No Message (Part 1)
A Month of Poetry (Mirror)
My father hated most music.
Well, maybe that’s unfair.
He didn’t hate all music.
Just my music.
Just the music I identified with.
The music I saw reflected
in the eye of a pillowy hole
in the crimson flush head
in my cheeks when pricked
all alone in my room,
in my youth,
in my prime.
Descending, again.
He scorned my cassette singles
with a tut and huff, and made
a sound like a knife sinking
into a hot tire.
“That’s not real music,” he said.
Bands like U2, The Cure,
Siouxsie and the Banshees
terrified him.
Rightfully so.
But he loved, “Man In the Mirror”
off of 1987’s full-album
phenomenon, Bad.
He would sing loudly
and off-key, in an embarrassing way.
And side-eye me
just to make sure
I was good and flustered.
It was my first glimpse
into another place
where, maybe, I was not welcome.
Maybe not even expected.
But I shouldn’t hold a grudge.
He was only a non-logical
complex being who drove me
home on random nights —
and he’ll never hear music
the way it’s meant to be heard.
It’s October and that means that KG is kicking off a month of poetry today. As my good friend Amy Lee said “Remember, the whole point of Poe-tober is not to churn out verse but to immerse ourselves in poetry. What a beautiful endeavor…”
I couldn’t agree more.
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Thank you to Growl Publication for hosting this party. Thank you for reading!
