October

The snow starting falling in October that year. Not even all the leaves had come undone yet, but there it was, small white flakes of ice, floating down into the grass and melting when it touched the sidewalks. We were all looking forward to Halloween. Young Patti was going to be a pregnant ballerina and Lou was planning on being a naked clown.

Untitled

When they handed that black gowned, twenty-something-year-old his first degree and asked him what was next for him, he answered “I think I’ll fly to Paris, work in a kitchen washing dishes and go drinking in bars until the wee hours of the morning.” From the bleachers I stood up in my chair and clapped louder than a high school football coach at a Giants game, nodding my head furiously and shouting “YEAH! WELL DONE!” I was the only one clapping as parents, siblings and grandmothers gazed at me with perplexed eyes and furrowed brows. Out of hundreds of pimpled-faced graduates sitting in folding metal chairs with square hats, this strange, long-haired outcast seemed to have really learned something.

Reprise

It was awkward at first, having a grown man strapped to your back. And it was terrifying at first, having the plane bounce you around and sway from side to side because the engine was SO loud and the door was still half-open and the wind was blowing bodies around and the seats were too small. “What if this was the biggest mistake of my life” Clif thought. “What if this stranger strapped to my back has some sort of murderous death wish and just doesn’t pull the chord. What if the next call my mother gets is from this shady tourist trap explaining that her only son was dead? No, I’ve been through a lot worse than this.” He thought. He had just beaten cancer for the 2nd time. “and “I’ll be damned if I’m not gonna jump right out of this plane into the endless sky and fall for miles until all my fears have blown off in the wind, scattered in the sky from here to Arizona, blowing in the atmosphere for days or even weeks until they finally float to the ground, shattered and beaten, so unidentifiable that they can’t hurt anyone anymore.” The man on his back shouted something and they opened the plane door. Cliff smiled and thought of his fears and doubts exploding like confetti in the clouds, took a deep breath, and finally looked death in the eye without flinching.

Donations to the Clif Rocks Fund can be made at www.TeamC.org

Clif Rocks

May I ask that you play this song repeatedly on headphones at a loud volume while reading the following story).



I didn’t know him very well but I met him a few times and he always seemed happy and laid back. He had been battling cancer for a while. I would hear about the medical struggles he was going through, how he was fighting for months and months, flying to expensive doctors in far-away cities, bedridden in foreign and sterile hospital rooms for weeks at a time. But whenever I ran into him he always seemed to be in a good mood. I missed the wake and the funeral, but this Saturday his family and friends put on a show for him. They had planned the show as a way to help pay for medical bills while he was still alive. But after he died last week the show turned into a memorial performance. In a dark and crowded theatre, I found my seat….

The lights dimmed to black and the crowd became quiet and still, staring at the stage and wondering what kind of show this would be.

Cellos and keyboards filled the room. Clapping of 100 of Clif’s best friends started from behind us. Spotlights flashed all around us. The Black Eyed Peas “I’ve got a feeling” blasted through the house speakers. People were shouting along. Bright green firework effects filled the stage and his family, these kids, these theatre students that had shared their lives with Clif were all clapping and jumping and singing “I’ve got a feeling that tonight’s gonna be a good night”. Tears fell on our laps and the floor. Everyone had a hole in their heart. When you share a smile with somebody, even for a second your soul jumps into theirs and their soul jumps into yours. When that person dies, part of you dies with them. 100 kids were jumping around singing “I’ve got a feeling” the bass pounding, every pair of hands in the theatre clapping in unison. We all had holes in our chests, fresh gapping wounds still bleeding. Yet these 100 bodies jumping not on the stage but all around us, in the aisles, all the way from the back doors to right before the stage, sang at the top of their lungs and waved their hands madly, smiling and dancing with the crowd. We joined in wholeheartedly singing and clapping along. We joined in with tears dripping down our faces, huge smiles on our faces and holes in our chests. No one knew what to expect before those lights went down. Would we be singing old Irish folk songs and slow tempo’d Christian gospels with crescendos that never came? Would they be playing on our emotions with distasteful songs of melancholy? No. Tonight would be something much much more. Tonight we sang “I’ve got a feeling that tonight’s gonna be a good night” and turned the theatre into a dance party complete with explosives, angels and the vulnerability no one ever plans for or looks forward to. Tonight we were being honest. Clif was alive in every person in that room. His soul had jumped into ours, every singing, clapping, emotional body in the theatre. His body had just left us. You could still smell him. His clothes were still in his closet. His mother had just kissed him good night a couple of days ago. The kill was fresh and his spirit was still lingering in the air. Everything he had taught us with a smile was still very much alive and well inside our chest. And we longed for him. After all Clif was supposed to be the guest of honor that night. But he couldn’t make it because something else had come up.

No one tortured themselves with questions when the music started, questions of whether or not God knew what He was doing, questions like “How could this happen? Why would God take this beautiful young man of the face of the earth?” or “Why couldn’t he enjoy his youth, go out and see the world, fall in love, make babies and get the best things out of life?” There were no questions as this dance party took over and the bass pounded in our chests. There was no reason for questions at that moment. The tears streamed down our cheeks and we clapped our hands so hard watching 100 young fans of Clif dance their bodies around as silhouettes telling the crowd to get their hands up, singing at the top of their lungs. Some of the elders pictured Clif looking down from Heaven. Some of them pictured him right there in the theatre sitting on the catwalk with angel wings, laughing with that big smile of his, and loving the site of all his friends and family in one place, clapping along without a care in the world.

And for a second I wondered ‘what will we do when the music stops?’ What will we feel when the bass cuts out and we’re left with those holes in our chests again? The elders would fall back on the old saying “He wouldn’t want us cry. He would want us to be happy and enjoy life.” He wouldn’t want his mother in an empty house sobbing between unfinished meals and having visions no mother should ever have to endure. “He would want us to enjoy life” said the tear stained smiles flashing in strobe lights. And while that’s true, Clif, like the rest of us, wanted to be remembered. He was an artist and a performer and like all artists and performers he wanted to make an impact on the world and the people in his life more than anything. So this is why a thousand people had come together to fill this theatre. That’s why after his wake, where his body laid lifeless in a coffin, shattering hearts and giving the impression that he was gone, these performers still went to rehearsal to practice for his show. That’s why after the funeral when they put that same body into the ground, these singers, actors, poets and entertainers pushed through their tears and rehearsed once again in the name of Clif; to tell his story and to celebrate his life. But that lifeless body that his mother watched buried into the cold January dirt wasn’t Clif. Clif was free now. Clif was blinking lights and singing family members. Clif was pounding bass and a thousand clapping hands. “I’ve got a feeling that tonight’s gonna be a good night”. Clif was in the air flying through the rafters, diving down and hitting us in the chest. Clif was the smiles and the tears and a thousand clapping hands. Clif was on the stage and in our hearts and he wasn’t going anywhere. You can have his body, God. But Clif was ours and we weren’t going to give him up so easily. No, God, tonight’s gonna be a good night. Tonight’s the night, let’s live it up. Tonight was Clif’s night and so would be every other night of our lives. Clif was alive and well and even closer to us now. He was in our chests and we could talk with him and laugh with him and cry with him whenever we wanted now. What do you do when the music stops? What a dumb question that is. The music never stops. That lifeless body wasn’t Clif. The music never stops. When Clif was battling cancer he was still performing and he always joked that “The show must go on.” And the show will always go on. And Clif will always be there with us singing and clapping along.

Donations to the Clif Rocks Fund can be made at www.TeamC.org

I just wanted to say...

Hi, sorry to call so late. I just wanted to say I still remember those morning runs you always took while I stretched my legs out on your side of the bed and hugged your pillow not because I missed you or because it smelled like you or even because I wanted somebody to hug but because it was soft and warm and made me smile.

And I called to say that I still have that zippo lighter of yours, the one with the sunflower on it that you found on the floor in a bar a million years ago and gave it to me because you didn’t smoke. And I never took it out in public but always used it at home because I liked the sound of it when it closed and it somehow reminded me of you though you only owned it for a second or two.

And I just called to say that I still remember those light brown pillow case covers that always smelled of laundry detergent and how I kept that lighter, though its now empty of fluid, and its flower is worn down to look like a dying perennial in the late days of fall.

the real thing

yes, I know that you think
I am wrong
but
I know what is right for me
and what
is not.
may I tell you my dream?

I am surrounded by
thick cement walls,
I am dressed in a red
robe
and I am sitting at an
organ.
there is
not a
sound.
I begin to play the
organ.
the hiss of the notes
is sharp and soft
at the same time.

it is slightly bitter
music
but among the dark notes
there are flashes of light and
laughter.

as I play,
the incomprehensible mystery
of the past
and of the present
becomes
comprehensible.

and best of all,
as I play,
nobody hears the music
but me.

the music is only for
me.

that is my
dream.

-Charles Bukowski

We poets sometimes run.

We were stranded. Stranded in this midwest town with a midwest life while city landscapes pulsed with lights and life and laughter and drinks being poured for strangers with an open heart. Strangers we could have been. These years pass like water in the sky while we spin plates terrified of broken glass. Years fall like hair in the shower, the years of our youth seemed to be a sustainable life-styles before we found ourselves entangled with sensible lovers too focused to lose themselves in danger or poetry. Let this life break open like a flawed motion picture, let something overlooked pull us out of our suspended disbelieve long enough for perspective to sink in. Let the mirrors break and the smoke fade, let the poor craftsmanship show itself in the light early enough for us to get a refund at the ticket counter before the show is finally over. Let's jump from theatre to theatre until we find a show with us in it. Let’s jump from scene to scene until we're settled or too tired and old to get up from those dark sticky seats.

Whatever awaits you on those trusty american highways, whether it be homelessness, loneliness, unemployment, new love, new friends or even mistakes that you can’t come back from, sometimes it’s best to excuse yourself to the bathroom and never come back.

We poets sometimes run.