Life Everlasting
for D.B.A.

i.
I'm not going to let you
turn me into some cliché
some cliché in your head
of what a man wants
of what a man is
that you are certain I fit
or insist that I do

I do not and I will not

labor too hard and too long
to cultivate individuality
for you to come along
to suppose what I am
in spite of what I reveal

sensitive, varied, in love with you

or is it your lack of self-regard
or self-respect or self-esteem
that causes you
to lower me and what I feel
to reduce adoration to crude desire
to an obsession to nail you

it is as crude as crucifixion
and as sacrilegious
what you do to love
suspect it of, accuse it of

ii.
adult enough for my dick to fit
since you insist

I am an adult,
she stubbornly asserted

her mother in the room
where she is, she with me
in conversation on the phone

she thinks she is
as grown up as we are
as much right to her voice
her will, her wishes
to her own way
as we have to ours

adult enough for my dick to fit
since you insist

another tree in the forest
as tall as we are
with a trunk as thick

with a thick skull

iii.
you have to mean it, she said
you mean I don't mean it
when I pray, when I say
I believe in God, in love

when I say love upon a cross
was crucified

you mean I don't have faith
you mean my faith is not real
less real than holy rollers
rolling along

less real than yours
because you attend church
religiously on Sundays

Jesus, how jealous I am
about the fact that
it is your boyfriend's dad
who pastors the church
you attend

we have priests
and we have parishes
we have our diocese
we have the Province
of the West Indies
and the entire Anglican faith
our Anglican communion
presided over at present
by Rowan Williams,
Arch Bishop of Canterbury,
who, I understand,
like you and me, is a poet

we do not have a church though
which is like a night club
or some other business
which someone can own

don't like you belonging
to what is like a religious
closed shop, like a clothes shop
rather than
a place, a source of enlightenment
place to let the light
of heaven in, in a great flood

why settle for a pool of light
when you can have the ocean,
my angel, my lady, my love

you resent, reject the idea
of being mine

I hope it is in our cards
hope it is the wish of heaven
that we have children
that you'll have my children
1 or 2 or 3 or 4
before this life of mine is done
before this life of man is over

you and I, with 4 children
between us, can you imagine

will you teach them, like you
to drink sodas, to eat pork
however my darling will we get along

you are at once compliant
and stubborn

you have been stubborn
to keep me where you have
as you have

I am happy for the fruit
of that stubbornness
happy of your having
insisted upon us

iv.
I am bringing her up
all over again
impossible though it is
as impossible as it is

she'd slipped somewhat
through the cracks
I'm bringing her back
winning her back
getting her back on track

oh the missing parts
I labor to fill in
with all my poems of her
with all my pens
with all my notebooks
with all my notes online
like journal entries
I immediately share

when she'd call
we'd converse joyously
or I'd cuss her, fuss her

only reward for all my labor
commitment, dedication
is what is lacking

see Françoise Gilot
shed her dress, let it drop
before Picasso

wearing nothing besides,
beneath it but nakedness

I’d wish with me you were as free
wish I was as blessed, as lucky

wish Nassau was Paris
wish Kemp Road was heaven

it is when you drop in
when you drop by or it can be

only you withhold heaven
from me

I am bringing her up
all over again like beans,
like wheat, like barley,
like sugar cane
thank God for rain


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2011
Written between 2:40 p.m.
on Saturday, January 22 and 2:23 p.m.
on Sunday, January 23, 2011