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Eric Delmer Millen Poem
(for Jon Accomando)
mine was the last generation to be spanked. sensuous and real, w/ corporal punishment— at
least you felt something.
sadly, it too has been corrupted.
in the new violence no one raises a hand— eyebrows and whispers, an errant son reclaimed?
“fr yr own good. for your own.”
i am somebody’s son.
no.
i am in the living room, barely. the remote in johnny’s hand, an extension? new american
phallus, contoured to fit your palm.
push the button. change the channel. roll over and fall asleep. it’s all been said, done.
it’s the weight of history that crushes us. maybe a.d.d. will cure us of our inertia. maybe.
maybe is democracy in ashes.
no.
the cat is sleeping, quietly by the fire. i remember envying him once; a quiet life, pins
and needles— i was born for.
the cat is neutered. he spends more time licking himself now, and he’s grown fat.
we’re not so different really.
i am willing the embers from the fire in his direction.
i asked johnny once, “if you could make the world anew, shinny and perfect...”
his face lights up in anticipation. a million abstractions, he’s been waiting all his life.
“what would you keep the same?”
he doesn’t know.
“Television. I would keep Television.”
my face is gently bashed in.
oh, mild america...
one day, when the oil runs out and the apartment buildings reach the sky things will
change, they have to.
where there was silence—whispers. a fast talker now a lisper. whisper down the cities.
shudder down the buildings.
man’s love, man’s work- is made worthless. we’ve been pissing and moaning so long that
it’s coming out screams and yawns.
no.
blessed! we are blessed!
w/ suffering and desire.
w/ big macs and rubbing thighs.
w/ quiet eyes and shaky hands.
w/ heartache and lone.
w/ genitals in my coffee.
w/ 10,000 thoughts in my pockets.
the simulacra of the ‘good life’ is a pacifier. i’ve had enough.
no.
no. no. no. no. no.
in the living room i am empowered. i have willed an ember from the fire onto the cat.
kindly he remains asleep.
i told johnny “the cat is on fire.”
johnny nodded.
the cat continued to burn.
Copyright © Eric Delmer Millen | Year Posted 2007
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Eric Delmer Millen Poem
wreckless.
no one is less a man than a cadaver, high on good guy philosophy. too much for me.
white wash.
there is a room w/ no walls. there is no room.
Pandora; show me that your box isn’t purely decorative. i’ll show you that my brain,
indeed, is figurative.
scratching. i hear scratching from inside!
a rat? no!
a cat? no!
a eunichorn? most definitely!
no loyalty in that box. no lithium to be had.
strange fish flopping ’round w/ bovine skulls, in a christian world, sad.
how much buddha is too much buddha?
i see him reclined in my father’s chair, uncharacteristically somber— masturbating into a
flower.
i turn inside out, away.
distant.
children skipping rope in silhouette, gunk on their faces.
no spittle for the kleenex; mothers w/ dry mouths, eating corporate odour.
Brand New Century, Half The Fat!
innovative contraceptives administered at birth; a layer of crazy glue, a surgical glove,
another layer of glue and then we send them off to play in the sand.
Crazy.
an asian man is laughing horizontal naked, an “Hello! My Name Is:” pin attached through
his nipple.
his name is Tex.
An asian man named Tex.
there are constant shortages; money, laughter, tenderness... the cracks in my kitchen are
filled w/ poetry.
we take solace in each other; minds, bodies.
trade our youths for bread, drink from lacerated palms.
i look to find no windows; only one immaculate door, located on the ceiling, and i’ve no
ladder.
Poverty’s angels must not fall, must not die at the hands of their own good graces.
down here.
we promise ourselves forever not to be sickened by our own fears.
only the shadows that they cast.
Copyright © Eric Delmer Millen | Year Posted 2007
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Eric Delmer Millen Poem
what have you seen w/ those sweetness eyes?
at the bus stops, in the malls, breathing the cold dead air of february, the crackered
soup of weirdo.
childhood beds, the smell of christmas, possible selves, assumptions.
avatars, siblings, unrealized realities— private places where you dry up and float
away. what have you seen?
innocence, not ignorance. eyes up— under a falling sky.
i’ve been up all night w/ memories; skin to skin, palm to palm, the googeley eyes of
closeness and myopic not seeing. pieces that fit alright— for the price we pay they
should. it's ideas we love, not people.
sex is an idea. pride, a bad one.
do you believe that kindness is possible?
remembering you, or the idea of you. and your sweetness. and me--when i wanted only to be
handsome, dumb and happy.
14 teeth when you smile. a slight halitosis; your scent? sexy in my mouth.
i burnt my tongue on your teeth more than once. how many sad coffees followed? now
visions, apparitions. indulgences, at a cost— more than my eyes could afford.
it's long that i've been wanting. something innate, divine. all the world's sufferings
ordained?
as all is possible all is necessary.
the ones who people our lives are doomed to become abstractions, slaves of recall and
nostalgia.
impossible ideas—the more defined the more confining.
freedom, change; should you challenge your definition-we resent none more than those who
shatter our illusions.
in your absence i will keep you; safe, sweet, abstract.
in my skull you are forever
flowers beyond perception, inevitable hair.
Copyright © Eric Delmer Millen | Year Posted 2007
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Eric Delmer Millen Poem
I
my visions— i miss them.
II
the summer i was 18,
i thought i could be a poet.
sleep till noon,
at night, at midnight,
in Gage Park,
a divine place of youth.
III
July, the cicadas are out,
the band shell is painted soft green,
come after the kids leave and write,
that summer i discovered alliteration
“…slowly walking, sewing maple seeds,
maybe her name was Mabel,
maybe i should have asked her…”
a poem about a red-head on the Burlington bus.
“…but all i could say was
‘Pure. Pure. Pure.’
the innocence in her,
the stupid thing in me…”
she got off the bus.
women always seem to know,
when to cum,
and when to go.
all great songs are written about women.
all great poems are written about death.
so are the bad ones.
especially the bad ones.
IV
a swastika on the wall,
i wrote Hope Boulevard in response, gaudy in midsummer ink,
poems and hate immortalized,
covered over in September— sicky white paint.
the light buzzes, steady— you wouldn’t believe,
in heaven’s waiting room, i am fluorescent,
ghostly,
in soft green light.
afterward i would sit on the swing,
know the feeling of childhood striving;
wrap the chain around the pole, win a prize?
i would sit quietly and know.
V
i will address no one,
as i remember,
the smell of summer air,
i vomit images; a-sundry and platonic.
do you like it well? am i palatable enough?
will you address the problem of other minds?
ugh.
an infinite regress.
VI
on the way home,
and in my dreams,
across main st.,
i swallowed my heart.
in the 2am streetlight,
a ghost on the pavement,
my own,
i would recognize.
he looks down the st.,
so young, i’m lost to see,
i look to his gaze, back;
gone. Raskolnikov.
VII
my visions— i miss them.
i want them back.
Copyright © Eric Delmer Millen | Year Posted 2007
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