Daniela and me

Airborne

Airborne
for Daniela

as the girl’s voice
on the other end of the phone line
seduces me
like some remembered childhood dream
come to the forefront
by the smell of rain
the second hand on my watch moves
slower…,
slower…,
slower…,
stop –

until time halts the countdown to infinity
and listens to the raw power
in her small voice
that hits me
like 10,000 thunderstorms spinning themselves
into a single cyclone
to wipe out a hilltop trailer park in Kansas

she has a beauty in her smile
to launch a thousand ships
and an intensity in her tears
to sink the entire fleet on its way home
I can feel lightning beneath my skin
when her hands brush against me
and hurricane tsunamis
rip through my veins when she laughs

she is the Perfect Storm
condensed from air
into 120 pounds of a swimmer’s body
and she is every storm god
wrapped in 66 inches of a girl’s flesh
and because I know her
I love her
and I am terrified
because with her poetry,
her words,
her voice,
she could cascade the world into its final oblivion
or save it all
with just a whisper
and she will change us
because it’s just a matter of time
until she learns that nothing
can hold her down
except the weight of her own wings
until I can teach her to fly
and she breaks the bonds of earth
to touch the face of god
and I can only hope
that she’ll still want to hold my hand
when she finds that her words
will lift her higher than I ever could
even in dreams
because those of us who bare our souls
on a stage,
behind a mic,
on a page,
or on a canvas,
are artists,
but this girl,
who lives and breathes poetry like air,
she is art
and her only limitation is how high
she wants to fly

I can already hear her wings
beginning to beat
in perfect iambic pentameter
and the echoes reverberate
into flawless 17-syllable haikus
but she’s not the angel I believe her to be
and if she had a halo
she’d throw it from her head
faster than god could blink
because pedestals steal humanity
and she knows that she’s just a girl
whose words give her wings
lifting her higher and higher
and she’ll change the world
when she learns to control her storms and winds
and starts
to fly

Copyright 2005 © Christopher Fox Graham

When I Am Ancient

For the Sedona Semi-final Poetry Slam on March 26

when I am ancient
and these fingers curl so arthritically
they can no longer hold a pen
when my memory has bled Popsicle into the carpet
and sounds like origami paper
when I do not know my grandchildren
or recall drunk peppermint nights
sweating naked in dark youth
I promise you I will collect all the postcards
I sent to strangers about you

I’ve lost track of the number of postcards I’ve sent
so I’ve negotiated a truce:
Death will not collect me
until I am finished collecting them

they will bring you back
because memory does not live in sequence
but as a collection of moments we selectively remember

this boy will save the best of you
for the old man I will become

when I am ancient
I will shuffle from door to door,
and reincarnate you:
here, your painted toenails dance while you sip iced mocha
here, you say, "let's grow big bushy tails and become foxes"
here, your kiss sucks skin from my bones
here, you call me silly
here, your salsa hips seduce me again
here, I stop lying to you
forever
here, I write another poem that fails to capture your beauty
here, is the fear of your heart collapsing in your chest
here, I drown in your wetness
here, you swallow the sun to tease the moon
here, your kiss sucks breath from my lungs
here, I write another poem that fails
here, I write another poem that fails
here, I say “this is what being my wife would feel like”

this boy I am
will not let that man I will become
forget you

and here,
the day I left you
and I stand in my empty closet
with the door closed
and for that moment that stretched for days
the four walls supported the universe
of our breath,
our heartbeat
and our skins
you held me so tight
we could have shared the same apricot liver
I would have surrendered
my raspberry blood to share yours
i would have given you flower arrangements
scented back rubs
and sticky hazelnut butter sandwiches
until these young hands grew too old
and too ancient
and too useless to do anything
but stroke your cinnamon hair

we whispered things then
prophets should have written down

when i am ancient,
this boy’s last postcard
will make that old man smile himself into a boy again
and feel your peach kiss
on his lips again
when he whispers to death:
[exhale into mic]

House of Paper

boys are the carbon copies
of their fathers
chromosomes filling in the 'why'
do we do the things we do
patterns of patterns
of past behaviors
and here were are at square one
and I wonder if Adam was as fickle as I am

i swear i could be better than i am
when the chance comes
i could to be the superhero
the warrior
the badass
the protagonist
but post-modernism is cynical
and i'm still stuck in the epilogue
of my adventure
waiting for the author the set the world in motion
scribble down the first few lines
that ignite the conflict
of my epic-yet-to-be written

and i'm getting antsy
page one sucks ass

my imagination
is playing cards at gunpoint on page 68
racing jet planes on page 122
fist-fighting the billion-man Chinese army on page 181
curing a plague on page 254
dodging bullets on page 365
and telling the girl i met on page 9
that I want to marry her on page 909
but we have 500 pages to get to know each other
and 1,000 pages after that to love each other
till my deathbed confession on page 3269
that i did it all for her
'cause she was the great adventure

i don't want to die
as the secondhand, hastily-assembled sequel
to my father
sequel to his father
sitting dog-eared on a bookshelf
with the rest of them
squarely between diatribes
on genetics
and fate
hunkered down in low class used bookstore
tettering on the brink of bankruptcy

when my story ends
i want to be an endcap at Barnes & Noble
Borders will celebrate me
with an entire week of book signings and readings
Changing Hands will rake in the dough
I'll dropkick Harry Potter
Warner Bros. will fight for the movie rights
they'll bring Stanley Kubrick back from the dead to direct
because Steven Spielberg would just fuck-up the ending
i'll be an AOL keyword
a breakfast cereal
a fully-posable action figure with kung-fu action
i'll be in happy meals
on t-shirts, shower curtains, and bedsheets
and after Armageddon,
my story will inspire the survivors to rebuild
then i'll fade away
take up a nice retirement home
alongside Gilgamesh, Beowulf, the Iliad, and the Odyssey
talk about the weather
and complain about whippersnappers

only a footnote
in a C-minus high school paper
will mention the those carbon copies
of my failed fathers
but everyone everywhere
will know the name of the girl

My Five of Five

Five things that 2002 taught me:
1. I can survive for 4 months on $300. Pretty well in fact.
2. My poetry doesn't suck. I am actually good at what I love to do.
3. By selling it all, choosing homelessness, and going on tour, I've done more at my young age to follow my heart than most people will do in their entire life. I'm braver than I thought I was.
4. I have to make my own destiny. Fate doesn't exist.
5. Life sucks without a car.

Five personally significant events of 2002:
1. Disowning my father. This was his second chance to be my dad in any way and it went worse than the first. Now I know how not to treat my children.
2. Finally telling Daniela to put up or shut up. She's been a cock-tease and a love-vampire for the last three years and I let her use me because I'm a coward. But I've finally stood up. I'm almost certain I've lost her but I'm free.
3. Getting arrested. It was stupid, I was guilty beyond doubt, and I don't want to commit the same crime ever again.
4. The Save the Male Poetry Tour. 39 shows, 26 states, four men, three months, two countries, and one van. Wow, what a ride.
5. Leaving Flagstaff. It's a good place if you can stand small towns and intrusive personalities, but I'm a city boy and need the diversity of 4 million people. I'd rather be a little fish in a big pond than a big fish in a soup.

Five things I want to do in 2003:
1. Make a National Slam Team and do the thing in Chicago.
2. Be satisfied with my poetry. The kind of poetry that isn't just selfless mental masturbation.
3. Have a meaningful relationship with someone who isn't 18, or in high school, or recently divorced, or my boss. A punk rock art chick who'll break me.
4. Make enough money to buy a car, get a computer, and start publishing the chapbooks of poets across the country.
5. Plan my next national poetry tour.

Five things I don't want to do in 2003:
1. Procrastinate.
2. Let fear or fear of loneliness paralyze my better judgment.
3. Settle.
4. Write crap poetry and try to pass it off as art.
5. Blame writer's block.

Five (groups of) people who I'd like to know better in 2003:
1. My three step sisters, Jessica 19, Danielle 17, and Kristina 11. Jessica got engaged over the weekend, Danielle has a secret artistic side I think I could coax out of her shell, and Kristina is more like me now than anyone else I know.
2. Corbet Dean. He's been the most supportive of all the poets I know, but I don't really know him like I should. He could also help me improve my performance.
3. Klute. He and I could have one of the great friendships that art scholars will debate for decades.
4. Trish JusTrish. I like her and her art more and more I hear it.
5. Scott Creney and Mathew Moon, the two Guerrilla poets from Boston moving to Prescott this month.