Hello! My name is Jive!

Start with your body.  Exhale, then think.  Sit down.  Exhale again.  Be thankful you can breathe.  Be thankful you can sit.  Should you believe in a God, be thankful for His works.  If you don’t, be thankful you are allowed to choose not to believe.  Be thankful for what works within your body– be thankful you’ve found work arounds for things that don’t.  Be thankful for who surrounds you.  Your friends, your family.  Be thankful for the people who love you.  Be thankful for the lessons provided by those who act against you.  Be thankful you’ve made it this far.  If you’ve lost friends, relatives over the last year, be thankful for the time you did have together.  Be thankful they probably exist in a freedom that remains a mystery to us.

Be thankful for what has hurt you most– Be thankful for the lessons in pain and the growth that comes with it.

Be thankful for laughter.  Be thankful for warmth.  Be thankful that somewhere you are accepted and that someone is saving space for you.  Be thankful at the table where you will sit and for everything before you, for everything that surrounds you.  Be thankful for family.  Be thankful for the benefits and togetherness that comes with it, Be thankful you’ve learned what family you can trust and rely on and those you can’t.

Be thankful for all the people who helped make you, who helped teach you.  Be thankful for the opportunities given to you.  Be thankful for the opportunities you believed passed you by — they were possible crutches you’ve learned to walk without.

Be thankful for music.  For movies.  For the things that bring you peace.

Be thankful.  Be

I give full creedence to Maybe I Was Just Tripping, but i was in my apartment– and thought I saw something, or thought I felt something, standing across the room.  It was mild; not serious, and maybe I was tripping.  Maybe it was a shadow.  But it made me look up– in the way how you’re doing something and movement in the corner catches your eye and you turn to see what’s what, and Nothing’s What. 

But what made this moment hang on is how I remember Thinking about somebody.  How, at random, someone came to mind– a little flash of memory– and then, movement.  And then, nothing.

And then there was last night.  I’m in the bathroom, vulnerable.  My face soapy, eyes closed.  And I remembered my cousin.  His face, his stance, his hair.  I didn’t feel anything, or see anything, just ‘remembered.’  But he came to mind and I wouldn’t have been surprised if I’d opened my eyes and saw him over my shoulder.

Why does that only happen in the movies?  You look in the bathroom mirror and see someone standing behind you, staring silently.

Ok: maybe that shit should only happen in the movies.

A brief flashback, here.  Ask for the full version over dinner sometime…  But years ago the weekend of my grandmother died, she came to visit.  And it scared me.  I woke up and prayed in desperation to God.  I went above my grandmother’s head!  My point then: after you’re dead, don’t come back here to try to kick it.  I mean, Respect!  but leave me alone.  Don’t be touching on me from beyond the grave. 

It scared me then, because I didn’t understand.  I do now.  It was my grandmother!  Its not like she was gonna come suck my brains out of my skull or something.  She wasn’t gonna grab me like in Carrie or Friday the 13th and pull me down (up?) there with her.

I guess I’m wondering aloud if that prayer still stands and spirits are unable to get close.

Anyway; the experience made me write out some notes.  I got bored at work and scribbled some lines out in an email and just saved the  email in my drafts folder and promptly forgot about it.

Until this morning where I found it and decided to comb over it and realized– hey!  This… isn’t… bad.  Its new, raw, and maybe in a few more days I might tinker more with it, but all things considered—hmmm…

The title isn’t set– there’s another ‘open letter’ poem out there and this deserves something unique.  We’ll see.  Meanwhile, though–

***

I’d met everyone in the family

except my oldest nephew.  No photos

of him hang on his mother’s wall except

one from third grade; a man’s teeth, glasses

burdening such a small boy.

I emailed him: I’ve never met you, but I’m your uncle.

We arranged to meet one Friday after work

in a crowded irish pub

where we recognized the shared logic of our faces

from well across the room.  We strangers,

a miracle to each other.

I told him the fine time I’d been having. Learning

how a family works.  Previously, it’d been only

my mother, father, myself.  Now, for the first

time, I am a brother.  An uncle: Assembling

tents in the backyard for Justin’s sleepover.

Assuming residence beneath the dining room table

with teacakes and Calea.  I accepted my original identity

and biological family as if it were my own.

My new nephew exhaled a black exhaust:

Let me tell you what’s really going on.  He footnoted

the faces I’d been learning.  Strolling his childhood

I saw all I’d missed.  Heard silently played notes

in the noise at my new mother’s house.  The fighting. The drugs.

The police.  The cruelty uniquely provided by those closest to you.

A wave 0f time carried us a few years, we bonded.

Even our sense of rejection was related.  Nephew

taught me to drink, smoke weed, and realize

I had plenty reasons to do so. He once diagnosed me as not having a vegas

personality.  I had no O.G. skills, he said—with bitches,

or cars or anything useful.  I was too green.

I couldn’t yet see how this family was a mirror

reflecting my shadow self. Wasn’t I less than a mirage

to my mother who somehow sees past

me into someone else if not just simply a regret?

My nephew would critique me for having expectations.

Hadn’t I been foolish?  Expecting anyone who shares

the recipe of blood passed between us to love me

and all these recent musings over writing out childhood memory leads to Anthony.  My first best friend and, presumably, the greatest friendship I’ve ever had.

If only because those friendships never last.  And puberty is usually the cutoff point.  Families move; different schools; or people just kinda grow apart.  I just don’t know why. 

But Anthony remains in my memory and heart mostly because I don’t know what happened to him.  Last I saw/heard from him we were about 10.  And my mind is stuck on everything I don’t know – what kind of man did he become?  how many kids did he have?  what kind of direction did his life go?  I should let my imagination answer those questions; it might fuel some interesting pieces.  But not having access to the truth (his last name—could be anything.  I can’t even google!)  is killing me.

…and not to even say our friendship would still work as adults.  Would we even have a common platform on which to still be friends?

Not having an ending to his story, my mind returns to the last time I saw him.   I don’t clearly remember much else.  I think his uncle or dad took us to ocean beach once- my first time on the beach.  I remember us going to church, a cathedral– different from the hot storefront stompers where my preacher grandfather used to preach.  I remember being over his family’s house.  I remember his older sister; her name evaporated through time.   I remember his dog, a poodle, and its clean, musk.  But this last memory which became a poem is very clear.  Its not so much a poem as it is a bearing witness.  It may not be a very good poem or even a favorite of mine, but its clear and true.

 ***

Anthony

My 10th birthday         The dining room table

a last supper of unwanted disciples

all musty as dried maple syrup, hair napped

as trees              I don’t remember any of them

Where did they come from?

And where is Anthony in all this?

His stone white poodle, his pigeon

toed run?  His acceptance

of my ubiquitous pacifier

like a cigarette habit?

My mother plops cake on the table

I yawn the candles out

She sweeps us into the back

yard     We pile on my dad’s apple

green gmc truck, enlisted

for a pirate ship            My dog Wolfie

chews scenery in the role of a shark

And at the end of the driveway

Anthony appears          I run

to him   My dog too     Wolfie

remembers catching tossed stones

in his mouth, slobbering

a sort of canine

joy         Yes      Another         Please

I  remember his perfect freehand

drawings of Underdog             Mighty

Mouse   Pink Panther

Now, he hands me a box

over the fence separating us

In it, a blue velour

V-neck sweater

His mom, He says      Got a job

somewhere       Tells me they

have to leave town       Right now

Nothing else said I remember

Nothing else except this day

something within me

closes

            Behind him

his mother sits smoking

across the street in a red chevy

and behind me, stupid

pirates roar and scream

from that broken truck

in mutiny of nothing

but i never finished talking about the other most important person in my life — Cyrene.  We met in high school– something happened.  She was drawn to how i responded to something; some wise-assery i freestyled.  It took a while, but she eventually gave me her number and we became close– but not that close.  She invariably dated people in my orbit.  Not me.  Probably because I was raised without affection and didn’t know i was missing anything.  But we became close as siblings.  She hadn’t much family here– she’d been raised way across country– and she was expected at our house on the regular.  Truthfully; i don’t remember being physically attracted to her– and eventually, as our relationship warmed, I couldn’t cross the border because I Knew Too Much.  At least that was the excuse I gave myself.  I certainly wasn’t like the cats she hung around.

& for all you hipsters– that’s cat — as in alley cat.

And maybe me knowing everything, me cast as just an observer and support, even thinking about it now– it never occured to me to write about her.

Perhaps I’m just too young in the game and not experienced (read: disciplined) enough as a writer.  Maybe I haven’t taken the time yet to peel those memories back and examine them.

Maybe I took advantage of their presence and friendship and brother-sisterhood and never really considered how valuable they were to me…. until they were no longer around.  Maybe the time to really examine and look at those relationships is now.

***

Most of the family photos my mom collected were taken by her sister after my mom passed.  The only photo I have of my cousin Larry– which I didn’t realize I had– is a very blurred out Polaroid.  The photo looks like a drip painting; all color and vague shapes– nothing in focus, nothing clear.  But I remember standing in the backyard when the photo was taken from ’someone’ standing on the porch.   Larry is  hanging off my dad’s green truck, his legs long , pants flaired.  My dog is there too– a black and brown ghost,  a huge splotch at the bottom of the photo.

***

Was surprised to see I’d saved a photo of you, too  Cyrene.  Several, in fact.  I remember these we took by the fountain when I visited you in college that weekend.  These you sent to me.  And only looking at them now can I see how sexy you were.  Am so sorry to be so late and so broke.

I can alredy site my two biggest failures or, kinder, stumbling blocks in considering myself a, ahem, poet.

first– i rarely ever work in form.  This is pure laziness on my part.  I’ve done haiku, I like sestinas, think I’ve done a sonnet here and there.    But not on any regular basis.  This comes initially from being inspired by something in particular, as opposed to being inspired to write a sonnet about something in particular.  My mind sees the form as a suitcase wherein to pack the elephant of an idea.  And perhaps its possible.  But one must do it delicately, & carefully & be patient.  When I begin writing, there is much note taking then a great release of energy as the lines tumble onto the page.  Then there is the sifting through of the elements to find what can be salvaged and what needs to be released..

Perhaps I should take this as a challenge– especially with what i’m about to write.  Maybe…

Second…  I keep falling back on how a lot of the poems I’ve been creating are very autobiographical.  To be stuck on What To Write is to inspire me to delve within memory and search for a beautiful memory.

But what can I do about the two most important people in my life?  Two people who I haven’t and thus far cannot write about?  Whassup with that?!?

I’ve covered my parents.  Specifically I’m thinking here of my cousin Larry, and my best friend from high school, Cyrene.

I never had any brothers, sisters growing up.  Larry was my cousin, the youngest of my aunt’s 12 kids who was closest to me in age.  Larry was — i don’t remember now– 4 years older?  More?  This was during the time when gangs were beginning to flourish in the area of Los Angeles where my aunt lived.  She sent Larry to the east bay to slay 2 birds; keep him out of gangs in his free summertime, and provide some company for lonely lil  old me.

Larry was my first closest friend.  The brother I kept fantasizing for who was right by my side, yet emotionally I rarely have given him credit.

At nights, in bed, he would tell me stories about his adventures with his running-potnas in LA.   His adventures in and out of school; stories about his brothers, sisters.  None of which I remember very well.  Larry would iron his t-shirts and jeans daily; perhaps I learned how to iron from watching him, since my mother hated ironing worse than god hates sin.  Larry came with us–his mom too, and sometimes a few of his other siblings– on road trips in the summer to visit relatives in the south.   Larry started having kids when he was a teenager– when I last saw him he topped off at 10, most named variations of Larry–which separated us.  His progeny kept piling on while I didn’t even have anyone to go with me to the movies.

My memory of him– however important he was and the length of his presence in my childhood– why is it so spotty?  If there’s anyone I could volly memory with back and forth it would be him.  But what memories?  The ironing board set up in the living room for Soul Train on TV.  Him coming home high; my mother in a panic at his bloodshot eyes, him just wanting sleep.  His laugh, his crooked teeth.  Him jumping off the porch for some time in the bushes with a girl from around the corner.  Him teaching me stretches learned playing football.  His years of the dry perm, then the wet one.  His two girlfriends; the one boyish crazy one who gave him two sons.  Then the second, with the huge breasts (the one who opted for breast reduction surgery and over which he mourned) who gave him all the girls.  And at least one more whiny boy, too.  i guess my mom was the umbilical cord connecting me to the rest of the family.  Once, years after my mom’s death and as I’d began to regain some semblance of an okay life, I called him.  Talked to his wife mostly.  Like any old man he just grumbled into the phone.  Like my dad, I wanted to give him so much more than he  took.

***

What of my memories could be salvaged?  And what is the most appropriate form to use?  What happens to your past when there’s so few people around to help you keep it alive?