Science Fiction Saint

I suppose that for you my questions are simply an issue of chemistry and biology. Possibly physics given the force with which she tried either to avoid or to find feeling.

Virginia is famous for insisting that we must strain off the personal and accidental to reach the essential oil of truth and as certain as I am of this logic I must ask; what wasn’t personal? Even if accidental.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.

Filed under: Poesy
Posted By: NJ Cullen

The kids have become cluster bomblets
unpredictable love and shrapnel, bicycles and fists
and I am no goddamned help

I don’t want to give you the blame
but I don’t want to take it away

Our son is a ball of more than he can manage
I can’t bear that you could make him love you so
then leave him dazed in the irreversible rubble
ears ringing and heart pounding at ten decibels

I will use words like disorder as a way of explaining such nonfunctionality
Our daughter will cling to the idea of the sweet bye and bye
where all those letters she burned to you are taped on your celestial fridge
I mean really, after all our effort, after all our progress, real and imagined
why weren’t you good enough for this world?

Our days now bear witness to your disarray
We speak of the fun and talk circles around what broke you
avert our eyes from the hospital, hold our breath past your new street
And the word bomblet, how it makes the damage sound modest
but look (if you will) at our children now so tiny in your resounding absence

Filed under: Poesy
Posted By: NJ Cullen

As sure as you lick the sense of love and wild sadness
kick and tug the illuminating ass
to imitate an attempt at explanation
and evade the pangs of guilt (ineffably effing up)
I will tell you what our memory suffers

The spotty sheets of wonder when love was believed redemptive
Oh fuck your sorry tales of ruin
my undying self pity, our paranoid breakfasts
and our cut off hands
We gallop toward calamity

A feckless remedy cut quick
finally ruined, running the nerve
We did not intend just to get busy images
of how much flowed out in all the directions
our fingertips got up to

Hey, a good time was had by all

Filed under: Poesy
Posted By: NJ Cullen

Oh us before our tabloid days,
driving along back roads
all trees and expectation
hard drinking and happy
pretty as a country song
falling but never touching the earth

Tonight I am too weary for anger
or this sickening death for which there is no editorializing
just trying to find my breath
thinking maybe you sent the eagle

I guess we’re all looking for a little make-believe
looking to rub our shoulders with grace
so the bird in the suburban sky becomes
omen or beacon for both savage and sensitive ladies

As for heaven, you never thought much of it
why should you call to tell me you’re okay
and why should I ask?
don’t forget we were at war
this is not the time or place to remember
summer’s back roads when we shared goodwill and kisses

Filed under: Poesy
Posted By: NJ Cullen

I’d like to tell you a little
of journey to and discuss
the diagnosis that we may see
more clearly.

was this: “a precious gem hidden under a thicket.”
a precious gem under a tangle
a marked sensitivity
each failure, each plan gone awry
a simmering, impotent rage
And, not least, substances that made her seem

said the doctor, “She is a good and wonderful person. Of that, you can be certain.”

indisputably at the top a woman who loved
and gatherings and conversation and laughter
see a great mother make, assuage, challenge,
and accord them
refreshingly non-judgmental and open to ideas
friendly and
gregarious and
quickly put
The precious gem is unhidden.

now her legitimate sadness becomes ours.

Filed under: Poesy
Posted By: NJ Cullen

And what was this act of imagination?

Having been abandoned to all your despair you crazy so and so
and I, to all the detritus
of the glass pipe.

I did hold you in
my arms and for those years
in my esteem.

Bilabial

A thin stream of reproach, we are binge and purge, a force
of its own: the evidence of our damage the
ice in your hand, on my tongue, the
doctor’s profile and this
pushing beneath my rib cage, this
shock and this not

Voiceless

Not talking to but ever about
Of course we weren’t good enough

Stop

Filed under: Poesy
Posted By: NJ Cullen

for the glass pipe
and the steel wool
and the abiding nausea
and for the time spent
and the money
and the iago in your soul
and for your body laid out
and the shape of your right ear
and the furrow in your brow even death could not erase
and the wax in your hair
and for what we couldn’t send you with
and for what we did
and for the garden built
and for the false friend
and for the unforgivable dealer
and for our failed experiment
and for the love
and for the given up
and for what we are entitled
and for what we are not
and for what you were thinking
and for how you were claimed
and for whose fault it is
and for the mother of Jesus
and the beach
and the mountain
and the texture of reduction
and to be inconsolable
and for what remains
and for the paper work
and for the Lord (of whom we are dubious)
and for the beautiful girl holding strong in her tree
and for the creek she roamed
and for the circus
and for our grudges
and for our answers
and for this raw calling
and for what we are really worth

Filed under: Poesy
Posted By: NJ Cullen

Filed under: everything else
Posted By: NJ Cullen

So much joy contained in this drawing – it makes me think that a) I am doing my job really well and this little girl artist thinks the world is a really great place or b)I am doing my job very poorly because this little girl artist really has no idea what’s really in store for her…
Shortly after each of my kids were born I had terrible rushes of anxiety over what I had brought these little creatures into. Go here if you would like some elucidation on this matter (don’t overlook the archives!). Or perhaps you can get your kid to draw a picture of an ostrich with its head in the sand which is how I feel most days living in the wildly tame north west.

Filed under: everything else
Posted By: NJ Cullen

The boys are in the basement. Video games. Claire is singing “my mom’s almost 50 years old/ and that means she’s really old”. But I’ve got years to go. 6 to be exact. One minute it’s spring, the next it’s not. I can’t knit fast enough, I can’t cry hard enough, I eat without pause. I feel better than I have in years. I should tell the boys to lay off the square box but am enjoying their distance.
Claire is waiting waiting waiting for Etienne’s return from her day trip to Banff with her man Chris, who must return to Ottawa soon. Will I finish the ribby shell in time for Thursday’s launch?
The poem is in the brain not on the page.
Chris thinks we should have cartoon sound effects to express our moods: mine is waa waaa waahhh(not the crying kind but the ironic nasal echo sound kind)
too much sugar. sore throat.
Holy fuck, I’m almost 50 years old and that means I’m really old

Filed under: everything else
Posted By: NJ Cullen