Blue Manhattan (poem)

Blue Manhattan

I.

What is this my hand can do?  It's something like

                  electric. Charge. Flicker.

                                                                        Fry.

Put your tongue to me and tell me I taste like battery.

Oh dear God.

                                    A god.

Ray Evans

did not have me in mind.

Whatever will be, will be; but,

                                                      it will be,

                                                                        this time,

                                                                                          up to me.

I can move the molecules in your body, so fast that you skip

                  a shiver,

and before realizing

                                    it's not cold,

I'll turn you inside out. People will wonder where your skin

                                                      has gone.

                                                                        To be afraid is truth.

It's more fun this way.  That's truth.  Can I learn any different?

Or anyone--

                  something different

from blown up chunks of bone and tissue and fat?  My finger

is a death-note and I'm conducting

                                                      a symphony.

II.

I recognize my life now.  Some people only understand the past

but I have

                  backwards and

                                                      ahead.

My mind's eye is my own spoiler and I'm positive there is no

                                                                        protagonist,

all of what I see is certain.

                                                                                          Gods are not wrong.

I am certain that I have loved and found both, shade and sun.

I couldn't tie my shoes until I was 10.  When I was 5 I got a girl

                  to fake my test.

She loved talking to me.  I remember her black hair.

                                    Maybe she's a mom now.

III.

Turn it off!

The government and I agreed that fighting terrorists is an infinite battle

unless I close them up

                  between my fingers

and open them

                                    up to everywhere.

And then I knew.  I knew that the way we ran our schools and arranged tax brackets

was wrong.

                  I said,

Please listen to me.

                                    They didn't.

                                                      So, I did the finger thing again.

IV.

If gods can feel, I assume they feel like shit pretty regularly.

If you know what happens next

                  you try to be the sanguine.

                                                      If I smile too much, the power

                                                                                                            is gone.

How would you like your god to be?  Is it enough if he tries?  Or do you need

                  results?

I woke up this morning to Philip Glass and ate no food because

I'm

                  never

                                    hungry.

I'm only an epic now, except shorter.

                  Flat.

Call on me when things go

                                    stale.

V.

Things I used to take for granted:

• Not eviscerating a good section of town when I throw a tantrum

• Aging

• The importance of being, at least a little, ignorant

• Driving

• Skin

• Headaches

• The way people seemed to look through me

VI.

My mother once told me

                  Always keep that good heart of yours.

I once made a girl a big red heart, out of construction paper and cardboard

and little macaroni

                                    pieces

                                                      all around.

I wonder if she still holds on to that.

Once a girl told me that I was her best friend, and that she would love me

until I

                  died.

VII.

I'm not dead yet.  I am blue

                                    singularity.

As much as I look, white-eyed, fatigued--I feel not present--

and ultimately unable

                                    to bond.

I'm formulaic on a superhuman level.

                                                                        But, you will presume

                                                                                                            to understand.

He's dangerous. Because I'm

                                                      nuclear.

He's criminal. 

VIII.

My brain blinks like gaudy Christmas lights that never

                  get

                                    blown.

I used to look into your fragmented blue eyes every morning,

                                                      I called them snowflakes--

I'd whisper

                  I love you

and before releasing the snow, your lips would slowly create plot marks

at the tips of a crescent, pointing

                                                      upward

until your eyes opened.

The lights are flashing, but the damn cord still gets

                                                                                                            tangled.

IX.

I realize I'm impervious.  But, I still come in

                  with

                                    the dirt.

You say that you're miserable yet you don't mind me asking

to make

                  things better.

Is it because you know I can't help?  Or, because you know how

I

                  want

                                    to.

I once knew a boy who was regular and he was so happy. Until,

                  one day

the world pulled him out a son.  Then the world

                                                                                          grew fangs.

X.

All the good kids on the block are the ones who

                  die

                                    early.

"Let me drive you to therapy".

I'll bring radiation to you.  Blue radiation.  It'll warm you up

                                    cook

                                                      you.

My eyes will become vapid, and then you'll look at me and say

You're staring off a lot more than usual.

Don't

                  cry

                                    on me.

And I'll say: "I won't my sister, I won't"; but, if I was powerful for a moment

I would trade brain

                                    stems

                                                      with you.

Only two more hours to go. 

XI.

The last gift I bought a girl was a locket with no

                  pictures

decorated on top with filigree and a trinity, like the one

                                    tattooed

to her hip.  I used to think about getting ink done, not because

I had a statement to make or an image

                                    worth remembering--

I wanted one more

                                                                        connection.

Now, I draw on images of time passing

                                                                        on

                                                                                          my

                                                                                                            head.

You're more of a man than anyone I've ever known.

In between the white glow of pupil and the paper thin peach

of my eye lid I have that

                                    tattooed.

XII.

My father once told me

                  Son, we are here for you always and we are proud.

Once I emptied a bottle of Jack:

                  blacked out--

                                    woke up

                                                      crawled to the couch

                                                                        crying

because I realized that the world spins.  And I looked out my window

at a city covered in snow.  Only at night it didn't look white

                  it was blue

                                    and it wasn't a blanket--

                                                                        it was a tarp.

I went away after that and the world was the same.