Phone rang,
3.26am,
Domestic violence.
Roaring traffic behind payphone voice,
Tells me more than the voice does,
Hear own voice and its fat chances replying,
While calming that voice down,
More words less breathing ,
Turning point,
A plan now,
From a steadying voice.
Voice doesn’t hear and can’t see,
Me,
Growling at kids in the other direction,
Sniggers,
Stop bugging me.
Go back to bed you little bastards,
Gotta a voice here who needs an everything,
More than you need cold water not tap water.
Sniggers stop,
Scared when I growl,
Easily throw my weight around,
Know it.
Can intimidate most under six foot,
Short hair thug,
Long hair vagrant.
Smiling I’m sleazy,
Frowning I’m angry,
Masculine means I look violent,
To you,
The one at home asleep right now,
Who wants more details about the phone call,
That voice’s situation,
How I helped it,
If I helped it.
Want social realism.
Random detail like… “Hawthorn Road”
Want ammunition for cocktail conversations,
Want to also shoot me down,
Would kill for this goldmine of sad stories,
Poets could write masterpieces from this.
Want to know why I haven’t.
You want,
Warriors with words and pill sized anecdotes,
Going down as smooth as a Ken Loach film.
I want,
Bullets and condoms and more muscles,
All of it pumping out from me like a Tony Iommi guitar solo.
That's how I would fix the world,
Would be out there fixing everything,
That fucking phone would never ring,
Ever again.
Man,
Should see this meat-head holding that phone,
Ridiculous,
As Rollins looks perched, huge hands daintily pecking at his iBook.
Should hear what a meathead sound like,
Would ridicule me,
For suddenly confusing the fit of your pigeonhole.
But masculinity ~
Shouldn’t throw rocks,
When you live under glass ceilings.
Femininity claims and co-opts all feeling,
Anything of his truth and beauty then becomes some feminine side,
Don’t see it, truthfully,
Beauty isn’t a myth,
Just a belief,
Not the same thing at all.
Not that one can’t believe in myths however,
But ~
Good people aren't social workers.
People who want to be good people imagine social workers are good people,
Social workers are people who want to be good people too.
People who want to be good people imagine good people exist.
Good people are asleep right now.
Good people probably don’t look anything like meat-heads,
Or think like them either,
Good people probably got here early,
Gave up their seats gladly,
And then got-off well before the crash.
Rest of us left... are just people now.
And good itself, is just as well,
Now.
Diatribes-aside,
I have this to confide:
A meat-head still answers the phone whenever it rings,
Whatever happens to the voice on the other end,
After the call,
The writer of these words,
Made it easier for the owner of that voice,
To go on doing whatever it needed to do to tonight.
Survive.
Haven’t written about this before,
Because never-or-rarely read the book,
Heard the poem,
Seen the play,
About human misery arching its way from child abuse to substance use,
That made me want to laugh out loud,
Inasmuch as it tried to make me cry.
I'd rather you laughing with me,
Not at me,
And they are paying me to be here,
By the way.
Haven’t written about this before,
Because it just won’t read the way you want it to,
And having no desire to let you in on this,
Anymore than letting you in on my masturbatory fantasies,
Because, you know…
It’s a strange thing,
That sometimes,
Hearing a person heavy breathing down a phone,
Struggling for breath when they’re crying,
Still evokes the idea,
Or sounds horribly like,
The same as that of masturbation.
Somewhere out there good people are asleep,
While I,
Am wide-awake waiting for phone calls.
If one type of heavy breathing,
Didn’t make my male brain,
In some way think about another,
I could write you a fucking-masterpiece.
But it does,
And I’m not writing masterpieces tonight,
Just whatever I can get down in between calls.
Tonight,
Somewhere out there good people are asleep,
Soundly,
Breathing…
Soundlessly.
Sincerely,
I wish them a goodnight.
________________________________________
-Peace
.
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