Lovelorn Poets

From Anchorage to Zebulon: In Search of Missed Connections

Lovelorn Poet in Brooklyn, NY: Displacement

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Displacement
Missed Connections in Brooklyn

it’s easy for us to live quite disconnected lives
from the ten million deep

walking away from home, or
the ten million found

on another shore, or the
other ten million
left behind

Lovelorn Poets Her Two Cents IconHer Two Cents

I found this missed connections poem several weeks back, and in light of the recent federal government shut-down and bitter feuding along party-lines, its message is oddly appropriate for today.  The Woody Guthrie song I included, I Ain’t Got No Home, was written in 1938 as an attack on the inaction shown toward the hardships of the poor. If you listen closely to the lyrics, and you didn’t know any better, you might think the song was written in more recent times. Some things change and sadly, some things stay the same.

Lovelorn Poet in Savannah, GA; I Said, You Said

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I Said, You Said
Missed Connections in Savannah

“I wish I could stuff my
pockets with all of your
sadness”, I said.

“And carry me home?”,
you said holding out your arms.

“Yes”, I said.

______Bison Jack

 

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Savannah’s Bison Jack appears somewhat regularly on Missed Connections and a few of his poems and stories have been featured here. What I like so much about this short narrative is the reference to removing a loved one’s sadness by stuffing it into his pockets – as if happiness could be regained as easily as picking up and holding on to broken pieces until a garbage can be located. Which begs the question: if someone was willing to carry what has shattered, would we let them?

Lovelorn Poet in NYC: XLV. For Akilah (ii)

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XLV. For Akilah (ii)
Missed Connections in Manhattan

“It goes, it goes, it goes, it goes, it goes, it goes, it goes, it goes…”
– Death Grips

Akilah, it’s been a while since I thought of you. Now
Listening to Patti Smith at 4:41 AM Monday August 12 2013,
You died on February 20, 2011 (my god my brother’s birthday) in Fort Green of a heart attack.
Years of your life a footnote to your son’s death at King/Drew on March 12 2003 of gastrointestinal blockage.
(You asked me to write something for Oluchi, and I never did.)

I read the first poem I ever wrote you and it still stings.

Gabe told you you were a bad mother he never saw how much Oluchi loved you.
Gabe, who wanted to be the center of every life and own it like a needle,
Gabe, who can drop dead for all I care,

But Akilah…
Did you ever see your son steal a keg from a frat party?
Or kick out the back window of a police car?
The white men who told him he wasn’t allowed to be in a small white town
Felt the wrath of his love,
And the weight fell on you.

Akilah, I’m imagining…
Akilah, the last years, and
Akilah, I can’t, don’t want to go there.

Did your son ever say to you, “It’s not fair,”
And Akilah: I know, baby, I know.

 

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Piss Factory was the first Patti Smith song I ever heard and its story of work, turmoil, poverty and dreams has stayed with me throughout the years. I wonder about Akilah and Gabe. I wonder how they faced the soul-crushing, stifling world that stared them in the face and conspired to keep them subservient forever. Did they ever dream of leaving? Of traveling light with no return?

Lovelorn Poet in Brooklyn, NY: The Secret Lives Of People In Love

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The Secret Lives of People In Love
Missed Connections in Brooklyn

I told everyone, ‘I’m going to hire pretty girls.’ I then said, ‘I’m going to kiss them too.’ I then hired you. And stories were told.

And there you were with those eyes. Those damn eyes. Pretty, brown, big, and sweet as saccharine and there was no way. I was nauseous. But you kept smiling. Even in my direction. And then I wondered.

But there was another. My friend who I called my sweetheart; who I called my brother. He was on the prowl and he was aggressive. I jokingly said it was a game. And in the end he won. A few kisses on a small boat. And then as the moon pulled a high on a star filled night as waves crashed on an almost empty beach, the game was over. I got cranky. I lost. But in the end life isn’t just a game, but it’s living. Then things grow.

However, there were times you looked at me. And I wondered.

But still, my friend was falling. Fast and with both smiles and sadness. And I couldn’t take that away from him. He was sure, even though I was sure he wasn’t. But with his bright blue eyes, I could see that I should stay out of his way. They read, ‘Danger,’ ‘Stay away,’ ‘Bad Idea Bro.’ But still there you were, and I was close by, and in an empty kitchen with vegetables boiling and pop music playing, I just wanted it to be a game no longer. And well, I just wanted to be the only boy in the room who held your hand. Then the world would stop moving so fast, and for us, well, for everyone, everything would be okay.

Time passed and I tried to run away into the past. Into the stories of old loves and the happiness of past affairs. You listened. But still, you were there.

And then on the last night, after booze and sadness, we found each other. And I didn’t want to let go. All the memories of a short time played. And all of it felt real, and the regret of mistakes felt dismissible. The next morning when I saw you, I didn’t know how to feel. But I did know how I felt. And all I could hope was that you felt the same.

You drove an old orange car down an empty motorway. I sat next to you and wore a smile. A friend sat in the backseat and if she knew, I didn’t know. But that didn’t matter. All that did was that you were there and so was I, and in the end, if that’s all I had, well, then maybe that would be enough. Even if it were just that.

I can’t write endings and you know that. But still you believe in me. And for me, and for us, I will choose to believe the same.

Lovelorn Poets Her Two Cents IconHer Two Cents

I was so taken with the title of this missed connections story that I had to poke around and see if it referenced another source. Sure enough, it’s used for a collection of short stories by author Simon Van Booy. This 2007 book has received rave reviews from various online sources but to the best of my research, this story above is an original and not attributable to him. That’s one of the many reasons for reading missed connections – you never know what interesting discoveries (or book suggestions) may be out there waiting for you!

Lovelorn Poet in Portland, OR: Squirrel Whisperer

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 Lovelorn Poets Her Two Cents IconHer Two Cents

I’m a bit bummed I haven’t been able to locate parts 1 and 2 of this story because this following segment has really captured by attention. The characters’ ability to shift the setting based on their thoughts and words reminds me of Matt Ruff’s first novel, Fool on the Hill, and one of his follow up stories, Set this House in Order. While Ruff lives in Seattle, and it’s highly unlikely that these words are his, I still think it would be kind of wild if well-known, traditionally publshed authors released little snippets of their work anonymously on MCs. 🙂

Squirrel Whisperer (pt 3)
Missed Connections in Portland

The trees, so far below us a moment ago, are swiftly catching up. Or are we heading for them? There’s a lot going on right now and it’s hard to keep track. Most folks might rank a likely fatal free fall back to earth at the top of the list, but most people don’t have you to think about, and you, you, you… you’re still holding my hand, whoever you are, and you smell good, and you laugh at my jokes, and I’d love a chance to laugh at more of yours, which brings to mind the air, which feels like wind, but it’s not the wind moving around us, it’s us cutting through the air, and that’s not good, it means no more jokes, or at worst one more bad punchline, so… suddenly, thinking about you makes slamming into the ground important, seeing it from that side, and I need to stop this pretty much right now.

“I was waiting for hummingbirds,” you say. “Parrots? In these parts? Hmm.”

The wind sculpts your hair into a psychobilly forward swoop, and my heart flutters in exactly the way a grown man’s body does not flutter when racing toward the earth from a great height. “Yeah. A hummingbird would make more sense. Given the degree of suspension of belief we’re already accepting, anyway. But the parrot was unexpected, which is probably why I said ‘quite unexpectedly’ in my narration, a moment ago.”

“I noticed that. That you narrate things. You do know you’re doing that aloud, yeah?”

“Am I? So you heard the bit about the handholding and the flutter and all that?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Oh. Um.”

“Fear not, boy. You amuse me, and my amusement circuit flows directly to my heart.”

“Oh, good.”

“You said that in Kermit’s voice.”

“Kermit is my spirit animal.”

“Sushi is mine.”

“We should do something about this fall.”

“Already done. Look again, boy. We’re not falling. It was a metaphor you put into your narrative.”

I note that we’re sharing a teeter-totter seat, on the downstroke. You point to the other seat, across the fulcrum, and there sits an abnormally large beaver, exuberantly waving her arms in the air as she swings up, tail rattling against the back of the plank. “I didn’t expect that, either.”

“No one expects a giant teetering beaver, any more than anyone expects a giant surly parrot. But this is an unusual thing.”

“This?”

“Us.”

“Us? We’re an ‘us’?”

“Do you dare defy the fortune cookie, sir?”

“No ma’am.”

You grin, and pull your hair from my face. “Sorry. I try to control this willful thatch but it seems to like you.”

A pair of hummingbirds emerge from under your cloudy bouncing hair, the male a brilliant green, the female a rich russet. They hover, stare, then blink away. “Now that I did sorta expect,” I say.

“It happens. They come and go. What say we mosey on back down the hill and rustle up some ice cream?”

The beaver disappears in a puff of sugary pink fluff. Where she sat, an unbroken fortune cookie rests.

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