Voodoo

snow covered "Ramble"
male Woodcock in Central Park
vernal equinox

The Drain Game

I was always rooting for the underdog, though my winners never won. It was those last struggling seconds that seemed always to captivate me most, when it had to be then, or never. That razor’s edge, where one really knew about life and death, to make it or not to make it, to be victorious or vanquished. I pondered these thoughts often, or thoughts like these, though probably more vague and juvenile, while shivering in an empty enameled tub, glistening wet, at the glorious and tragic end of the game, of the ritual, staring at the shinny-rimmed hole, squatting and peering down, listening to those last gurgles that signified my “horse’s” loss once again.

We were young, before we learned how not to be naked. My sister and I took baths together in an old ball-foot tub. It was a smooth, glistening white tub, with faint hairline cracks in the enamel that looked like little spider webs. There was worn-out enamel around the drain that seemed sort of like a hole in the sole of a worn out shoe The water was always just a touch too hot, and entry was its own adventure. It was my time to prove my bravery to my little sister, and to my mother, who never seemed as impressed.

Mother would always take my sister out of the bath first, to work on her tangles. I stayed in longer because I was dirtier, because I was older, because I was a boy. After awhile my mother would say “pull the plug” and I would, with relish. For now, the game, the ritual, the race began again.

Carefully, I placed some piece of flotsam behind me, at the far end of the tub from the faucets, from the drain, and observed, noting its characteristics. These were my horses, my winners: a hair, a floating chunk of soap, perhaps some lint. Then I pulled the plug, fired the starting gun, flung open the gates.

First there was the sound, the rush of water filling the empty pipes and then a subtle disturbance on the surface followed by the slow movement of water. I tracked the flotsam horse with g rowing anticipation, monitoring the water’s growing momentum, watching the awkward dance of the little whirlwind over the drain.

As the water level lowered, I shifted to a kneeling position, watching my long-shot go around me or through my legs, at which point I would squat, positioned to watch my horse win, my horse overcome the odds, overcome the current, the gravity, and demonstrate to me, to the world, at long last, victory. Victory over inevitability, over all that which is predetermined or fore-ordained, of all that is ruled by rules and probability. Often at this point I would vaguely become aware of my mother’s voice somewhere in the distance asking me to hurry. But I squeezed it out. The race was on, the ritual begun.

I knew almost “by-heart” the path my horse would take. Straight down the middle until, picking up steam, he would swing to the left, suddenly caught in the pull, but fighting outward. He would struggle, and I would agonize for him, trying to will him free, to desire for him victory so intensely that he broke the spell. The more the concentric rings tightened, the more the orbit closed around the drain, the more focused I became, and the more anxious. Though the whole race was actually over in seconds, the space in my mind’s time reckoning was vacuous and seemingly eternal, a lifetime of almost suspended, breath holding, vicarious clinging to the precipice. And then it would end, my horse having disappeared, down the drain.

There was always a delayed reaction within me; I would stare for a moment in disbelief, incredulously, and then suddenly and expectantly, but with a familiar dread, spring towards the drain to peer down the dark hole, hoping against hope. But there was nothing,
just the familiar gurgling sound, and the slow dawning of disappointment and frustration,
as I simultaneously became aware of my foolish position, cold, wet, naked, squatting in the empty tub, and mother calling.

Originally appears in Voice of the Hill, Vol. 3, No. 4 July 2001

Fever Lonely

Thought I saw a Mamba
in a fever tree today.
The thought seduced my mind
but the thorns got in the way.

Poison
poison
in a blue lined bottle...
poison
poison
flew farewell to you.

A crown of green and black
for your pomp and circumstance
Emerald noir
noir
if only you will dance.

Sway now rhythmic slowly
roulette to miss the bite.
Stay now fever lonely
if only for tonight.

All distractions are equal.

...an immemorial urge

Ms. Ana María Correa over at "Out of the Woods Now" has been traversing familiar territory as of late, musing upon young efforts at soul-baring in the form of the poem. Referring to a fellow Cornellian, she says:

"Nearing the end of Nabokov's Speak, Memory I come across his beginnings in poetry as a teenager (remembering my own overly-earnest false starts) and listen to his thoughts on the matter:

But then, in a sense, all poetry is positional: to try to express one's position in regard to the universe embraced by consciousness, is an immemorial urge. The arms of consciousness reach out and grope, and the longer they are the better. Tentacles, not wings, are Apollo's natural members. Vivian Bloodmark, a philosophical friend of mine, in later years, used to say that while the scientist sees everything that happens in one point of space, the poet feels everything that happens in one point of time. Lost in thought, he taps his knee with his wandlike pencil, and at the same instant a car (New York license plate) passes along the road, a child bangs the screen door of a neighboring porch, and old man yawns in a misty Turkestan orchard, a granule of cinder-gray sand is rolled by the wind on Venus, a Docteur Jacques Hirsch in Grenoble puts on his reading glasses, and trillions of other such trifles occur--all forming an instantaneous and transparent organism of events, of which the poet (sitting in a lawn chair, at Ithaca, N.Y.) is the nucleus.

That summer I was still far too young to evolve any wealth of "cosmic synchronization" (to quote my philosopher again). But I did discover, at least, that a person hoping to become a poet must have the capacity of thinking of several things at a time.

Yes. Liberating. And thank you Ms. Correa and Dr. Nobokov...now, do I have the courage to post, even for my own scrutiny, my own naive juvenalia? Catharsis vs. humiliation...now there's a trade-off. Is there celebration of puppy love? Of idealism? And why the urge to shed all of that, like ridding one's closet of skinny ties and parachute pants? Yet I saved at least one skinny tie...and a high school sonnet or two. This kind of confusion had better not be a harbinger of mid-life crisis...stay tuned, or not.