AN OPEN READING FAUX PAS

For Stacy, whose name is not Tracy.


Last week, I got up to read –
A bounce from your poem –
And mentioned you
By the wrong name.
You corrected me
Loudly.

I don’t know
Why my mind
Won’t wrap itself
Around your name.
I’d even asked
Another friend about it
Earlier that night.
He gave me
The right name. But
The wrong name
Popped out of my mouth.

Meanwhile, people
Were waiting
For my reading.
I tried
To introduce my poem,
While you commented angrily
On everything I said.
I cut off eye contact with you;
I met the eyes of the crowd.
You got up and left
Before the poem
Started. Later,
Yet another friend
Would tell me
You did not leave
In a huff, but I found that
Hard to believe.

I’ve known you
For awhile, talked with you
Often, and should
Have known better.
But I’d been embarrassed
That I couldn’t grasp
Your name, never
Admitted it to you. I kept
Asking others about it,
But it just wouldn’t stick in my mind.
I should have just written it down;
I don’t know why I never did.

And now
The secret is exposed,
Having been blurted out
In the worst possible way,
In public even -- to embarrass you
As well as me. Worse
Than calling someone the wrong name
In bed; there’s not even
A third party involved
To mix things up!

OK, there’s a problem
With my memory, a glitch
I hope is not a glimpse
Of worse to come (my mother
Died with Alzheimer’s.)

But what I did
Was not deliberate.
Perhaps the way you handled it
Was also not a choice –
Sudden anger
Sometimes overrides
The will.

I will do what I can –
Apologize to you.

I only hope
That I remember to.


-- © 2010 by Jack Veasey

All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced or duplicated in any way without the author's written permission.

A VISIT TO YOUR MYSPACE PAGE

For Essra


Last night, I listened
To your song
About your father.
It made me smile
Sadly.

“He was always mad as hell,” you said.
I remember.
You mentioned
How handsome he was.
I remember that, too:

Dark skin
Dark hair
Dark eyes
Dark spirit --
But fiery, always
Still burning.

He told me once
That war
Was natural,
Just Nature’s way
To shave off
Excess population.
I told him I thought
That’s why some people
Were gay.
He huffed
And shrugged that off.

He always had to be right.
He had that in common
With you; that,
And a charm
That doggedly disarms
All but affection,
Even when a rough edge
Cuts.
Your philosophy, of course,
Is just the opposite of his.


I noticed that I was
High on your friends list,
Though I haven’t been in touch
In much too long,
And I was moved.

How often I forget
What is important
To attend
To what is
Merely pressing.

The passing of my own father
Was one of many things
I thought might change that.

Then, I blinked;
Years had gone by.


-- © 2010 by Jack Veasey

All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced or duplicated in any way without the author's written permission.

DECADES LATER, FOR MY LATE FRIEND STEVE

(Photo by S. Sepp, from Wikipedia)


All these years after your death,
I’m told
that everyone knew
how I felt about you,
though I never breathed a word
to anyone, not even you –
everybody
in the class we took together
chronically;
even your lover Bob,
apparently, those nights
I slept on your couch,
way too drunk
to go home. He knew
what I was drowning
and was kind to me,
and made no confrontation.

Years later,
when I had a lover
of my own,
you reappeared,
and newly single;
you brought poems
and photographs
that found their way
into the paper
where I worked.
You worked
at the drugstore
at 15th & Spruce.
I’d stop by
to say “hi,”
have a soda; we’d both
keep it light.

I would hear
that you were dead
before I even had a clue
that you were sick.
It was so sudden
in those days, the “new disease”
nobody really understood yet –
swooping down
the way a hawk would
on a squirrel.

I’d no longer looked at you
as I once had;
I’d still had no idea
that you knew.
You must have –
everybody else did,
so they told me.

I wonder,
when you came
to reconnect,
if you hoped
I might still be free.
I wonder
if you didn’t know
that you were ill yet.
I wonder
if I dodged
a bullet.

And I wonder,
if I had been free,
and you had known
and told me,
if the knowledge
would have stopped us --
old friends
just crazy enough
to die for love.


-- © 2008 by Jack Veasey


All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced or duplicated in any way without the author's permission.

This poem appeared previously in Issue 9 of the literary magazine Fledgling Rag,. Thanks to Editor/Publisher Le Hinton.

DEAD FRIENDSHIP DREAM

The Dream, by de Chavannes

***

Last night I dreamed about you. These days I don’t let thoughts of you stay long when I’m awake.

You had a new wife. She was obviously stupid, but then, she’d have to be. Of course, she knew nothing about me.

You’d been through some terrible experience that left you like a child, brain damaged, blank. Your house was a remote cabin. Your son was waiting for you to attend to something, but I’m not sure you knew who he was -- though he was a child again, too.
He was more open now, no longer cooler than everybody.

You sat on the floor in the middle of the living room, naked from the waist down. No one thought this strange. I was floating through the air as usual. No one thought this odd either.

Your wife kept patting your shoulder, muttering mindless stuff meant to comfort you. You were oblivious. You babbled nonsense, baby-talk.

You were no longer who you were. I felt the loss of that, and let myself. You seemed somewhat defenseless, but I couldn’t bring myself to punish you, though I remembered you deserved it. I just kept floating around, watching.

Your son and wife, who didn’t know each other, didn’t seem to find all this the least dramatic.

I woke up, and felt mometarily sad. I usually don’t let myself feel sad about you long; I didn’t this time, either. But I didn’t jump back into hating you right away, like I normally would, now that you’re less real to me than the dream was. A dream is your only unguarded path for getting near me now.

I am beginning to be less afraid you’ll try some other path. And I am less inclined to mentally rehearse the moves I’d have to use to shoot you down.


-- © 2010 by Jack Veasey