Michael’s Journal

i

i shot an elk last night
and i barely know what they look like,
majestic and brown
buckish and lazy?

they tread on this earth fattening up for winter,
preparing themselves for the onslaught of cold.
while i aimed my rifle through the safety of glass
and metal, wood, lead and a bit of fire,
he simply looked ahead and with desire
began to chew the grass at his feet.

ii

there i was down on bowery street
with a pair of rented gloves and a handmedown jacket
racing ‘cross town to my yeats reading club.

with some plath on my arm and a bit of mine own,
i tread into a world that for sometime has owned
me, yes deep in the day and always at night,
the drug that is verse and its piece that is prose,
takes me and wakes me like plucking a rose
from its warm yet sullen earth, its once and former home.

and so pollination or maturation were only yesterday,
but now you represent ‘love’ or at least a gift,
slowly dying always fleeting — life.. at short shrift.
and yet we pretend that everything is still alright,
while you’re a simple symbol that always whithers away,
something bound to fall like a lover or the sun
who crashes through your horizon every morning
and just like that they leave you again.
leaving you with nothing to show for yourself
‘cept maybe a tear or even a grin,
a smile or a glassed over stare,
maybe some ice and a bottle of gin
but no one’s waiting at the top of your stairs.

iii

i shot an elk last night
and took silent pride while i did it
it was so easy.
it was too easy.
God forgive me, i have done it.

there he stood, the sun froze manufacturedly
upon him like a stage spotlight,
and he chewed his grass so golden brown
that i wondered to myself with my usual frown
who’s aiming at me?  someone is assuredly.
upon my stage there must be a light
to show my doubts and all of my frights,
someone while i’m sleeping.
someone will pluck.  it.  out. 

and no promethean heat will e’er enter my lungs
no more will my frigid alabaster heart beat,
but it shall stay frozen as it is now
like my toes that once treaded this ground.

iv

surrounded by poets on a street north of houston
i sit across from a liquid brooklyn,
while zombie-comedies flourish flatly
i laugh out loud like i haven’t in a while.

a john-goodman-in-the-big-lebowski-look-alike
reads from his book of anti-god rants and hilarious antics

everyone seems to know him, this sarcastic famous f***,
and this contemporary or at least modern-comic poet
goes on about angels and rednecks and god and cain and dinosaurs

insincerity runs rampant like woody allen on acid,
or maybe lenny bruce during a catatonic food coma
with the vocal prowess of jeff foxworthy and the charm of a stockcar race.

with metaphors as good as a word or two thrown together
(with the delicate fecundity of a trash collector on a frigid monday morning)
the oaf pontificates on humor, and other impossibilities of today.

as the laughs ensue and continue and continue
i keep writing in case something hits me or at least
until this is all over.

v

and so again and again,
i take aim with my pen,
such a beautiful calligriphic mess of some lines
just some random observational narrative rhymes,
but with each sip i take and each beat
i break.  him.  down.
I can’t believe the judgment the hatred or my pen
the high incestuous climbing of my clammy achy skin

i don’t sweat, i take aim.
i don’t fear, i take names.
and suddenly my forefather’s of thought 
take me under their golden wings
fill me with words and other splendid things.
things i have never seen before
things that come to me in the night,
beats that keep me walking
keep me talking without fright.
it’s not easy for you and ain’t easy for me
so why did i get off on this voiceless killing spree?  

they tread on this earth inspiring and desiring
just to talk a little truth, whatever there’s may be.
and there i was taking aim with my pen
through the safety of the empty glass just in front of me.
but something just tripped the wrong set of wires.
he simply looked ahead with artistic desires,
and began to chew and spit on the grass at his feet.

vi

(whether the green monster took hold of my heart beat,
or maybe the yellow belly of some wannabe hero
took me aside and said, “Here’s the match Nero!
All’s you gotta do is hold it close enough,
the heat of your weapon will do all the rest.”
and i choked down his fire and it burned in my breast
and…)

i shot an elk last night. 
and he didn’t even know it.
buckish and majestic
the nature of expression.

i shot an elk last night.

but really…  

he shot me.