{"id":2916,"date":"2017-02-21T00:26:08","date_gmt":"2017-02-21T00:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/poetry\/?page_id=2916"},"modified":"2017-02-21T00:27:28","modified_gmt":"2017-02-21T00:27:28","slug":"jt-williams-winter-2017","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/poetry\/archives\/jt-williams-winter-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"JT Williams, Winter 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"

Taking Time<\/strong><\/p>\n

-after Pablo Neruda<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It so happens<\/span><\/p>\n

that I get sick<\/span><\/p>\n

of being sober.<\/span><\/p>\n

I wake up to the hangover<\/span><\/p>\n

without so much as a bottle<\/span><\/p>\n

of cough syrup. \u00a0I stumble <\/span><\/p>\n

in and out of bars,<\/span><\/p>\n

slur in tongues.<\/span><\/p>\n

I get sick of collecting<\/span><\/p>\n

abstinent coins that buy<\/span><\/p>\n

nothing and sick of marking<\/span><\/p>\n

days since the last drink.<\/span><\/p>\n

Raised glasses passed<\/span><\/p>\n

to me for trial\u2014double<\/span><\/p>\n

chocolate stouts, coconut<\/span><\/p>\n

curry lagers, dark<\/span><\/p>\n

pumpkin ales\u2014I taste.<\/span><\/p>\n

I am cautious. \u00a0I know<\/span><\/p>\n

this is not the same,<\/span><\/p>\n

but remember stories<\/span><\/p>\n

about concentration camps,<\/span><\/p>\n

how survivors could only be fed<\/span><\/p>\n

a little at a time or die.<\/span><\/p>\n

hangs over me like a shower head.<\/span><\/p>\n

All I can do is stare into it,<\/span><\/p>\n

my eyes full of glistening privilege.<\/span><\/p>\n

The second I blink, it becomes<\/span><\/p>\n

a spitting cobra. I blink anyway.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sometimes, when my eyes clear,<\/span><\/p>\n

I see a woman. She wears a hat.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s red, wide brimmed.<\/span><\/p>\n

She is bare ankled,<\/span><\/p>\n

sails a circle of stars.<\/span><\/p>\n

I get sick as well of this land of thou<\/span><\/p>\n

shalt nots, its constant virtue<\/span><\/p>\n

talk of god as we understood him,<\/span><\/p>\n

sick of people trying to convince<\/span><\/p>\n

themselves of what they believe,<\/span><\/p>\n

of letting people convince them of things<\/span><\/p>\n

that simply are not true.<\/span><\/p>\n

Such talk presupposes more than one<\/span><\/p>\n

should be comfortable with.<\/span><\/p>\n

Such a god surely must be<\/span><\/p>\n

long haired and insecure,<\/span><\/p>\n

grimy and chaotic,<\/span><\/p>\n

and full of bones.<\/span><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want all this stability.<\/span><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want water and lemon juice,<\/span><\/p>\n

or to be a geranium, potted and stuck<\/span><\/p>\n

on some balcony in lurid sunlight.<\/span><\/p>\n

What a dream it would be<\/span><\/p>\n

to find myself dropped<\/span><\/p>\n

into a vodka clear pool,<\/span><\/p>\n

nestle into its bottom-most curve,<\/span><\/p>\n

hold my breath forever<\/span><\/p>\n

like a stark white onion pearl.<\/span><\/p>\n

\f<\/span><\/p>\n

Prone<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

No one thinks of me as accident<\/span><\/p>\n

prone or knows how, as a boy,<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019d wet the bed or wake up<\/span><\/p>\n

on the floor next to it. My mother<\/span><\/p>\n

heard a prophecy. I would die<\/span><\/p>\n

by misfortune. It stands to reason<\/span><\/p>\n

if she could find some way to keep me<\/span><\/p>\n

from harm, I could avoid a lifetime<\/span><\/p>\n

of scraped knees, sprains and strains<\/span><\/p>\n

falling from trees. Of course<\/span><\/p>\n

there are so many small joys<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve never realized. Never<\/span><\/p>\n

stubbed my toe on the bedpost,<\/span><\/p>\n

cut myself shaving. Every night<\/span><\/p>\n

Mother inspected me for pain<\/span><\/p>\n

I did not feel. She knew better.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There were other dangers. Playmates<\/span><\/p>\n

rushed home with injuries, questionable<\/span><\/p>\n

and serious, the subsequent moving<\/span><\/p>\n

from one village to the next.<\/span><\/p>\n

No one saw the potential, no one<\/span><\/p>\n

but Odysseus. He knew. He saw<\/span><\/p>\n

the silks that Mother hoped would<\/span><\/p>\n

hide me from battle. Boys will be boys.<\/span><\/p>\n

One peek into a box of weapons,<\/span><\/p>\n

and I\u2019m off to war. But really,<\/span><\/p>\n

what do you do with a kid like me<\/span><\/p>\n

but make me a soldier? What better field<\/span><\/p>\n

for a dangerous klutz than the battlefield,<\/span><\/p>\n

the one place where disaster becomes victory?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I am no warrior.<\/span><\/p>\n

My entire life is action<\/span><\/p>\n

without thought.<\/span><\/p>\n

I can\u2019t touch my sword<\/span><\/p>\n

without putting it through somebody.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI was just cleaning it Sarge, honest.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Armored chaos they call me.<\/span><\/p>\n

But one day, when the carnage<\/span><\/p>\n

reaches its height, when I\u2019m tired<\/span><\/p>\n

of tripping over my sandals,<\/span><\/p>\n

one day I\u2019ll kick them off,<\/span><\/p>\n

flex my uncalloused feet<\/span><\/p>\n

against the earth. That\u2019s all I want,<\/span><\/p>\n

comfort, without protection,<\/span><\/p>\n

just once.<\/span><\/p>\n

\f<\/span><\/p>\n

Retaliatory Love Poem<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If you are in pursuit, this is your avoidant.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you are pursued, this is your addict.<\/span><\/p>\n

Retaliatory love always comes<\/span><\/p>\n

close,very close. \u00a0If you want chocolate,<\/span><\/p>\n

it gives you mocha.<\/span><\/p>\n

Retaliatory love always takes its time<\/span><\/p>\n

and yours. \u00a0It sets very clear boundaries<\/span><\/p>\n

for you, knows what you think, always says so.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s the guilt and fear you feel<\/span><\/p>\n

when facing too many kinds of peanut butter.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Venus of Willendorf, Goya\u2019s Saturn,<\/span><\/p>\n

retaliatory love adores these. \u00a0Either one<\/span><\/p>\n

might look like you. Retaliatory love handles truth<\/span><\/p>\n

dangerously and looks west<\/span><\/p>\n

after high noon. It\u2019s love that never needs to pick a lock,<\/span><\/p>\n

but knows how. It\u2019s endless supply.<\/span><\/p>\n

The bottle is never empty.<\/span><\/p>\n

The needles are always clean.<\/span><\/p>\n

One out of every five I-love-you\u2019s is retaliatory.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s sirens, both kinds\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

the one blaring its brazen song from the firetruck,<\/span><\/p>\n

promising what you think will be salvation,<\/span><\/p>\n

and the one dying for you<\/span><\/p>\n

to discover, half a second too late,<\/span><\/p>\n

the rocks wandering just under the waves.<\/span><\/p>\n

Retaliatory love doesn\u2019t come with strings,<\/span><\/p>\n

but labels, has to be your spouse, your lover,<\/span><\/p>\n

your significant other. It will never befriend you,<\/span><\/p>\n

never provide benefits.<\/span><\/p>\n

At any moment, retaliatory love can replace sex<\/span><\/p>\n

with mahjong. The greeting card companies<\/span><\/p>\n

do not want you to know any of this<\/span><\/p>\n

or to know that they know any of this.<\/span><\/p>\n

Retaliatory love never lets go and knows<\/span><\/p>\n

getting away and getting away with it<\/span><\/p>\n

are not the same. If you don\u2019t give your heart,<\/span><\/p>\n

retaliatory love calls you heartless.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you do, it calls you heartless.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Taking Time -after Pablo Neruda   It so happens that I get sick of being sober. I wake up to the hangover without so much as a bottle of cough syrup. \u00a0I stumble in and out of bars, slur in tongues. I get sick of collecting abstinent coins that buy nothing and sick of marking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":934,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2916","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nJT Williams, Winter 2017 - Full Of Crow: Poetry (Archives)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/poetry\/archives\/jt-williams-winter-2017\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"JT Williams, Winter 2017 - Full Of Crow: Poetry (Archives)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Taking Time -after Pablo Neruda   It so happens that I get sick of being sober. 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