09-26-2012, 10:36 PM
On The Tree That Was Cut Down
The tree that shaded the window at night,
Between the shaking light that told me whether the aliens were coming,
As sometimes I lay on my cot, or stand by the heater;
They cut you down. They cut you down, and took you as wood
Somewhere else. Why? Because your leaves were falling on someone's truck.
I'm not a tree-lover, but I loved you. Just as I love
The forests in my town, and the other trees in my yard.
Forests everywhere prove that I am right, and they are wrong.
They that don't know what trees are about.
Those that forgot what people are, too.
But your roots are alive. And I will wait for you.
Like I say to the people here, if I leave I'll come back
More and more, and stay and stay.
There's truth that there's a reaper in the field, only at night
And only if you don't look; a real kind of ghost
That would appear to do more than what a ghost does
If you were allowed to see it when you look,
How it appeared. But I'm not afraid of it.
I'm too tired to be afraid tonight, my lonely friend, divorced
Of yourselves. But tomorrow I'll promise and be afraid, for
They'll chop me down, just as dead as I can't see you anymore,
And that makes me sad, oh that makes me sad.
But who cares about being sad: I guess they don't.
Don't realize what you were about, never a question
That I'd feel about you, but I feel.
And you do, too; all alone without you anymore.
You without yourself, still there enough to know.
........................
Guest Room At The Old Persons' House
Hold on, stay back.
I leave the gate open
So the demon will creep into me
And I can have my way with it,
On my own turf.
When younger, and even now:
I'd run across the night, from one door
To the other door, as if they were after me.
I'd slam it with a deep breath;
Would I have the second it takes to lock it
Before they start to turn the knob?
But like a true unbeliever, I never feared the windows.
No. They were out there, all right. That I could feel.
The windows just weren't their thing. I felt that.
Now I can read. Now I can watch TV.
But the movie of the night.
What happened to the profound melodrama
Of the '70s 'Salem's Lot?
Those were real movies. I can feel them
When I walk the streets.
The road by the church, beneath the crosses,
Down the hill, or through the woods.
Where are those video game Eternal nights,
And Dorito days of the '90s gone?
The room proved nothing outside but the future.
When magazines filled the floor
And the Atari wizard magic of the '80s,
Puppets galore and faded psychedelic shades
Of Dungeons and Dragons' last reality
Outside of gloss,
Sailed under the comic book bridge of its varied Ages.
How many times I lay awake at night,
Knowing this place is haunted,
Under the strange blankets in this cozy fear,
I know will be safe in sleep.
Where did my illusions go,
Because I knew they were true.
I ate the soup when I came out of the snow,
Back inside I watched sitcoms, promptly,
On Friday night. And ate the
Keebler Tato skins
Out of sight.
I loved many women in my dreams,
But none one made a bigger mess in my sheets
Than a truth I still wait
Makes of my life.
I still wait in strange hours,
Biding my time.
Hoping for the day I'll hear the starting gun.
I'm so tired of waiting, the waiting,
By far, is the hardest part.
The Great Grand Canyon Rescue episode,
Weekday afternoons, getting off the bus;
I remember cartoons. I remember us,
When we will one day, again.
I think storms between it.
Laying awake at night, I knew I was never,
Would never!
Be weak willed enough to be possessed
Like that girl in The Exorcist.
I never worried about that.
But that I could be a stump,
Like De Niro in Awakenings.
And grow into a tree,
I once was.
I put these two together so not to crowd this section. And they both share similar syntax inversions for that choppy effect.
The tree that shaded the window at night,
Between the shaking light that told me whether the aliens were coming,
As sometimes I lay on my cot, or stand by the heater;
They cut you down. They cut you down, and took you as wood
Somewhere else. Why? Because your leaves were falling on someone's truck.
I'm not a tree-lover, but I loved you. Just as I love
The forests in my town, and the other trees in my yard.
Forests everywhere prove that I am right, and they are wrong.
They that don't know what trees are about.
Those that forgot what people are, too.
But your roots are alive. And I will wait for you.
Like I say to the people here, if I leave I'll come back
More and more, and stay and stay.
There's truth that there's a reaper in the field, only at night
And only if you don't look; a real kind of ghost
That would appear to do more than what a ghost does
If you were allowed to see it when you look,
How it appeared. But I'm not afraid of it.
I'm too tired to be afraid tonight, my lonely friend, divorced
Of yourselves. But tomorrow I'll promise and be afraid, for
They'll chop me down, just as dead as I can't see you anymore,
And that makes me sad, oh that makes me sad.
But who cares about being sad: I guess they don't.
Don't realize what you were about, never a question
That I'd feel about you, but I feel.
And you do, too; all alone without you anymore.
You without yourself, still there enough to know.
........................
Guest Room At The Old Persons' House
Hold on, stay back.
I leave the gate open
So the demon will creep into me
And I can have my way with it,
On my own turf.
When younger, and even now:
I'd run across the night, from one door
To the other door, as if they were after me.
I'd slam it with a deep breath;
Would I have the second it takes to lock it
Before they start to turn the knob?
But like a true unbeliever, I never feared the windows.
No. They were out there, all right. That I could feel.
The windows just weren't their thing. I felt that.
Now I can read. Now I can watch TV.
But the movie of the night.
What happened to the profound melodrama
Of the '70s 'Salem's Lot?
Those were real movies. I can feel them
When I walk the streets.
The road by the church, beneath the crosses,
Down the hill, or through the woods.
Where are those video game Eternal nights,
And Dorito days of the '90s gone?
The room proved nothing outside but the future.
When magazines filled the floor
And the Atari wizard magic of the '80s,
Puppets galore and faded psychedelic shades
Of Dungeons and Dragons' last reality
Outside of gloss,
Sailed under the comic book bridge of its varied Ages.
How many times I lay awake at night,
Knowing this place is haunted,
Under the strange blankets in this cozy fear,
I know will be safe in sleep.
Where did my illusions go,
Because I knew they were true.
I ate the soup when I came out of the snow,
Back inside I watched sitcoms, promptly,
On Friday night. And ate the
Keebler Tato skins
Out of sight.
I loved many women in my dreams,
But none one made a bigger mess in my sheets
Than a truth I still wait
Makes of my life.
I still wait in strange hours,
Biding my time.
Hoping for the day I'll hear the starting gun.
I'm so tired of waiting, the waiting,
By far, is the hardest part.
The Great Grand Canyon Rescue episode,
Weekday afternoons, getting off the bus;
I remember cartoons. I remember us,
When we will one day, again.
I think storms between it.
Laying awake at night, I knew I was never,
Would never!
Be weak willed enough to be possessed
Like that girl in The Exorcist.
I never worried about that.
But that I could be a stump,
Like De Niro in Awakenings.
And grow into a tree,
I once was.
I put these two together so not to crowd this section. And they both share similar syntax inversions for that choppy effect.
i got a sense that the tree was a person. possibly themselves. possibly not. it's got an alzheimer's feel about it