My Election
One Vote, One Story
I am electing to choose hope today. Hoping that today and any possible future todays will roll out for me in the same stoutly-pampered way most of my yesterdays have presented themselves to the best of my recollection. Thankfully once we are out of pain, we can’t (or refuse to?) reproduce the agonies of the past. On the whole, when I consider all the days prior to today, I conclude that my life has been relatively easy and full of love. Call me Mr. Lucky, that gambler who tells you his luck is incredible, yesterday’s losses forgotten or at least not talked about.
Of course there have been days of light and dark, pleasure and pain, but I remember when I was young weathering the shitstorms in my world. There were plenty of bad days to go with the good ones. Life was full of laughter and tears. And sometimes there were more than a few long stretches of anxiety and tears, but I knew the laughter would come around again. Why I’m not sure, but I knew they would and they did. I think what got me through the hard times was an underlying feeling of safety and security. I felt I was loved even when I was scared to death. There was a sense that everything would be okay. Maybe not at this moment, but soon, very soon if I had faith that the shitstorm I was navigating would come to an end and my “good ship, Lollipop” would sail again.
The Spaghetti Matador Like compass points we held Our positions at the dinner table: East to west, my mother and me; North to south my brother and dad. We waited for the south wind To blow in, spaghetti and meat balls Getting cold. When we heard The car pull up the driveway, My mother lifted pot lids. The old bull of the woods Had made it home, lurched in The back door and stumbled Laughing into his chair, shrugged His shoulders and dumbly grinned at Each of us. I dished up and passed Him the bowl of noodles. He stared At it, “Shit on a shingle?” he asked. “You don’t have to eat it,” Mother said. He laughed and blinked, pointed At the north pole, “You like shit On a shingle?” My older brother Focused on his plate. “Tastes good to me,” I chimed in. “I wasn’t talkin’ to you,” He said and turned back to my brother Who never looked up or uttered a word. So the old bull slammed the table With his fist, and all the plates jumped. My brother’s icy glance met the Old Man’s cold stare. A glint of steel flashed, Blades hacked and slashed in my gut—tight As their mirrored jaw muscles flexing. Mother spit out, “If you don’t like it, Go back uptown!” BAM! The fist came down, And utensils hit the floor. “Goddamn you!” She said, reaching for his plate As he grabbed at her wrists. “Stop it!” I yelled, a spaghetti matador, red sauce On my lips. My arching voice unfurled as I Clenched my fork, challenged the blind Rage of whiskey in a bitter-rotten corpse Still afoot but dead as Christ in the tomb Of his head. “Button your lip!” the bull Said, nostrils flared, ready to kill. I wallowed Spaghetti dry in my mouth. The tears Plopped on my food before I knew I was leaking. I dropped my fork and ran To the bathroom stifling the bawl in my throat. I hated him for losing again—the failed matador Who couldn’t win or kill the bull—didn’t know How, nor want to play. If I’d had a sword, I couldn’t have used it. I sat on the toilet Seat and sobbed for my mother, my brother, And me caught in a bottle and slaughtered Once again by a stupid, drunken bully. Then I heard the door handle turn—saw it Was too late to lock the key. He squeezed inside, Tried to speak . . . nothing came out but air. His red eyes were beaten, glassy as mine As he got down on his knees, put his hand On my head, and held onto what he couldn’t say, Choking on booze, love, failure, regret. I wiped My eyes and asked him, “Why?” He shrugged And shook his bobbing head, weaved. His nose Dripped and chest heaved, tears streaked His whiskered cheeks, but he didn’t make a sound. He caressed my neck, pursed his lips, nodded And rubbed my back, managed to say more without Words than I’d ever heard before. I told him “It’s okay,” and I meant it. I left him there, Knew the whiskey was about to take him down, And returned to finish my dinner. My brother Had already retreated to his room, and Mother, Lost and angry at the sink, washed the dishes Alone. She asked if I was all right, and I was . . . Clear, for the first time. I felt bad for my dad, Considered the baggage he kept stashed Inside. My old man was honest and flawed. He taught me to reserve judgment, that we can Never truly know one another, but we may learn To dance together—and put away our swords.
I call myself an optimistic pessimist because of my faith in “hope,” those rose-colored glasses, in spite of all evidence to the contrary. It’s carried me through the tougher days of my life. Holding onto this faith that our potential to love one another is innate and strong enough to carry us through all the fear, hate, and pain—that kindness works, and that we’re susceptible to it’s contagious magic. I guess in “the valley of the shadow of death” I learned to condition myself to “fear no evil. “The greatest story ever told” is spun by all religions: the golden rule—choose love over fear. I told myself, when I was a kid and struggling with all this shit, life and death, trying to make sense of it, that since I couldn’t recall being afraid before I was born, why would I think I’d be afraid of whatever happens after it’s over and I’ve passed back into the unknown?
This life is a miracle full of wonders, some of which can be painful and horrific, but it’s the only show in town. As far as I know, this is it, so I wake up each day and tell myself to make the best of it. No one has any answers to the mystery of this shit. So my first choice is to do what feels good. Learning and making stuff is like playing and play feels the best, playing with others, people and animals all the interesting stuff in this world. The desire to connect is strong in me. I feel connected to all of “this” whatever-the-fuck “this” is, this life, all the entities I experience.
A couple of weeks back I had one of those early morning dreams you get after you’ve gotten up in the dark to pee and then crawled back in bed. All these ideas about connections snowballed in my head because another thing my mind always wants to do is distill, connect, and conclude, make sense of seem to be patterns: AH-HA! We love puzzles! I’m guessing this poem was triggered by our visit with our son out on the west coast who does microbiological research. He’s a big-time puzzler. Regardless of the hopelessness of unlocking the secrets of the universe, I am still determined to pursue the poetic answer to the origin of “my this.” We are nosy (know-sy) obsessive little egos determined to get there.
Again Writing Is the effort To connect Like sex Magnets And atoms We collect Move through Chain reactions And explode In destruction Extinction We rearrange Our nothing Into something A mythic body Crucified And resurrected Over and over Birth and Death Seeds Pollinate Earth shrugs And groans Dust to stone Waiting silent Unknown fate Carbon dances Ecstatically At the gate
So, as exhausted and anxious as many feel on this Election Day, do yourself a favor by taking in some small but enormous pleasure today. Personally, I am electing to listen to the one bird that keeps chirping which I don’t recognize and can’t see but enjoying immensely, more than the goddamn dog that won’t stop barking (and I know the poor old thing is blind and deaf) but Jesus H, it just keeps barking, pissing me off, till finally they bring it back inside. My point? It’s all good, it’s my life right now today. And yes, sooner or later I will be seriously or maybe not so seriously fucking-dead. There’s no way around that one, so I try to keep focusing on taking it in, appreciating the spin. Whatever happens at the end of this Election Day or Tomorrow, we’ll deal with then.
One thing that happened recently, (and if I have your email you’ll most likely get this pitch again) I have a new collection of poems, Sister Buffalo. You may buy copies from me, FootHills Publishing, or Fact & Fiction in downtown Missoula. I would be delighted to mail you an inscribed copy, contact me in Facebook Messenger or at marcogibbo@yahoo.com Here’s the last poem in that book.
some days some days i'm uplifted by two feet of snow and twenty below, squinting sunshine, bright blue sky and white, ice crystals floating through the air . . . some days i'm cranky, edgy, downright pissed off, nasty-bitter as Cookie Garcia, isolated, fed-up, foul-mouthed and minded, don't give a shit anymore about cleanliness or godliness or wiping my ass . . . some days i'm gone, actually most days i'm lost, hiding behind that guy i send off to work, i don't know how he does it, and sadly i do know why he continues to fulfill robotic chores, sacrifice his life to pay, settle some score . . . some days i'm found stroking my pussy cat in my lap watching squirrels and deer, eating elk, drinking beer, smiling about nothing—that particular slate, my weekend unplanned, still, feeling whatever I can, what's there, the purr of blood and air healing my hard heart some days . . .
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