When You Want Forgiveness Too Much: My Boston Poetry Marathon Pastiche Poem

Navah The Buddaphliii helping to start off the Boston Poetry Marathon on Friday.

Normally, I do a weekly series on my blog called Stone Soup Croutons, poems created from half-heard lines, impressions and images from poems read on the Stone Soup Poetry open mic.  Last year, I decided to do a similar poem on the last day of the Boston Poetry Marathon.

This year, I tried to do it again, only this time starting Friday. This was not only my first attempt at trying to do a Croutons-type poem for all three days of the Marathon. It was also the first time I would attempt to stay for the entirety of all three days, all while giving my own eight minute reading and taking photos and video throughout the event.

I knew I was taking on more than I could handle, but what the hell, I said.. Let's try to write a triptych.

Will I succeed in writing three poems? Well, I'm only now committing the Day One poem from paper to blog post. We'll see what happens when I go over my "notes" on Day Two.

Though I'm not a drinker, I liken listening to so many poets at once to intoxication (or just getting "tipsy" to use a happier term). You can enjoy the experience, but you may not remember everything that happened. This exercise at least helped me recall some of the highlights of the night and save them from the rabbit hole they fell in because I went straight to Day Two without a break. Thanks for reading.


When You Want Forgiveness Too Much

When writing your apology letter,
there will always be a rebuttal.

There's one pending from your mother,
who never takes down your address
but sends it via your smell.

It's carried by a postman who asks
for your ties and belts before opening.

It's not a death sentence, but why ruin
the surprise. Life needs to flash before you
like a TL: DR medical report.

Your body sends you daily dispatches,
messages reading like faction punk lyrics,
sending limbs into vortex, moving
like a rudderless boat, in search
for a lighthouse to crash.

A hand in the fire is worth several
Robert Burns platitudes that won't help.

Your mother speaks with giraffes now,
discusses alchemy, how to turn
your boring addictions
into new devotion to your job.

They'll say you need to bleach your hands
of all undesirables you follow on Facebook,
put an eagle on your screensaver.

Someone saying they want to have
sex with you is the only pornography
you've yet to enact. You're better off
on the train reading about how stars are made.

Too mesmerized to memorize the details,
you read like a man on fire, a death jog
over everything you need to learn,
blood running Rembrandt on your canvas.

Where are the yes pleases, the thank yous,
instead of just goodbyes, instead of language
where your are good jobbed to death,
enough empty praise to trick your wallet
to think it can keep you aloft once tossed.

The only apology is your faltered breath.
You don't stand a dog's chance
to find God in it's own name, better off begging
for a dollar, enough for a ghost train ride.



Special thanks to DiDi Delgado, Jeannie Nunes, Navah The Buddaphliii, Thomas Graves, Elizabeth Guthrie, Robert Carr, Frannie Lindsay, Carolyn Zaikowski, Catherine Morocco, Lloyd Schwartz, James Stotts, Clay Ventre, Jennifer Martelli, Daniell Legros Georges, Judson Evans, David Blainr, Simeon Berry, John Mulrooney, Natalie Shapero, Kevin McLellan, Elizabeth Marie Young, Douglas Rothschild, Meia Geddes, Michael Steffen, Lisa DeSiro, Gale Batchelder, Jordan Davis and Zachary Bos.