trewn Along Life’s Pathways
Francis X. Kroncke
[email protected] First sight
I’ve never seen the softness of you so
on display in the ease of your smile, I
found words choking in my throat, eyes
too much in their exploration of you, were
you embarrassed in any way knowing that I
was rejoicing at having found you here
in a wisp of a town, a godforsaken smudge on
the map of...of what?
my heart, my yearning years, I guess
you will simply have to step up and
say, “C’mon!”
Yes?
Did you know? Could
you have understood the moment I...
forget it, I mean, is it my task to
teach you, am I your maestro or
are you my blind mute idiotic guide
to our unknown heart?
Idiot!
Still I see you coming, exiting
say a car and walking up to my door inquiring
is this...? and
of course I say, Why shouldn’t it be? you
a thousand years younger full of wildness, yet
waiting for the soothing hand of a tired life, one
struggling with simply stupid stuff as I rifle through this and
that trying to lift this up and say Are you there? and other
idioticisms—
such a word, it now exists to define me, the elder on
a rampage for the redhead with blue, no, green eyes, laughing
at my inadequacies which you simply adore and I fool that I am
can’t figure out that you’ve already said, “Yes!”
Confusion
What? Of course I thought it was her, teenager
your mother, dancing like wild child we
laughed twirled sweated and heartbeat just
an inch from one another in an age of innocence where
a kiss was near a commitment to marry, laugh
because I do now, but it is you, daughter, long awaited on
a scale a landscape inconceivable by me but known to you the
instant you said Yes this is my time, I will find him, let me go
so born were you to re-birth my soul in a time
out of place with all that anyone knows but us—come
I have waited and am happy that you are here, my
Beloved.
Mother and Lover on Visiting Day (Sandstone Federal Prison)
i had never known the power of words
that one man could harbor such mastery
in simple language and robot signs,
"Okay, let's go you guys."
we hid behind each other's nakedness
as our weapons of nightly passion
inspected, checked, "Okay, bend over"
he pronounced like the magician with a wand
as prison Yard hardened sphincters parted
in salutes to the flag of his indifference
four short steps away from you
sequestered in a confessional of flesh
—Regulation 19 (b) Examination Before Visits—
we recanted the errors of our individuality,
awaited his blessing, "Okay, you guys,
get dressed."
as I sit beside you
his words rearrange the intentions of my gazes
his echo haunts my ears
"One embrace when you meet. Another when it's over.
Okay, you guys, let's go."
when he stole my mother's heart from me
with a word that made her curtsey
as if before the Archbishop
i knew that his blood would always
be stained upon my fingernails
that memory would never forgive
his "Okay, get your arm off her, guy."
in this cloistered room of the children of violence
i went to the coffee machine, often
just to feel the comfort of the coin of the realm
but it only taught me a hatred of freedom
mother left us during the last half hour
and i walked my fingers in musical display
on your knee, pounding out a tune
of yearning from my flesh which no longer bleeds
your departing hugs
stuck to my ribs like lashes from a whip
I struggled to find a kiss
that would say "I'm fine. Don't worry. I love you."
but my message was aborted by the snap
of his jealousy, "Okay, guys, time's up!"
back just four short steps away from you
—Regulation 19 (c) Examination After Visits—
he boldly took me fervently to himself
purged me of the lingering desire I had for you,
"Okay, guys, get dressed.
It's over, for now.”
Hope
In hope, she comes
on nights like this, listening to Piaf
an empty bottle and an empty soul, waiting
for a refill but no waitress comes, no
companion to lift my arms and take me home, no
false hope of finding you, not tonight, no
I am just a guy lost in eons of longing, no
sweet kiss from you as you ready to go to bed, no
wink of the eye and the rise of my excitement, no
I am just alone, song my mere respite, wine but forgetfulness, not memory, no
it is as it is, alone, no
never so without memory, but such fails on the nights I sleep alone, no
let me be, let me be, I am here just for this moment, all is gone: no
longer the desire or the need of the universe to continue itself, no
I am here just eternally in love with you, what else? but love, always love, no
I do not recede from that, rather I embrace it, I am—no
I am not—I am all that is no longer that but only this, know
the time is now and so now I shout down the halls of forgetfulness that I love, no
that I adore you even in the emptiness of your fleeting shadow, know
that I live, ever in love with you—yes!
she comes, in hope
30 comes after 29
it's hard to be white and really mad.
that is, bona fide mad.
sick eccentric a-bit-off-the-stride,
yeah, okay
but not
mad as madness should really be.
i've seen the raving assholes
who would never merit a shit in country club johns
wag their butts around the playgrounds of really serious philosophers
who gave their lives
so that these prison stones could
hug others not so blessed.
you don't have to be a mathematical genius
to know that some gook
long before Einstein
figured out place and time warp
relationships
while chanting fuck! for the eighty ninth millionth
time as the Hack tried to remember
that 30 came after 29
at “Lock-up and Count!”
you have to be on the outside
to definitively misunderstand
the inside.
now, that is profound.
that's not white-man bullshit,
that's the real scoop
dribbled in the dirt by
real mad madness assholes
whose journey is only through the inside.
it's too bad
this enlightenment that says
“you are ever to be deprived, white-man"
is all that I have to latch
my sickness onto,
because it is so tantalizing
i mean, shit, i too want
to be reborn
but we forgot that jesus said
you have to be born again of a Third World woman.
fucking shit!
so, jack, there’s no way inside
from the outside,
get my meaning?
yep, i’ve ac-cepted
—as you know they say,
“will you ac-cept this parole?”—
yeah, just that way
is how i received all of this
calmly
on the track one day
as some moses sauntered by
walking like i can’t walk
laid a paper on me
like all those too hip lay fives
winks and gaits away.
the note says,
“You are a winner!”
motherfucker!
so i left as i came
a babe in arms
actually, someone’s orphan
but with the realization
that not only could i get out
anytime i wanted
but that i could get back in
with all the privileges
of the creator of the place.
see, in me the serious philosophers
haunt the world.
it’s a comfort to know
at least
that i’ll never be madly mad.
i hate to misplace
adjectives.
get my meaning, jack?
A Definition of Freedom
the crimped man on the rock
whose eyes never tire
peels the wall for a magical crack
he has sat sentinel there
for 25 years and his encore
is applauded beyond life's grasp
long-timers have their privileges
those who wished for death but
were denied and
redefined as life’s sentence
so who'd but excuse him
if he ogles a wall of pendulous weight
and like Joshua seeks
a paralyzed midday sun?
he was someone's child, after all
a kitty-coo and looks like Uncle John
which was "Scene One, Print!"
now fading on a fish-eye shot
into his final scene
who knows the apocalyptic quest better than he?
on Patmos little John could see no clearer
so when he told me
that one day—the hour he was not sure of as to number—
but one day,
"YES! one day"
the magical crack would fissure
the Greyhound bus driver would swing
the hydraulic switch
the door would hiss! serpentine
and he'd step up, juttingly
{a note is on its way}
the rumor lashed through the inside yard
like a tidal wave uprooting sunbathers
you got parole! you got parole! goddamn it, man,
"you got parole!"
eyeless in a foreign city
where a 1000 addresses bear no friendly names
her heart breaks at mail time
as she weeps waiting for my return
framed in the doorway, "Admission and Orientation," the sunlight
strangles
shadows dance in eerie contortions
dread