fuck out of our people’s way

feed them

all of them

1200-seat chow hall per postal zip code, free for as many as we can

hop to

empty bellies

fill ‘em up

that’s an order

stop sending people to jail

you fucking idiots

jail’s a joke

never worked for that

never meant to

civilians steal from the military all the time

then fuck it up

guns

choke holds

you name it

cops dress like French regiments of foot

can’t tell who’s military at parades anymore

you are civil servants

danger-clerks

very-bad-day customer service

start doing that

like you do

and start gently [sic.] curb-stomping™ the ones that elect not to

war’s over there, kids

plenty of chances to go fight

and then you might have no more fuck the police and ABBA cover bands called ACABBA

not a promise from me

just know how it goes sometimes

do your job and they will sing hosannas to you and shout hallelujah at your feet

please don’t have

Andy Griffith whistle an AR-15 through my screen door one more again

just in case

the record repeats

calm your britches, Sweeties

we have already conquered

anyone who knows me knows this is not a declaration of war

it’s a declaration of victory

we came home from killing strangers to find you killing your neighbors

Mommy and Daddy are home

we are pissed

Time Traveler

Knower-of-my-Death-Date

wherever you have found this

for whatever reason you search

keep going!

you’ll know to slow down when the kids start outpacing you

you will be alone in exile wandering a dark forest and a kid will bump into you

then another

then too many

you’ll say “hey, I thought I suffered out here alone in the dark”

“It’s ok for me”

“not ok for you”

and you will escort their little be-hinds back to the lights of the world

hope to heaven or hell you can find them a home

and for some

you will need to be that home

that’s when you step aside

get out of their way

and help them in this race

they may have quit on our behalf in this sliver of the spectrum

that doesn’t mean we are done

Signed,

The problem you thought you killed off

Home Reading Room Poetry So Mad I Could Howl