High School Chorus — First Period
Why would anyone conduct a high school choir?
Children are born in song,
their feet, dirty and scuffed with the grime of melodies,
mumbled in their cribs; wheezing out ideas,
blurting out a high F with perfect diaphragm support and an open soft palate
that allows the sound to travel through the instrument;
a wild melisma of grief so pure, it is inarticulate;
psalms of the grumbling tummy,
hymns of an aching tooth emerging from gums;
that thing that cannot form words can sing
from behind child-safe gates and window bars and playpens,
strapped in harnesses
on leashes and wearing helmets, avoiding peanut butter
and slowly introducing solids
that thing that can not chew
can sing.
but you still hush a baby just like you
gently close a door at a symposium just like you
hush a sister screaming at her brother just like you
put pillows under the door of the hotel so the chaperones don’t hear you just like you
don’t dance with a sidewalk stripper just like you
get off a school bus full of kids playing Mötley Crüe off a Sanyo boombox
and lurch into the choir room
and get in your place on the risers and
open the sheet music.
and then you can finally sing
but only then
and just the notes on one half of the bass clef stave
the slow lurching bass line that sinks the Lusitania like a nighttime torpedo
that starts all the wars of Europe in the hole left behind,
where they told you to hush
because others were speaking and you were being
disruptive.
1989
I dreamed a poem about Abraham Lincoln’s
vagina I dreamed about saltwater taffy;
Elastica’s “Connection” how all my cool friends
said it was just like a song by Republica
butter jar Tenafly, New Jersey Circle Jerks
back seat bus ride boom box music education;
apprehended at the Chapel Square Mall
escalator, sad and reflective with a couple
of kids from Shelton or Derby my
manacles loosened enough for me to reach
the screw behind the counter; loose leaf
paper maché manila paper ditto purple lesions.
Lesions – it’s the first time I ever heard that
word and now it’s everywhere like the goth
kid at the high school theater convention at the mall
crouched in a quiet, carpeted corner being consoled by their friends
because someone called him a Eurofag
but I just thought he was well-groomed I
used the word “ovulating” in an improv sketch
and thought I was so cool I dreamed
the lice in my sister’s blond hair I
dreamed the power I wielded packing my
suitcase and watching dad yell at her for
making me so crazy I would run away to
escape my mother saying “sibling rivalry” like
it was scabies I dreamed a poem about Abraham Lincoln’s
vagina it was wooly and pitch and proud
like the shrubs beside the long driveway to
Mike’s house that was full of rabbits I dreamed
fetal alcohol syndrome sisters running through
the woods to the river in her Rainbow Brite
pajamas, dripping dark mucous from her nostrils
and smelling like lunch meat.
I think this one chunk below is the poem, thoughts? i broke a few lines differently, see what you think of all of this, ok if you don’t like of course
Title TK
When I was a boy, my father was shaving
but I had to pee
and even though I tried
I couldn’t, because my
dad was standing right there.
He told me that men pee to assert dominance,
and it would be easier to go when others are there,
when I get older
and I’m a man.
Twice this week, the restaurant bathroom was too crowded
and I stood at the urinal, biting my at my tongue,
but ultimately left,
still washing my hands as a cover.
Brian bio, url TK