return

I want everything from the 1950's onward, back,

returned to me in massive haughty casings. Gleason

and the June Taylor Dancers

making diamonds of inconsistency

and the tumult of gestic mesmerism

their thighs made/  i

want it returned, no questions asked.

My Moments, my Delfonic's albums

loaned to a girl who moved 4 times

address unknown; returned,

just left in a quiet hollow space

with an apologetic note telling me how

wrong the Lunar landing was,

how at bedtime the images came unwieldy

drowned out by the hum of the Motorola, bucolic 

black heads huddled together in the stink cloud

of Sulfur 8,

the lightness of being poor

pulled down to origins unknown. The

puff of salt, at such a distance that only

the superstructure is visible, the abandoned

wrecks, the alien prisoners made to move

rhythmic in those irritating silver suites,

I want it all returned,

even  if its used up, the seal broken,

scuffed on one side, laces missing, abundantly

incongruous  fragrant ball shaped in yellow, removed

and womanly, peevish and transitory spell of

anger and resentment:

being left alone with my genitals still functioning

with my heart secreting love like some bipedal

blimp, costly and luxuriously listing,

the bellowing of contempt, the huff of loneliness

like two wet sticks rubbing together. And

those secrets hurt, yes they did. I want all returned,

the permission to go forward, to live on, to be

a good neighbor, to say hello, to wash my clothes and

to toil in the pretend bed of chrysanthemums

that as you

failed to return.

Reviews

[Marie Anzalone]

Reminds me in tone of Langston Hughes "As Benefits a Man" when he writes:

"I want a fish-tail hearse
and sixteen fishtail cars
A big brass band
and a whole truckload of flowers"

For what is the contemplation of mortality but an accounting of what we lose or gain through life, and desire to keep aacruing accolades after death? I think too of things taken from me, forcefully, and things I unwisey and wosely gave up that I would like back, too. The Native Americans deal with the concept of the soul retrieval, saying that each significant loss we send part of our soul away for safe-keeping, but end up numbing oursleves to living in the process. We can recover the peice we lost, and we can give back the pieces that we took from others with or without their knowledge. Loss though- that is a thing I see like a draw knike for barrel staves, the thing that planes you and hollows you and makes you open as a vessel of divine understandign at great personal pain.

[Horizon K.]

A measurement of the magnitude of love is when you give someone irreplaceable pieces of yourself that even your mother would not appreciate as much... That first book of poetry you ever wrote, a secret that you've never told to anyone else, a significant virgin experience.... But to not only give it, but to never want it back, you are saying-- our love means more to me, than life itself.
But then there are those things you lost to time, or gave away or had taken from you by anyone else... You want them back when you realize what a crime against yourself it was, to ever let anything but love, have any piece of yourself.

...the bellowing of contempt, the huff of loneliness
like two wet sticks rubbing together. And
those secrets hurt, yes they did. I want all returned,
the permission to go forward, to live on...


A poem that begs the reader to contemplate the importance of all things past, all things shared, and why.
Thank you, Dana.

[Tree]

You mine your memories with a giant earthmover, getting out occasionally to pick up a rock, examine its structure. Nothing moves me more in this art then when someone pulls together a string of memories, ––– nothing. I came to poetry for that very reason, never wanting to forget.

Nice piece, d.



Diego

[Delmar Cooper]

Confidentially, just me and you talking here, I don't understand half the stuff I read. And half the stuff I write only makes sense to me because I can remember what the daylight looked like on that day I wrote it. But a lot of times, usually with you, I understand why I feel so moved by something that is a little past my understanding.

If you understand.

[writing mojo]

Satire is more precious than any technological answer could ever add in..i miss such a thing too..we are desensitized by the what life is connected to these wires that imitate the buzz and howl of our dreams. .exellent

[Emily B]

I watched a robin williams movie last night, What Dreams May Come, I want my life back, the one before this one. The Hell they showed, isn't the way I've everr seen Hell in mind. It looks like life. It looks like want. And being in the wrong place. And feels like being trapped.

[writing mojo]

I agree Emily. Here's to eerie I was watching What dreams may come and it was the part when robin was in heaven when i got the text from a friend who is a spitting image robin in his youth of his death..i should attach pic for the prove. .he is special like John. .always one foot on the other side and through the arts is a way to touch others..man i miss the anticipation of waiting to see what will they come with next..sensitive has many meaning..

[Emily B]

John's book is coming together. Waiting for synchronous additions :)

[jacob erin-cilberto]

i want it returned too...wow, dana, thanks for this write.

"didn't i blow your mind this time, didn't i?"

i miss "the honeymooners" shows like that classic....life like that, never again...unfortunately....

[Vito]

This is the first of your poems I've read and I'm impressed.