Skinny dipping
Poetry is an intensely personal thing. It involves baring one’s soul to the universe and daring the universe to fight back. I wrote this piece at the turn of the century, seeking to explain my existence and, perhaps, rationalize my erratic behavior.
I shared this poem with one dear friend, who has endured many of these trials and tribulations with me. Now, for some unfathomable reason, I feel the need to share it with a larger audience. This is excruciatingly hard, because it means making myself naked. I am exposing myself, warts and all, before the world.
Perhaps I am just an exhibitionist at heart. So be it. Here I am in all my ugliness and in all my beauty.
FOR CHRISTOPHER, WHO WILL BE FIFTY–TWO
IN THE YEAR TWO THOUSAND
and, yes, in Baghdad-by-the-Bay
the paradigmatic boomer is born
sucking greedily at the foggy breasts of The City
and hyperventilating the eucalyptine air
emitting a scream of outrage
at the injustice of being
from the womb untimely ripp’d
just as he was getting comfortable
the child is named Strong, Manly
for his grandfather
and Bearer-of-Christ
(a hedging of bets
by anxious agnostics
or perhaps a cosmic jest
whose punchline lies
far in the future)
the good news is
he is an only child
the focus of his family’s
undivided attention
the bad news is
he is an only child
the focus of his family’s
undivided attention
he is the unbalanced Libra
the Tarotian fool
vainly trying to smother his snickering
at the bare-assed king
and on the spirit plane
Raven and Coyote
rub their figurative hands together
and chortle in anticipation
so soon after his birth
he is introduced
to the ways of the Rom
the restless highland blood
that drives its children on
from place to place
and hither and yon
seeking to eff the ineffable
and, yes, the tricksters
often cruel
begin their mysterious work
the child is raped repeatedly
by a fearsome monster
wielding an enema nozzle
and a lust for revenge:
his mother
reality, it seems,
is not his bag
and the bewildered brain
inside his throbbing head
torments his sleep with images
of giant turds pierced with pins
anal-retentive
always has a hyphen
the child is so vulnerable
the child is so resilient
and he begins his life’s work
creating fantasy worlds
in which the good are rewarded
and the wicked are punished
and the sun shines all day
and the rains come only at night
and, yes, the child learns
the survival skills
suppressing what he feels
because emotions are illogical
his mother
the Cartesian rationalist
only pretends to be human
she is a Vulcan
he grows in exile
in a state whose highest hill
cannot overtop a redwood
and his whole being yearns
for something he sees
only in his dreams:
snow-capped mountains
and the tang of balsam
he spends his days
in durance vile
in the prison schoolyards
wherein he learns
the rules of violence
physical and mental
that are designed to make him
a productive American
the child is far too bright
for his own good
but he hides his intelligence
because the brown monkeys
resent a monkey
of another color
and exclude him
from their grooming rituals
there are consolations:
the girls like him
because he is gentle
a gentle man
and he likes the girls
so he loses his virginity
at the age of eight
to a tormented girl named Pam
not allowed to be who he is
he invents someone
he is not
the good boy
the teacher’s pet
the obedient son
and all the while
his anger burns and boils
religion preys on the desperate
and the child becomes road-kill
the gimlet-eyed preachers
smell fresh blood
the child answers an altar call
and is born again
only to find that the second birth
is as empty as the first
and, yes, the pressure builds
relieved only by small
volcanic vents
he is drawn to folk music
he befriends the blacks
in his Southern school
he writes poetry
rebel without a cost
who cannot avoid
being swept along
by the currents of his time
he mourns the death of a man
who would never have seen him
if they had gone to school
in the same place
at the same time
he marches
he sits-in
he writes intemperate letters
to editors who publish
so that they may sneer
at his idealism
and he prays that there is life
after high school
and, yes, the child graduates
with honors in conformity
and goes off to college
because it is expected of him
and instead of freedom
from matriarchal tyranny
he learns more Latin:
in loco parentis
one sure way to drive
the parentis loco
is to declare independence
he could have waited
until he was twenty-one
instead he gets married
he has been raised to believe
if you have sex, you must marry
the sexual revolution starts
the very next week
his timing has always been off
just a beat
he drops out
without tuning in or turning on
he is an idea
whose time has not yet come
he gets the first
of a vast multitude of jobs
running an archaic machine
called a linotype
he spends much of his time
dodging squirts of hot lead
excellent practice
for what is to come
and, yes, in 1969
Uncle Sam wants him
to help bring the benefits
of the American Way of Life
to a nation in grave danger
of choosing the Godless Communists
and do you know what?
the Vietnamese never even thanked him
they say that terror heightens the senses
so he heard
and he saw
and he smelled
and he watched the children die
on both sides
and he learned the litany of Vietnam:
don’t mean nothin’
and then he saw his best friend killed
and he was splattered with pieces
of Scoopy
and no matter how much he washed
the pieces would not come off
so he drank
and he smoked himself numb
how do you spell relief?
and, yes, he got his million dollar wound
and he came home
short one kidney
and addicted to anything
that would let him sleep
and do you know what?
the Americans
never even thanked him
living well is the best revenge
so he ate, drank, and did Mary
but he still awoke screaming
in the night
and lashing out with hands and feet
and his wife could not understand
because he was thousands of years old
and she was still just nineteen
he had always loved words
and now he used them as weapons
savaging politicians and the establishment
on the radio and the TV
the bastards stole his youth
and all he could do
was make them sweat
before the cameras
he thinks he is losing his grip
so he signs on with the first
of a clamoring crowd of therapists
eager to test their theories
whose laugh lines are dollar signs
and whose tunnel vision
prevents them from seeing the wreckage
in their wake
and, yes, he marries again
because that is what sitcom stars do
and he comes back to his hometown
but it is too late
the Summer of Love
has become
the Winter of Rage
and Thomas Wolfe is right once again
he looks to reap the benefits
he earned serving his country
so he fills out the forms
and jumps through the hoops
and waits for an answer
and waits some more
and then his country tells him
he didn’t do enough
he and Number Two
fight like Democrats
and in his rage he beats her
as though it is all her fault
and then he drives until
he is lost in the Western wilderness
asking the question no one will answer
which way is home?
and his wanderings take him
and refuse to let go
the highland blood
that cannot be denied
and his second wife leaves him
for his best friend
and do you know what?
he never even thanked Mikey
do what you love, they say
and the money will come
so he gets his license
and skippers yachts for the wealthy
in return he gets little money
but the one great love
he has imagined for so long
and he marries for the third time
and, yes, with this marriage come children
they are hers by some long-forgotten
sperm donor
but he adopts them as his own
and slowly
painfully
over the years
they adopt him as their own
he follows his Dream Girl to Alaska
where they struggle to make the home
neither has ever known
he finds friends who will outlast
his restless roaming:
The Raven and The Sensei
and he thinks of putting down roots
but the soil is frozen
and the Dream Girl
whose restlessness transcends his own
works her way through
the better part of the crew
of an Alaska ferry
and like most cuckolds
he is the one so blind
because he will not see
and, yes, he advances to the rear
caves up
thinking he will never come out again
and the little house on the lake
becomes the abattoir of his sanity
he feels himself slipping away
and it frightens him
even more than the war
he is dug out by his daughter
and sent back to his parents
which is like tossing a drowning man
into the ocean
his mother wants to lock him up
but his aunt has a better idea
on Christmas Eve
she takes him to church
and there in the comforting arms
of the familiar liturgy
he is born again again
the Holy Fathers know a live one
when they see one
and they counsel him to heal himself
by helping others
in the framework of the church, of course
so he submerges himself
in the Holy Waters and is consumed
like a communion wafer
and for a while
religion becomes his drug of choice
and the addiction is so powerful
he even considers becoming
a pusher
ever so slowly
he reenters the battle of the sexes
wounded bleeding limping
but still game
the legendary charm still works
and he draws often from the deck
but he has become a wiser player
he has learned how to discard
his children, however, remain constant
and far before he is ready
they make him a grandfather
he looks carefully into the mirror
and sees the gray in his hair
and the wrinkles on his brow
and he wonders where the hell
the time has gone
and, yes, he is still the White Knight
and, yes, his armor is tarnished
and, yes, he can still hear a maiden’s cry
and, yes, he rides to the fray once again
and, yes, she’s a desperate little manic-depressive
who wears a mask called Prozac
until he has made his solemn vow
and it’s too late to leave
the little cottage with the picket fence
turns out to be the cuckoo’s nest
and the inmate convinces him
that he’s the crazy one
so he sighs deeply
and crawls back onto the couch
to boldly go
where everyone has gone before
it is Holy Week when he makes
his pilgrimage
he meets The Sensei
who is to prepare him
but no one can prepare him
and on Palm Sunday
he goes to face
The Wall
and, yes, it does what it is supposed to do
grants him the emotional release
and forgiveness
for having survived
not just the war
but the aftermath
and now it is time
to reclaim some lost territory
he reenters college
at age forty-five
and makes an astounding discovery
he can still learn
and the joy is such
that he is able to ignore
the rumbling volcano
that is his fourth wife
he gets his academic degree
but is about to flunk
another advanced course in life
in January, he refuses to consider divorce
in April he moves out
a trial separation
but the verdict is already in:
guilty as charged
and the Tricksters have a good one
in store for him
this time The White Knight is rescued
by a maiden
who knows just what he needs:
a strong woman
who will straighten out his life
whether it needs it or not
he has always loved beauty
and now he finds a way
to immerse himself:
he manages an art gallery
and then another
and then another
acquiring the experience
to create his own
and, yes, he grants his new love
a share of his vision:
he does all the work
and she furnishes the second-guessing
but he achieves the American Dream:
his own business
there’s just one hitch
it’s in Canada
so he works fifteen hours a day
seven days a week
kisses the asses of hostile bankers
and discovers a great truth:
the people with money have no taste
and the people with taste have no money
his partner leaves at the first sign of trouble
while he is doubled up with kidney stones
he ruins his health
straining for the brass ring
but is buoyed each day
when he sees his gallery
the beauty he has created
and cares less and less
for the sneering cynics
who see only the price tags
and even as his dream
turns out to be another nightmare
the miracle happens
a stunning Japanese beauty
begins casting shy glances
in his direction
and eventually he wakes up
what took you so long, gaijin?
and she teaches him
the most important lesson
he has ever learned:
life must be joyful
or it is wasted
and the waste of that gift
is the only real sin
and at age fifty he begins to live
and, yes, his business fails
but he begins to see
that success is something other
than what he has always been taught
success is not carving out
a comfortable, secure existence
with 3.4 cars 2.2 children
and a corporate jones
he looks at himself and sees
not a survivor but a victor
he has become what he has always respected
the one who makes the impossible look easy
the one who can win or lose with grace and style
the one who is not afraid to take the risk
he has made the majors
he has learned to hit the curve
and what of the Tricksters?
if you can’t beat ‘em,
join ‘em
he takes on the timeless roles
of Feste
and the Harlequin
and faces the millennium
with eager anticipation
- Bellingham, Washington
Anno Domini 2000
1:45:48 AM 
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