From the Archives

I was looking through all my old notebooks tonight... I was writing a lot more back in my early to mid 20's. Most of it crap, but there are a few things that were alright. This is one of my faves. Jen X used it in her "Open Me" anthology back in the day (when's that second one coming out, jen x?). I wrote it when I was 26 and battling some little baby demons-in-training. cute demons. Also, you should know that I was obsessed with the myth of Tantalus at the time, but always insisted on the "Greek spelling" - Tantalos. Oh, to be 26 again and arrogantly insisting on Greek spellings. sigh.

Tantalos' Dream (1991)

Weep me a nation
Lower East Side Sunday morning
Silt whirling through the multitudes of loss
Caught in his slumber of youth, the flying boy
Will cry like a hungry babe when he awakens
Will the dawn ever come?
Weep no more for me
Jailed beneath the darkest dungeon of myself
Shitting scared on the granite floor
My house, my body, arena of destruction
These eleven years or more.

Weep no more for me
Homeboy shiny boots of black
Pancake thin at heel from eleven years or more
Of angry stomping on the golden dance floor...
DANCE, MOTHERFUCKER, DANCE!
Lose yourself among the pretty willows
Of your own weeping riverbed
Do you believe I have never trod
A broken mile or two with my own three feet
Stuffed in those boots of black engineer leather
Six sizes too small for me today, Daddy-O
Yet on and on I trudge, a flaccid mule
Tho the mud has long since crystalized
Hard up to my waist and six sizes too small
Blister pus on my aching heels to match
The scabs on my cock-scarlet mosaic
Product of ten thousand lonely nights

Weep no more for me
Acid tears wept dry reveal the youth:
Thin as a hungry dog, ponytail hair,
T-shirt billboard exclaims: "NEVER GIVE IN!"
Never give in! my comrades in arms,
Do you know what your words will wear
When you too, yes, you, are older than me
And the prison guard has gone home with the key
Give in and weep no more
Give in to give out
And give out to get the fuck out

I see you still every night
Tears looming in your bleary eyes
WE, who wouldn't give up the poetry,
Weep no more! Dry the tears of gin
Look and listen
Poetry waits silent still
The world is sad still
And sleeps inside you.