MADE FOR YOU AND ME 2: hive Being (Stanzas 2017—part 31)
Let's workshop this stanza sequence about prison, insecurity, dying, heroism, starvation, poaching vs hunting, love letters, therapy, invasive plants, Christian heaven, Disney, triggering art, cults
kudzu vines of cult indoctrination strangling gardens of parental investment reviving someone only to beat the shit out of them the furry pause between teen identities seems more pregnant than ever toes curled away from the cold tile of dawn footsteps wondering whether you were liked because of your race or in spite of it illegal to eat a swan—nasty, ornery, source of coronation down—in a land of famine struggling, real hard, to resist the fatalistic tug of his groomer-camp-counselor look dramatic dying, even if tamer than grenade-leaping heroism (even if no more than shunning hospice’s morphined stupor), is—like free-range kids popping wheelies on knee-bloody bikes beyond screens—safeguarded, for now, by the grubby poor criticized for having subjects too posed even though poses reveal something about them imagine if we did the NBA like we do now our colleges: Team USA competitiveness plunging—China’s prayers answered—as we chase the jungle’s standard of diversity Christian heaven—the end of the powerplay exploitation evident everywhere (yes, even from vines twirling until they hook what lifts them for free to more sun)—is not a goal of life-affirmation excellence for him was not worth the price of potential humiliation liquor-store candescence in the wet street at night bra and panties for the beach in the kiln of projections and expectations, he hardens slowly into a form he detests the killer’s reservoir of tenderness for dogs the days of walking along, rolling some junk car tire optics outweigh character in Disney’s populist adaptations—in our decline the urge to sew together identical twins prisoners devouring each word in a loved one’s letter, fingering each indent on the traveled page putting in more work for his recovery than he puts in himself will have him guilt-flee into the well-known bosom college’s anti-diversity dogmas (“Cancel triggering art and speakers”), turbocharged by normalized daily weed, pestled into crumbs too many neural pathways back to the blonde freshman’s hometown conscience prison hospice cursory editing of old work so as to get to new work— a curse of the overflowing not having any of your own, you ask others to read aloud their own letters from home power directs guests to sit in the seat with sawed-down legs flying phobics who become driving phobics after learning, in their therapy sessions, how much riskier driving turns out to be is that the upright body of a shaved bear, or just that of an old madman in the trees? between funerals feigning illness to get attention, even if only clinical, from a distant doctor-father the friend who stays to burn and the other who leaps part after a final embrace when those asking for change were at their best—how would they react to such images of themselves?
This is a portion of an ongoing mosaic poem called Made for You and Me. This portion is from the first installment: hive Being (Stanzas 2016-2020). More specifically, it is from the 2017 portion of that five-part work.